Bees news update

This 2017 video is called BUMBLEBEES – The Secret World of Bees.

From the Unversity of Kent in England, 29 October 2018:

Data collected by Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT) volunteers to assess the country’s changing bumblebee populations have been analysed in a new way for the first time at the University of Kent — and show mixed results about their decline, with cause for concern for two species.

Data was analysed for the five commonest species in the BBCT’s BeeWalk dataset. The two rarest species (Early Bumblebee Bombus pratorum and Red-tailed Bumblebee B. lapidarius) out of the five have declined since 2011 while the two commonest ones (Common Carder bumblebee B. pascuorum and Tree Bumblebee B. hypnorum) have increased. The Tree bumblebee, first found in the UK in 2001, has spread rapidly across the country.

Britain’s 25 bumblebee species are some of the nation’s favourite creatures and are also vital for the pollination of crops, garden plants and wildflowers. However, they have suffered huge declines over the past century: two species went extinct in the past 80 years, and eight species are endangered. These species were known to have declined in distribution over the long term but little was known about how bumblebee populations have changed more recently.

Scientific report on this: here.

From the University of Exeter in England, October 29, 2018:

Up to 13% of US beekeepers are in danger of losing their colonies due to pesticides sprayed to contain the Zika virus, new research suggests.

Zika — which can cause severe brain defects in unborn children — is spread by mosquitoes, so the insects are being targeted in the southern US where Zika-carrying mosquito species live. The new research, by the University of Exeter and the University of California, Berkeley, was sparked by a 2016 media report on millions of honeybees killed by Zika spraying. Honeybees are not native to the US and most colonies are kept by beekeepers, who play a key role in agriculture by helping to pollinate crops.

Arizona State University researchers have found that larger tropical stingless bee species fly better in hot conditions than smaller bees do. Larger size may help certain bee species better tolerate high body temperatures. The findings run contrary to the well-established temperature-size “rule”, which suggests that ectotherms — insects that rely on the external environment to control their temperature — are larger in cold climates and smaller in hot ones. The research will be presented today at the American Physiological Society’s (APS) Comparative Physiology: Complexity and Integration conference in New Orleans: here.

Bees adjust their speed to keep turning forces constant, new research shows. The findings can be applied to robots and autonomous vehicles: here.