'For pollinators such as bees the number of different species was 50%higher on organic farms although it is important to note that the study only looked at'species richness'.'
Taking the example of bees species richness would tell us how many different species of bee were on each farm but not the total number of bees.'
or existing parks These shifts in the conceptualization of urban nature and human roles in it have to some extent created openings for the return of productive practices such as farming horticulture and beekeeping to public green spaces.
#Single gene separates queen from workersscientists have identified how a single gene in honey bees separates the queens from the workers.
and wing development plays a crucial role in the evolution of bees'ability to carry pollen.
In bumble bees which are in the same family as honey bees queens have pollen baskets similar to workers.
In this species Ubx played a similar role in modifying hind legs because the gene is expressed more highly in hind legs compared to front and mid legs.
Besides honey bees which aren't native to North america there are more than 300 species of other bees in Michigan alone.
These include solitary leaf cutter bees communal sweat bees and social bumble bees. The pollen baskets are much less elaborate
or completely absent in bees that are less socially complex Huang said. We conclude that the evolution of pollen baskets is a major innovation among social insects
and is tied directly to more-complex social behaviors. Future research by Huang may pursue investigating how bees could be improved to become better pollinators.
While this won't provide a solution to bee colony collapse disorder it could provide an option for improving the shrinking population of bees'pollen-collecting capacity.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Michigan State university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
We found that four of the pesticides most commonly found in beehives kill bee larvae said Jim Frazier professor of entomology Penn State.
According to Frazier the team's previous research demonstrated that forager bees bring back to the hive an average of six different pesticides on the pollen they collect.
Nurse bees use this pollen to make beebread which they then feed to honeybee larvae.
and chlorpyrifos--on bee larvae the researchers reared honeybee larvae in their laboratory. They then applied the pesticides alone
The team fed their treated diet containing various types and concentrations of chemicals to the laboratory-raised bee larvae.
or they may indirectly kill them by disrupting the beneficial fungi that are essential for nurse bees to process pollen into beebread.
or direct poisoning with a resulting impact on the survival and development of the entire bee brood he said.
and coumaphos are used commonly by beekeepers on crops to control Varroa mites and are found to persist within beehives for about five years.
because it is deemed currently safe to bees. Chlorpyrifos is used a widely organophosphate in crop management.
and solvents of known high toxicity to fish amphibians honey bees and other non-target organisms.
The National Honey Board the U s. Department of agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agriculture-Agriculture and Food Research Initiative-Coordinated Agricultural Projects and the Foundational Award programs funded this research.
#Pathogenic plant virus jumps to honeybees, may explain bee population declinea viral pathogen that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees
The routine screening of bees for frequent and rare viruses resulted in the serendipitous detection of Tobacco Ringspot Virus
whether this plant-infecting virus could also cause systemic infection in the bees says Yan Ping Chen from the U s. Department of agriculture's Agricultural research service (ARS) laboratory in Beltsville Maryland an author on the study.
Toxic viral cocktails appear to have a strong link with honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) a mysterious malady that abruptly wiped out entire hives across the United states
Israel Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) Acute Bee Paralysis Virus (ABPV) Chronic Paralysis Virus (CPV) Kashmir Bee Virus (KBV) Deformed Wing
Bee Virus (DWV) Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Sacbrood Virus (SBV) are known other causes of honeybee viral disease.
When these researchers investigated bee colonies classified as strong or weak TRSV and other viruses were more common in the weak colonies than they were in the strong ones.
Bee populations with high levels of multiple viral infections began failing in late fall and perished before February these researchers report.
TRSV was detected also inside the bodies of Varroa mites a vampire parasite that transmits viruses between bees while feeding on their blood.
The increasing prevalence of TRSV in conjunction with other bee viruses is associated with a gradual decline of host populations
which is used on flowering crops to prevent insect damage reduces the size of individual bees produced by a colony.
The scientists tracked how the bee colonies grew over a four month period recording their size
and weighing bees on micro-scales as well as monitoring the number of queens and male bees produced by the colony.
Our result revealing that this pesticide causes bees to hatch out at a smaller size is of concern as the size of workers produced in the field is likely to be a key component of colony success with smaller bees being less efficient at collecting nectar
The topical research is at the heart of a national Bee Health Conference running in London.
Bumblebees are essential to our food chain so it's critical we understand how wild bees might be impacted by the chemicals we are putting into the environment.
and ensure we are not harming our bees in the process. Given the current EU moratorium on the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides the use of other classes of pesticide including pyrethroids is likely to increase.
Dr Nigel Raine who Is invited an Speaker at this week's bee conference said: Our work provides a significant step forward in understanding the detrimental impact of pesticides other than neonicotinoids on wild bees.
Further studies using colonies placed in the field are essential to understand the full impacts
Male honey bees more susceptible than females to widespread intestinal parasitegender differences in nature are common including in humans.
A research team from Bern Switzerland has found that male European honey bees or drones are much more susceptible than female European honey bees known as workers to a fungal intestinal parasite called Nosema ceranae.
Originally from Asia Nosema ceranae has rapidly spread throughout the world in recent years and may contribute to the high number of colony deaths now observed in many regions of the northern hemisphere.
These findings demonstrate the delicate nature of male honey bees which are important to honey bee colony reproduction to a well-distributed parasite.
Honey bees are complex social organisms that demonstrate haploid-diploidy. The two female castes workers and queens are diploid like humans.
Male honey bees known as drones on the other hand are haploid and contain only one chromosome set. The haploid susceptibility hypothesis predicts that haploid males are more prone to disease compared to their diploid female counterparts
A research team from the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern recently demonstrated in an article in the open-access journal PLOS ONE that male honey bees are significantly more susceptible (they die sooner
and have poor body condition) to an exotic fungal intestinal parasite called Nosema ceranae compared to female worker honey bees.
The parasite originally from Asia has recently spread to possess a near global-distribution during a period of high honey bee colony losses in many global regions.
Because of its recent detection in honey bees outside of Asia researchers are scrambling to understand the parasite.
Male honey bees: lazy but importantthe observation that male drone honey bees die much sooner
and have a poorer body condition compared to female worker honey bees when infected with the parasite Nosema ceranae is particularly worrisome say's doctoral student Gina Tanner:'
'Although drones do not perform important colony maintenance functions like cleaning and feeding like the workers they are responsible for mating with queens
so that the next generation of honey bees can be produced within a colony. Without strong fit drones the chance of successful matings with queens could be compromised severely.'
Honey and pollinationhoney bees as all insect pollinators provide crucial ecosystem and economic service which is relevant for our food security.
Annually in Europe more than 24 million honey bee colonies contribute to the production of 130000 tons of honey
and test webs to monitor pollution levels--for example to check for pesticides that might be harming bee populations.'
Many insects are able to detect small electrical disturbances including bees that can sense the electric fields of different flowers and other bees.'
Bees already use e-sensors to sense flowers and other bees so it now remains to be seen
whether they might also use them to avoid webs and thus becoming dinner.''Electrical disturbances caused by spider webs are ranged extremely short so it is not yet clear
The authors of the report, all bee-experts, cited several different possible reasons for the collapse of the bee population:
habitat degradation due to development, insecticides, parasites such as the Varroa mite and air pollution, that interferes with a bees'ability to find scents.
As a result, urban beekeeping has become something of a DIY method of helping the bee population through hobby.
The glass exterior filters light to let through the orange wavelength which bees use for sight.
The user can then harvest honey by releasing smoke and opening the top of the capsule.
and humans benefit from the honey and the therapeutic value of observing these fascinating creatures in action.
Is this design a viable method for home-friendly beekeeping? Tell us what you think.
Bakers, beekeepers, farmers and commercial fishermen sell goods at farmers markets throughout the United states. There's a weekly market by my subway stop every Friday.
To be a bee: This honey of a robot will fly like no other! Fly me to the moon.
Well, maybe not the moon. But the tiny brain in this little thing could take you places you've never been before,
The honey bee has a puny brain. But man is that miniscule mound of gray matter finely tuned as the winged pollinator's mission control center.
Or, sticking directly with the the bee's reason to be, imagine putting such capability into a flying device that would mechanically pollinate crops.
Rather, it takes its cues from the bee. Simpler organisms such as social insects have advanced surprisingly cognitive abilities
Because the honey bee brain is smaller and more accessible than any vertebrate brain, we hope to eventually be able to produce an accurate and complete model that we can test within a flying robot.
Hello bee brain. Warranty void after one sting. Photo: Mouagip via Wikimeda. More natural navigation on Smartplanet:
Urban beekeeping keeps cities healthywe need bees for the future of our cities and urban living,
We've been hearing about the disappearance of bees for some time, but Wilson-Rich is bringing a new perspective to the table.
Cities need bees, and bees need cities. We're very co-evolved because we depend on bees for pollination and even more recently,
as an economic commodity. Wilson-Rich went on to note that in cities bees are surviving better than in the country.
They also produce more honey. There are a number of possible reasons. Cities are warmer, trains carry pollen into heavily populated areas,
and there may be fewer pesticides in urban areas. In other words, Colony Collapse Disorder is not the only thing affecting bees.
But even though the physical urban environment supports healthy bees, the social urban environment certainly does not.
There is a reason urban beekeepers take care to keep their beehives out of sight. Wilson-Rich wants to change that:
The way that urban beekeeping currently operates is that the beehives are hidden quite. it's not
because they need to be, it's because people are uncomfortable with the idea. As the world population explodes,
We also need to change the way we see bees. Take New york city as an example.
and great examples of urban beekeeping can be found. The opera house in Paris has kept bees on the roof for years.
In Boston, the rooftop of the Sea Port hotel houses hundreds of thousands of bees (pollinating hundreds of local gardens throughout the city.
The Fairmont Copley Plaza also helps out, and went so far as to stylistically match their bee boxes to the inside of the hotel.
Now that the ban on urban beekeeping in New york city has been lifted (it was illegal until 2010), there's no reason for closet bee lovers to hold back.
Moral of the story? Start producing liquid gold on a rooftop near you! Need help?
Contact Best Bees Company, Wilson-Rich's answer for budding beekeepers. Watch the TEDXBOSTON video here
Urban beekeeping thrives on Melbourne rooftopsmelbourne--The practice of urban beekeeping is not a new concept;
Paris, Berlin, London, Toronto, San francisco and New york city are all part of a global movement to bring apiculture to the cities.
In Melbourne, the growing popularity of beekeeping has been driven predominantly by the founders of the Melbourne City Rooftop Honey group (MCRH),
and their passion for protecting the honey bees, a species that play a vital role in our food production supply.
If the bees are in trouble, so are we The MCRH's founders Vanessa Kwiatkowski and Mat Lumalasi are bringing bees back to the cities, one swarm at a time.
The Melbourne apiarists claim Å if the bees are in trouble, we are in trouble as well. Â The couple know all too well the importance of European honey bees and their role in pollinating agricultural and horticultural crops,
enabling the sustainability of our food supply chain. Since the 2006-2007 Colony Collapse Disorder there s been a growing concern about the survival of European honey bees.
Dennis vanengelsdorp provides an excellent TED talk on the role of bees and their demise in the United states. The potentially devastating impact of exotic pests such as the Varroa mite,
which is yet to reach Australia, poses a significant threat to the honey bees and their pollination services.
Å Australia is the last country to not have been invaded by this disease --if and when it arrives to our shores,
it will be a stronger more evolved strain posing a significant threat to honey bees and our pollination services,
 Kwiatkowski explains. According to the MCRH, around 65 per cent of agricultural production in Australia depends on pollination by European honey bees, with some 35 industries depending on honey bee pollination for most of their production.
The Melbourne City Rooftop Honey project Concerned by the growing disconnect between food production and consumption
Kwiatkowski and Lumalasi aim to raise public awareness of the importance of bees by helping the community create delicious honey.
Kwiatkowski believes that the city is a great place for bees: Å A lot of people do not realize what the bees actually do
or how far they will forage, and that you do need not actually a backyard to keep them.
 The couple are leading a project to Šre-home  honey bee colonies from swarms
either caught by themselves or from volunteers of the Beekeepers Club Inc. Each hive is checked approximately every 10 to 14 days by the MCRH,
who take a cut of the honey in exchange for maintaining and monitoring the hives.
Å Our concept is different to a lot of other urban beekeeping movements: We not only just share honey with our supporters,
we share knowledge, connect people, and create a sense of community, Â Kwiatkowski says. The local community also benefit by some true Ëoelocal produce-oe a great tasting honey
which is unique to each site, with less actual food miles. Å By placing hives on the roof spaces of cafes, restaurants, hotels and individual gardens in and around Melbourne,
we have reduced the distance from production to plate to mere meters, Â she says. Kwiatkowski believes that urban beekeeping is suited particularly to Melbourne because of the variety of flora growing in the city
compared to the countryside, which often just has one crop dominating an entire area. The couple s plan is to have a hive in every suburb
and create a network of people interacting and connecting with each other. Å Our vision for the future is to be able to provide the honey bees
and their hives for free by raising funds and asking local businesses to sponsor a hive
in order to keep maintaining and rolling out beehives all over Melbourne, Â she says. Since launching in November 2010, popularity for the MCRH project has grown rapidly;
But despite this success, Kwiatkowski explains that the business of beekeeping is not a lucrative one.
Å There is a joke among beekeepers; if someone tells you there is money in making honey,
laugh and walk away. It is not very profitable, financially, but it is extremely rewarding to be a part of something so important.
 Community beekeeping The MCRH currently looks after 40 hives (approximately 2. 4 million bees) located across 18 suburbs in Melbourne.
Nic Poelaert, owner and chef of Embrasse Restaurant, has been hosting 10,000 bees on his restaurant s rooftop for the past six months.
The bees are set to produce around 15 kilos of honey per year, double the amount that was projected initially.
Poelaert, who uses a lot of the honey in his dishes, has grown a passion for beekeeping. Å They are amazing creatures.
When Mat and Vanessa come and collect the honey, there s always a new story. It's always very interesting,
 he says. East Brunswick resident Louise Scanlon has hosted a colony of around 20,000 bees in her backyard for eight months.
Å It s just an extension of our permaculture garden; everything is planned to coexist. The pond feeds the trees,
 For Scanlon, the benefits of keeping bees go beyond sharing honey with her neighbors:
Å Our bees now make sure that all our neighbors gardens (within a 2 km radius) are pollinated well.
Misunderstood bees Kwiatkowski contends there are key challenges to urban beekeeping such as Å teaching people that bees are reasonably gentle creatures
if anyone finds themselves having difficulty breathing then they are allergic to bees. Honey bees often get mistaken for the European wasp.
The two behave and want totally different things, she explains. This is a big problem as the European wasp is very aggressive
and gives our poor honey bee a bad name. Regulations and compliance In Melbourne, there are local council restrictions on beekeeping due to land size.
If you are thinking of hosting a beehive, you should check local council regulations on keeping bees as they vary from shire to shire.
As a general rule, if you are keeping a beehive in Australia, you are required to be registered with the Department of Primary Industries (DPI),
who conduct disease prevention and control programs for the benefit of beekeepers. An additional requirement of the bee registration is compliance with the Livestock Disease Control Act 1994 and Regulations
and the Apiary Code of Practice May 2011. Get involved The MCRH suggests a few ways we can help to restore the bee population:
Avaaz has a petition asking the U s . and E u. to stop using the neonicotinoid pesticides Plant bee friendly plants in your garden
and flowering trees Don t use pesticides and herbicide on your garden plants Purchase organic foods whenever possible Join local initiatives dedicated to helping the bee colonies Be good to bees Read these 10 things you can do Watch the documentaries Vanishing of the Bees
and Queen of the Sun Become involved, donate, purchase local honey or sponsor a hive.
View the photo gallery on Smartplanet. Photos: Lachie Mathison
Urban farming goes underground in London When you think of urban farming, what comes to mind?
Vertical gardens, rooftop gardens, and transformed vacant lots? Sure. But a pair of entrepreneurs in London are hoping to take urban farming to unexpected depths.
Why thousands of bees are flying around with sensors  Wireless data-collecting sensors are everywhere:
 Using Radio frequency Identification sensors the researchers will be able to track the movement of the bees.
By doing this, researchers will be able to track bee behavior and look for environmental changes that could be harming bee colonies.
 Bees are social insects that return to the same point and operate on a very predictable schedule.
Any change in their behavior indicates a change in their environment. If we can model their movements,
the way the scientists are able to attach the sensors to the bees is fascinating.
According to CSIRO, the bees are refrigerated first for a short time to put them in a rest state just long enough to attach the tiny sensors to their backs with an adhesive--younger hairy bees must be shaved first.
After a few minutes the bees are back to normal and collecting data. Â This is a non-destructive process
and the sensors appear to have no impact on the bee's ability to fly and carry out its normal duties,
  The sensors used on the bees are 2. 5mm x 2. 5 mm,
Why urban beekeeping isn't as good for bees as you thinkin London, rooftop beehives have become popular symbols for businesses expressing their commitment to sustainability.
From 2008-13 the number of beekeepers in Greater london tripled from  464 to 1,
A new article in The Biologist by professors at The University of Sussex says that the beekeeping boom in London is actually doing more harm than good to bees.
Too many bees in a small area and not enough bee food. As Professor Francis Ratnieks, a co-author of the article,
so why should we take this approach with bees?  The researchers calculate that to sufficiently meet the needs of every new hive, about one hectare (or about 2. 5 acres) of  borage,
Combine the high-density of bees with the fact that many of the new urban beekeepers are inexperienced and,
and other diseases in the bees that could require burning entire hives. Of course, not every area has the beehive density of London.
if you want to help the bees. Read more: University of Sussex Photo: Flickr/nicolas. boullosa Related on Smartplanet:
Building for the birds and the bees and batsbuildings are designed usually to house people, but a few recent examples provide shelter and protection for the fuzzier fellow citizens of planet Earth.
United states In Buffalo, New york, saving bees is part of a local business person's vision for redeveloping a waterfront industrial site into a design district.
Rick Smith sponsored a contest to design a new home for a massive bee colony that had taken over an old office building.
the students created a tower they call Elevator B. Bees, birds and even bats are ecologically important
Apparently they take some milk, some honey, and grind up small quantities of the amber and put that in as well, he told Scientific American.
Can bees be trained to prevent plant disease? Dr. Andrew Sutherland, a researcher with the UC Davis Plant pathology Department is training honey bees to detect plant disease in agricultural crops.
Bees have excellent chemosensors on their antennae, so they're able to detect organic molecules.
Using Ivan Pavlov's method of'classical conditioning, 'Sutherland is teaching bees to associate infected plants with a sugar reward.
After they are conditioned, the bees are placed inside a box and taken to the field, where if they encounter the same smell,
the information is relayed back as a warning sign. Other collaborators on the project include: Dr. Robert M. Wingo;
94%of its poultry and shell eggs and 100%of its honey. The study says:
Finally, some (sort of) good news about honeybeessadly, bees are dying in large swaths from a mysterious affliction called colony collapse disorder (CCD.
since 1999 because commercial beekeepers have rebuilt actively their colonies in response. U s. honey production has shown no pattern of decline either.
but beekeepers have been able to adapt to these changes and maintain colony numbers. Rucker and Thurman wrote:
putting little to no upward pressure on bee prices following CCD. The cost of CCD on almonds, one of the most important crops from a honeybee pollinating perspective,
Although, pollination fees that beekeepers charge almond producers have doubled more than in recent years--a portion of this increase is attributed to the onset of CCD.
bee colonies are important to our food supply. Honeybees pollinate close to 90 crops such as avocados, cucumbers, sprouts, apples, onions, broccoli, coffee and tomatoes.
if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live.
Einstein was right-honey bee collapse threaten global food security The Telegraph Photo: Â cygnus921/flickr Related on Smartplanet:
The real lesson Snapple teaches us isn t about how many eyelids a bee has or the first food eaten in space,
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