Not all creepy-crawlers are welcome in the garden, but some insects are very beneficial to the success of your flowers, herbs and veggies. According to Almanac, beneficial bugs fall into three categories: pollinators, which help pollinate plants; predators, which feed on garden pests; and parasitizers, like parasitic wasps and other insects that lay eggs inside […]
Tag: honeybee
Bees can learn, remember, think and make decisions—here’s a look at how they navigate the world
As trees and flowers blossom in spring, bees emerge from their winter nests and burrows. For many species it’s time to mate, and some will start new solitary nests or colonies. Bees and other pollinators are essential to human society. They provide about one-third of the food we eat, a service with a global value […]
Ethiopia used chemicals to kill locusts. Billions of honeybees disappeared
Between 2019 and 2021, swarms of desert locusts̨ swept across the Horn of Africa and East Africa. In response, the worst-affected countries, Kenya and Ethiopia, sprayed millions of hectares of cropland and pastures with chemical pesticides. A new study now finds the chemical spraying coincided with a steep decline in honey production in Ethiopia. Co-author […]
Study: Caged Honeybees are Living Half as Long as Observed 50 Years Ago
In a new study published today in the journal Scientific Reports, a duo of researchers at the University of Maryland found that the median lifespan of caged worker honeybees has been declining in the United States since the 1970s, from an average of 34.3 days to 17.7 days. Colony turnover is an accepted factor in […]
Bumblebees Increasingly Stressed by Climate Change Over Past 100 Years, Study Finds
Bumblebees are larger than honeybees and, while they collect and store nectar from flowers to consume themselves, they do not convert nectar into honey like honeybees. Bumblebees are essential pollinators for many wildflowers and agricultural crops like sunflowers, cranberries, blueberries and tomatoes. Two contemporaneous papers examining bumblebee populations in the UK were recently published by […]
EPA plans to allow the use of insecticides devastating to bees and butterflies to continue in America for the next 15 years
Despite steps by the European Union to limit the use of poisons responsible for widespread insect losses, the US Environmental Protection Agency is prepared to allow the use of four of the most harmful compounds to bees, butterflies, and other insects in America for the next 15 years. Despite “ecological hazards of concern, notably to […]
Bees kill 63 endangered penguins in South Africa
A swarm of bees has killed 63 endangered African penguins on a beach outside Cape Town, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds said. The protected birds were found dead in Simon’s Town, a small town near Cape Town home to a colony of penguins, and taken for post-mortems. “After tests, we […]
Wild Animals Such as Chimpanzees and Honeybees Also Practice Social Distancing to Prevent the Spread of Disease
In a world with over 7 billion people and cities with populations of millions of people, we are so accustomed to being surrounded by our communities and other people that the idea of social distancing seems very novel. And it sort of is… for humans. In this most recent age of technology and development, we’ve […]