New research provides insights into the evolution and ecology of Australian bees. The capricious masked bee employs female nest guards in a cooperative social structure. Meanwhile, fussy feeders abound.
Bees and other pollinators are key to food production, but they’re hard to keep an eye on. Now, AI software is helping track these essential farm workers.
A new vaccine promises better protection against a virulent honeybee infection.
AP Photo/Elise Amendola
A vaccine for bees may evoke images of teeny hypodermic needles, but this product works in a sophisticated way that reflects the social structure of honeybee colonies.
Honeybees are vital pollinators.
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Olga Koppel, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Seventy-two per cent of native bumblebee species in North America are cutting their winter hibernation short by timing their emergence to earlier spring onsets.
Bees look for water on an outdoor tap in Berlin, Germany during a hot spell, June 19, 2022.
Wolfram Steinberg/picture alliance via Getty Images
Honey bees, wild and native bees face threats from parasites, pesticides and habitat loss. Shorter winters, more extreme weather and more habitat destruction won’t help.
The son of a formerly enslaved mother, Charles Henry Turner was the first to discover that bees and other insects have the ability to modify their behavior based on experience.
Studying bee sperm is difficult because of the way it coils, but fluorescent light illuminates the head of the sperm. Sperm quality may indicate stress levels in the bee colony.
Small hive beetles are the only species known to trick worker bees into feeding them essential food for the bee colony’s own survival and reproduction.
The miniature brains of honeybees were able to understand the concepts of odd and even, despite only having 960,000 neurons (compared to 86 billion in humans).
Honeybee workers gather on a frame from a hive.
(Leslie Kennah)