and support economically valuable pollinators such as bees and bats and provide ecosystem services such as filtering water
#Attracting wild bees to farms is good insurance policyinvesting in habitat that attracts and supports wild bees in farms is not only an effective approach to helping enhance crop pollination
but it can also pay for itself in four years or less according to Michigan State university research.
Other studies have demonstrated that creating flowering habitat will attract wild bees and a few have shown that this can increase yields he said.
The fields were pollinated by honey bees but Isaacs and Brett Blaauw MSU graduate student were interested in
whether increasing the wild bee population would improve pollination in nearby crop fields. The results weren't immediate
In the first two years as the plantings established we found little to no increase in the number of wild bees he said.
After that though the number of wild bees was twice as high as those found in our control fields that had no habitat improvements.
Once the wild bees were more abundant more flowers turned into blueberries and the blueberries had more seeds
With 420 species of wild bees in Michigan alone it makes sense to attract as many free pollinators as possible.
However this doesn't mean that this approach would replace honey bees which are trucked in via beekeepers
and pollinate crops valued at $14 billion nationwide Isaacs said. Honey bees do a great job of pollinating blueberries
and we're not suggesting that growers stop using them he said. But our research shows that adding some wild bee habitat to the farm can increase bee abundance in the nearby crop can be profitable
and is an insurance policy to make sure there is good pollination each year. Establishing habitat for wild bees requires an initial investment
but there are existing federal and statewide programs such as the USDA's Conservation Reserve Program and Michigan's State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement to help pay for this.
#Dry future climate could reduce orchid bee habitatduring Pleistocene era climate changes neotropical orchid bees that relied on year-round warmth
and genetic data to understand bee distributions during past climate changes. In previous studies researchers have tracked male and female orchid bees
and found that while females stay near their nests male orchid bees travel with one study concluding they roam as far as 7 kilometers per day.
These past findings corroborated by genetic data in the current study reveal that males are more mobile than females.
if the tendency is to have lower precipitation in combination with deforestation the suitable habitat for the bees is going to be reduced said Margarita LÃ pez-Uribe the paper's first author and a graduate student at Cornell.
since male orchid bees habitually travel far they can keep bee populations connected and healthy.
This is a possible mechanism bees could use to ameliorate the negative impacts of population isolation resulting from future climate changes and deforestation.
and bee distributions LÃ pez-Uribe and colleagues assessed parameters of climate conditions that each of three bee species within the genus Eulaema could tolerate physiologically including temperature and precipitation variability.
By proceeding with the caveat that physiological tolerance has remained constant--species tend to be evolutionarily conservative about shifting their niches--the researchers used computer models to simulate past bee distributions based on climate conditions in the Pleistocene.
Climate and ecological niche computer model simulations were matched closely by genetic data of the two less-tolerant orchid bee species. The genetic data included mitochondrial markers
The MITOCHONDRIAL DNA showed that individual bees in one geographic area were more closely related to each other than to bees from other areas.
The findings suggest the maternal lines of these bees remained in the area and shared the same pools of DNA over time.
Orchid bees live in the neotropics an ecozone that includes part of South and Central america the Mexican lowlands and the Caribbean islands.
They are one of the most important pollinators visiting many types of plants including some 700 species of orchids that are pollinated exclusively by these bees.
But other species--and in particular long-tongued bees--do concentrate their feeding upon plants from the UK and Europe for
and northern Asia) and non-Palaearctic garden plants bees simply visited plants in proportion to flower availability. Indeed of the six most commonly visited garden plants only one--Foxglove--was a British native and only three of Palaearctic origin.
Dr Hanley added As a general rule bees will go wherever there are flowers available. However if native plants were to disappear completely from our towns
#Bees capable of learning feats with tasty prize in sightthey may have tiny brains but bumblebees are capable of some remarkable learning feats especially
Peter Kevan School of Environmental sciences are studying bees'ability to learn by themselves and from each other.
In the first study published in February in Animal Cognition the researchers found bees capable of learning to solve increasingly complex problems.
The researchers presented bees with a series of artificial flowers that required evermore challenging strategies such as moving objects aside or upwards to gain a sugar syrup reward.
When inexperienced bees encountered the most complex flower first they were unable to access the syrup reward
Bees allowed to progress through increasingly complex flowers were able to navigate the most difficult ones.
Bees with experience are able to solve new problems that they encounter while bees with no experience just give up said Mirwan.
She and Kevan consider the study an example of scaffold learning a concept normally restricted to human psychology in
In a second study recently published in Psychethe researchers found bees learned by watching and communicating with other bees a process called social learning.
Mirwan made artificial flowers requiring the bees to walk on the underside of a disk to get a sugar syrup reward.
These experienced bees foraged on the artificial flowers for several days until they became accustomed to feeding at them.
To see whether other bees could learn from the experienced foragers Mirwan confined inexperienced bees in a mesh container near the artificial flowers where they could observe the experienced bees.
When the naã ve bees were allowed to forage on the artificial flowers they took just 70 seconds to get the reward.
Control bees that had observed not the experienced bees could not access the syrup. Social learning in animals usually involves one individual observing
and imitating another although other kinds of communication can also be involved said Mirwan. They could try for up to 30 minutes
In a final test Mirwan placed experienced bees in a hive with naive bees. When the naive bees were allowed to forage on the artificial flowers they gained the syrup in just 3. 5 minutes.
Behavioural scientists usually assume that observation and imitation are at the heart of social learning
but social insects such as bees can also transmit information through touch vibration and smell. The researchers said the communication method used by the bees is still a mystery.
We can't quite explain how bees that had seen never even an artificial flower were able to become adept so quickly at foraging on them
but clearly some in-hive communication took place said Kevan. It suggests that social learning in bumblebees is even more complex than we first expected.
The new research recently reported in PLOS ONE builds on previous Oxford university research showing that elephants call'bee-ware
'and run away from the sound of angry bees. Whilst the'bee'and'human'rumbling alarm calls might sound similar to our ears there are important differences at low (infrasonic) frequencies that elephants can hear
but humans can't.'Elephants appear to be able to manipulate their vocal tract (mouth tongue trunk and so on) to shape the sounds of their rumbles to make different alarm calls'said Dr Lucy King of Save the Elephants
'Elephant'human'alarm call rumblesignificantly the reaction to the human alarm call included none of the head-shaking behaviour displayed by elephants hearing the bee alarm.
When threatened by bees elephants shake their heads in an effort to knock the insects away as well as running
or up their trunks whilst calves could potentially be killed by a swarm of stinging bees as they have yet to develop a thick protective skin.
'Interestingly the acoustic analysis done by Joseph Soltis at his Disney laboratory showed that the difference between the''bee alarm rumble
which can change the meaning of words (think of''boo''and''bee'')''Elephants use similar vowellike changes in their rumbles to differentiate the type of threat they experience
Armed with the knowledge that elephants are afraid of bees Lucy and Save the Elephants have built scores of'beehive fences'around local farms that protect precious fields from crop-raiding elephants.'
and livelihoods without direct conflict with elephants and they can harvest the honey too for extra income'says Lucy.'
'Learning more about how elephants react to threats such as bees and humans will help us design strategies to reduce human-elephant conflict
Medical professionals sometimes use honey successfully as a topical dressing but it could play a larger role in fighting infections the researchers predicted.
In addition several studies have shown that honey inhibits the formation of biofilms or communities of slimy disease-causing bacteria she said.
Meschwitz who is with Salve Regina University in Newport R i. said another advantage of honey is that unlike conventional antibiotics it doesn't target the essential growth processes of bacteria.
Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between the non-peroxide antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of honey and the presence of honey phenolics she added.
A large number of laboratory and limited clinical studies have confirmed the broad-spectrum antibacterial antifungal and antiviral properties of honey according to Meschwitz.
She said that her team also is finding that honey has antioxidant properties and is an effective antibacterial.
We have run standard antioxidant tests on honey to measure the level of antioxidant activity she explained.
In our antibacterial studies we have been testing honey's activity against E coli Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa among others.*
#Virtual bees help to unravel complex causes of colony declinescientists have created an ingenious computer model that simulates a honey bee colony over the course of several years.
which simulates the life of a colony including the queen's egg laying brood care by nurse bees
It is a real challenge to understand which factors are most important in affecting bee colony growth and survival.
The model allows researchers beekeepers and anyone interested in bees to predict colony development and honey production under different environmental conditions and beekeeping practices.
To build the simulation the scientists brought together existing honeybee research and data to develop a new model that integrated processes occurring inside and outside the hive.
and might be missed by beekeepers during routine management. But the model shows that these effects build up over subsequent years leading to eventual failure of the colony
The use of this model by a variety of stakeholders could stimulate the development of new approaches to bee management pesticide risk assessment and landscape management.
Professor Osborne's research group studies the behaviour and ecology of bees and other pollinators.
They work with beekeepers conservation organisations farmers and industry with the aim of conserving bee populations and protecting and promoting wild flower and crop pollination.
Professor Melanie Welham BBSRC's Science Director said: Healthy bees are vital to our food supply as they pollinate many important crops.
This virtual hive is an important new research tool to help us understand how changes to the environment impact on bee health.
Dr Pernille Thorbek (Syngenta) adds: Studying several stressors in multifactorial field trials is complicated immensely and difficult to do.
and beekeeping practices will benefit honeybees the most. Dr David Aston President of The british Beekeepers Association commented that:
This model will be an important tool in helping us to understand the interactions and impact of the diverse stressors to which honey bee colonies can be exposed.
Not only will it be invaluable for scientific research purposes but it will also be an important training tool to help beekeepers better understand the impacts of their husbandry and other factors on the health and survival of their colonies.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council. Note:
The new system utilizes a bee smoker heater hose and water aspirator. Water-soluble compounds are dissolved by bubbling smoke through water contained in a flask.
#Phony honey a sweet deal for counterfeiters, bad for consumersconsumers buying honey might not be getting
if passed put more stringent requirements on the federal government to ensure the origin of imported honey
and big box stores farmers markets and natural food and drug stores around the country and found more than 75 percent of the honey being sold has all of the pollen filtered out according to Food safety News
Large importing companies take all the pollen out of honey because they claim it makes the honey clearer
and prevents crystallization therefore making it easier to sell Bryant explains. However by removing the pollen you also remove clues needed to verify where the honey was produced and
what nectar sources are dominant. This means that with no traces of pollen honey sellers can take cheap honey
and claim it's a type that sells for a premium price. Certain types of premium honey can sell for upwards of $50 a jar
and this high price has opened the door for honey fraud. The FDA doesn't require pollen in honey sold in the U s. Bryant says so importers are free to remove it.
This makes it possible for some companies to buy cheap honey with no pollen and there are no clues to know where it comes from he asserts.
Bryant who has a modern pollen reference collection of 20000 types from all over the world (worth he estimates between $4-5 million) uses it
By identifying the type of pollen in a honey sample he can tell where the honey came from and
and using antibiotics in hives to keep the bees disease-free. To help regulate honey safety We have strict import laws that apply to honey coming from certain countries he says.
The U s. also has high tariffs or taxes on the honey from some countries such as China.
and in the past they were accused of'dumping'their excess honey on the market at prices below the world price.
This was hurting the U s. beekeeping industry so the U s. put a high tariff on Chinese honey.
Some of those other countries then resold the Chinese honey to the U s. claiming the honey was produced in the second country.
and Border Protection (CBP) agency resources exist to address concerns that honey as well as contraband archaeological
That provision is designed to help stop honey transshipments by requiring CBP to compile a database of the individual characteristics of imported honey to verify country of origin
and it will help the honest beekeepers sell their honey. Preventing the importation of cheap bogus honey is vital to ensuring the survival of U s. beekeepers says the professor.
Without them and without the bees they raise many of our food crops would not get pollinated
and produce the fruits and nuts we consume. If beekeeping becomes a money-losing business in the U s. there will soon be fewer bees
and hives Bryant contends. That in turn will greatly increase the cost of food. The result might be oranges
or apples both pollinated by bees costing $5 each because so few are produced without adequate pollination.
#As hubs for bees, pollinators, flowers may be crucial in disease transmissionlike a kindergarten or a busy airport where cold viruses and other germs circulate freely flowers are common gathering places where pollinators such as bees
and butterflies can pick up fungal bacterial or viral infections that might be as benign as the sniffles
#Managed honeybees linked to new diseases in wild bees, UK study showsdiseases that are managed common in honeybee colonies are now widespread in the UK's wild bumblebees according to research published in Nature.
and Professor Robert Paxton at Queen's university Belfast and Professor Juliet Osborne working at Rothamsted Research and the University of Exeter) say the research provides vital information for beekeepers across the world to ensure honeybee management
supports wild bee populations. Dr FÃ rst from the School of Biological sciences at Royal Holloway said:
Wild and managed bees are in decline at national and global scales. Given their central role in pollinating wildflowers
Our results suggest that emerging diseases spread from managed bees may be an important cause of wild bee decline.
or virus particle on the flowers that they visit and these may then infect wild bees.
and managed bees. Professor Brown added: National societies and agencies both in the UK and globally currently manage so-called honeybee diseases on the basis that they are a threat only to honeybees.
#Urban bees using plastic to build hivesonce the snow melts Canada's bee population will be back in business--pollinating making honey
and keeping busy doing bee things. For at least two urban bee species that means making nests out of plastic waste.
A new study by a University of Guelph graduate and a U of G scientist reveals that some bees use bits of plastic bags
and plastic building materials to construct their nests. The research was published recently in the journal Ecosphere.
because it shows bees'resourcefulness and flexibility in adapting to a human-dominated world says lead author Scott Macivor a doctoral student at York University and a 2008 U of G graduate.
We found two solitary bee species using plastic in place of natural nest building materials which suggests innovative use of common urban materials.
Figuring out that the bees were using plastics in place of natural materials took some detective work by U of G's Andrew Moore supervisor of analytical microscopy at Laboratory Services.
Moore analyzed a grey goo that Macivor discovered in the nests of one kind of bee Megachile campanulae
The researchers also discovered another kind of bee Megachile rotundata an alfalfa leafcutter was using pieces of polyethylene-based plastic bags to construct its brood cells.
Markings showed that the bees chewed the plastic differently than they did leaves suggesting that the insects had collected not incidentally plastic.
Nor were leaves hard to find for the bees in the study. The plastic materials had been gathered by the bees
and then worked--chewed up and spit out like gum--to form something new that they could use Moore said.
In fact the bees emerged parasite-free suggesting plastic nests may physically impede parasites the study said.
The nests containing plastic were among more than 200 artificial nest boxes monitored by Macivor as part of a large-scale investigation of the ecology of urban bees
They are used by a variety of bee species. The novel use of plastics in the nests of bees could reflect the ecologically adaptive traits necessary for survival in an increasingly human-dominated environment Macivor said.
and Environment did not see a drop in the number of pollinators such as bees in the fields.
and in different contexts then perhaps model organisms--such as bees and mice--can provide insights into the biological basis of aggression in all animals including humans the researchers said.
Specifically we looked at aggressive behavior in wasps bees fruit flies and mice and found a few genes that are associated consistently with aggression.
The team then compared the wasp results to gene expression data already available in honey bees fruit flies and mice.
In contrast in honey bees which are advanced social insects aggression genes control altruistic defensive behavior--for example
when guard bees sting a predator or even a beekeeper and die in the process.
According to Grozinger the results suggest that model organisms--such as bees and mice--can be used to study aggression in humans
Teamwork on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjarosteffan-Dewenter and his doctoral student Alice Classen therefore wanted to understand how bees birds bats and other animals contribute to pollination
Bees and other insects should actually be redundant here as the examined coffee variety Coffea arabica is self-pollinating.
bees and other pollinators ensure better quality. â#Same effect with all cultivation systemsto the surprise of the researchers intensified farming seems to have no negative effect:
This is due to the fact that they registered merely one type of visitor honey bees to the blossoms.
however they additionally recorded wild bees hoverflies and butterflies. So if honey bee numbers were to decrease as they might in climatically unfavorable years this could reduce the harvest in the sun plantations.
Findings of a DFG research groupthese findings have been published in the journal â#oeproceedings of the Royal Society Bâ#.
report findsmexico is the fourth largest honey producer and fifth largest honey exporter in the world.
David Roubik senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and colleagues developed the ability to identify pollen grains in honey in Panama
and in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s when they studied the effects of the arrival of Africanized bees on native bees.
They found that six honey samples from nine hives in the Campeche region contained soy pollen
in addition to pollen from many wild plant species. The pollen came from crops near the bee colonies in several small apiaries.
Due to strict European regulations rural farmers in the Mexican Yucatan face significant price cuts or outright rejection of their honey crop
The regional agricultural authorities furthermore seemed unaware that bees visited flowering soybeans to collect nectar and pollen.
To test the honey for GMO pollen researchers from the Smithsonian El Colegio de la Frontera Sur la Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan
Bee colonies act as extremely sensitive environmental indicators. Bees from a single colony may gather nectar and pollen resources from flowers in a 200-square-kilometer area.
With an economy based on subsistence agriculture associated with honey production the social implications of this shift in the status of honey are likely to be contentious
and have profound implications for beekeeping in general. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Substance in photosynthesis was in play in ancient, methane-producing microbesan international team of researchers led by scientists at Virginia Tech
#Uncovering the drivers of honey bee colony declines and lossesscientists have announced the results of research conducted on honey bee colony declines
and the factors attributed to honey bee losses. In a paper published this week in the journal Ecohealth scientists at Ecohealth Alliance investigated the causes of long-term declines of colony numbers and annual colony losses.
The work shows that socioeconomic and political pressures on honey production over the past few decades has caused a long-term reduction in the number of colonies in production in the USA Europe and many other countries.
However more recently honey bee managers have reported increased losses in their stocks each year (so-called'annual colony losses)
Honey bees provide ecosystem services through pollination of crops worth $215 billion annually worldwide. Concern over honey bee declines in recent decades as well as annual losses has sparked debate over their causes
and has led to hypotheses that a specific novel syndrome'Colony Collapse Disorder'(CCD) is plaguing bee populations.
Many scientists have proposed new drivers such as pollution from pesticides as the cause of these declines.
1. The long-term multi-decadal downward trend in the number of bee colonies in many countries reflects a reduction in the profitability of bee keeping due to economic
and/or political change with many bee keepers leaving the profession; 2. Data on annual losses is collected sparse
(and thus potentially bee keepers) define CCD suggesting that it may be reported over; and4. That the major causes of annual losses include pests (e g. the Varroa mite) pathogens (e g. viruses that these mites carry) and the need for research and advancements in management techniques available for large-scale apiaries
which have evolved from smaller backyard productions. There is a growing understanding of the role that introduced pests
'and bees are no exception--the role of introduced mites and the pathogens they carry is researched under
This in conjunction with the 300 percent rise in pollinator-dependent crops requires the industry to manage honey bees like never before;
millions of honey bees are moved across the country annually to pollinate crops. One factor that is vital to understanding the metrics of long-term colony declines lies in the methodology of counting colonies.
Bee management specialists and veterinarians need to support bee keepers with information tools and resources to adapt to a swiftly growing production system said Dr. Kristine Smith Wildlife Veterinarian and Associate Director of Health and Policy at Ecohealth Alliance.
The issues surrounding honey bee colony declines and honey bee losses requires extensive standardized data collection increased surveillance and surveys of management practices and further research.
the toll of agricultural intensification on this semi-free ranging managed species and the confounding pressure of viruses spread through Varroa mites and the burden of these viruses and mites at the individual bee and colony level.
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