Watchtowers in trees, tripwire alarms, radio collars, chilli smoke and beehive fences: scientists and conservationists across Asia and Africa are coming up with safe and humane ways to keep elephants at bay and reduce conflict with humans. In early June, the agonising death of a pregnant wild elephant that ate an explosives-filled pineapple in India […]
Bees are extremely important to most lifeforms on Earth, as they are responsible for most of the pollination of our crops. Unfortunately, bees populations are decreasing at an alarming rate. In the United States alone, the number of bee colonies per hectare has gone down by ninety percent since 1962. Humans are almost entirely responsible, […]
A viral disease that causes honey bees to suffer severe trembling, flightlessness and death within a week is spreading exponentially in Britain. Chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV) was only recorded in Lincolnshire in 2007. A decade later, it was found in 39 of 47 English counties and six of eight Welsh counties, according to data […]
Beekeepers in Brazil have reported the loss of 500 million bees from hives in 3 months. Bees have been dropping dead and evidence links pesticides to the cause. Regulations across Brazil have been reformed, leading to forest fires and now, increased pesticide use. Reporting from Mongabay said 290 pesticides have been cleared for use in […]
Over 70 percent of the world’s crop species that feed humans are pollinated by bees. Simply put, we needbees. If anyone isn’t interested in the conservation of species just because they deserve to live, then maybe they care that it will affect humans badly if bees were to go extinct. Yet, bee populations are rapidly […]
Last century, Albert Einstein predicted that if bees disappeared off the face of the Earth, humans would only have four years left to live. The death of these insects on a large scale, seen as apocalyptic at the time, now constitutes a real warning for humanity. Between December 2018 and February 2019, more than 500 […]
The spring of 2008 was brutal for Europe’s honeybees. In late April and early May, during the corn-planting season, dismayed beekeepers in Germany’s upper Rhine valley looked on as whole colonies perished. Millions of bees died. France, the Netherlands and Italy reported big losses, but in Germany the incident took on the urgency of a […]
The world’s most used weedkiller damages the beneficial bacteria in the guts of honeybees and makes them more prone to deadly infections, new research has found. Previous studies have shown that pesticides such as neonicotinoids cause harm to bees, whose pollination is vital to about three-quarters of all food crops. Glyphosate, manufactured by Monsanto, targets […]