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New behiveoral study.

Bumblebees make false memories, too
Date:
February 26, 2015

Source:
Cell Press

Summary:
It's well known that our human memory can fail us. People can be forgetful, and they can sometimes also 'remember' things incorrectly, with devastating consequences in the classroom, courtroom, and other areas of life. Now, researchers show for the first time that bumblebees can be unreliable witnesses too.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150226131940.htm
 
Almost one in 10 of Europe's native wild bees face extinction, according to the most comprehensive expert assessment so far.

The European Red List, drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, found 9.2% of nearly 2,000 species are threatened with extinction. Another 5% are likely to be threatened in the near future.

Threats include loss of habitat from intensive farming, pesticide use, urban development and climate change.
Jean-Christophe Vié, of the IUCN Global Species Programme, said the assessment was the best understanding so far on wild bees in Europe, but knowledge was incomplete due to "an alarming lack of expertise and resources". ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31963056
 
A prolonged and mysterious die-off of the nation’s honeybees, a trend worrisome both to beekeepers and to farmers who depend on the insects to pollinate their crops, apparently worsened last year.

In an annual survey released on Wednesday by the Bee Informed Partnership, a consortium of universities and research laboratories, about 5,000 beekeepers reported losing 42.1 percent of their colonies in the 12-month period that ended in April. That is well above the 34.2 percent loss reported for the same period in 2013 and 2014, and it is the second-highest loss recorded since year-round surveys began in 2010.

Most striking, however, was that honeybee deaths spiked last summer, exceeding winter deaths for the first time. Commercial beekeepers, some of whom rent their hives to farmers during pollination seasons, were hit especially hard, the survey’s authors stated. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/u...ie-off-appears-to-worsen.html?smid=tw-nytimes
 
Commercial beekeepers, some of whom rent their hives to farmers during pollination seasons, were hit especially hard, the survey’s authors stated. ...

Yeah. They've got to stop doing that.
 
Yeah. They've got to stop doing that.

What makes you say this? Many crops in the US depend on transported beehives & would struggle to produce the current quantity without them. I believe however that transported bees can suffer stress as a result. Maybe that's what you're getting at...
 
They also suffer from being fed on a monoculture crop, and the very best way of spreading disease is to move the vector around the place to areas with low resistance.
Also yep.
 
They also suffer from being fed on a monoculture crop, and the very best way of spreading disease is to move the vector around the place to areas with low resistance.

Fair point. I hadn't considered this.
 
More than 70 percent of pollen and honey samples collected from foragingbees in Massachusetts contained neonicotinoids, a type of insecticide that has been linked to colony collapse disorder, researchers are reporting. The disorder causes adult bees to abandon their hives in winter.

In the new study, published in The Journal of Environmental Chemistry, researchers analyzed 219 pollen samples and 53 honey samples from 62 hives in 10 counties in Massachusetts. Honeybee colonies have experienced significant losses over the last decade, and the effects can be far-reaching: Bees are the prime pollinators of one-third of all crops worldwide.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/science/honeybees-show-evidence-of-insecticide.html?_r=1
 
Goalmouth bee swarm halts kick-off at Oldham Athletic

A football match was delayed at Oldham Athletic on Saturday after unwanted visitors swarmed around the goalposts.
A queen bee had attached herself to one of the posts, causing the penalty area to become hive of activity. ;)

The referee suspended the start of the friendly with Blackburn Rovers until some beekeepers arrived.
The club tweeted: "The Bee team has just left the pitch", while Blackburn's twitter feed read: "Un-BEE-lievable scenes here."
A club spokesman said: "We are very grateful to the local bee society who arranged for a beekeeper to come along and clear the bees."
Rovers won the game 2-0.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-33668046
 
Goalmouth bee swarm halts kick-off at Oldham Athletic

A football match was delayed at Oldham Athletic on Saturday after unwanted visitors swarmed around the goalposts.
A queen bee had attached herself to one of the posts, causing the penalty area to become hive of activity. ;)

The referee suspended the start of the friendly with Blackburn Rovers until some beekeepers arrived.
The club tweeted: "The Bee team has just left the pitch", while Blackburn's twitter feed read: "Un-BEE-lievable scenes here."
A club spokesman said: "We are very grateful to the local bee society who arranged for a beekeeper to come along and clear the bees."
Rovers won the game 2-0.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-33668046


Did one of those online career change things. It recommended I become a beekeeper.
 
Flowers are not enough, it seems. For the first time, bees have been discovered farming fungus to provide extra food for their larvae.

Though farming is well known in many social insects, such as ants and termites, bees have always been thought to depend solely on pollen and nectar for sustenance.

But for the Brazilian stingless bee, Scaptotrigona depilis, fungus may mean the difference between life and death.

What’s more, if other bees also depend on fungus for survival, the discovery has serious implications for the use of fungicides in agriculture.

Cristiano Menezes of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, was studying the bees in the lab and originally mistook the white Monascus fungus growing in their hive for contamination.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...farming-fungus-for-first-time-to-feed-larvae/
 
Ants and termites grow and harvest fungus, and they are related to bees (I seem to remember reading that somewhere, I have no idea if it's true). So, it seems likely that they'd have some similar patterns of behaviour.
It is amazing, though - a creature with a tiny brain not only does farming, but can do chemical engineering.
 
Alexander Verbeek ‏@Alex_Verbeek 5m5 minutes ago
"If bees disappear, man would have no more than four years to live". #photography #bees #nature

CeeWsd2W8AEE7Ua.jpg
 
We had bees in the garden a day or 2 back here on the Fylde coast, we have a shrub
not a clue what it is but it has lots of small red flowers and it is always emitting a low
hum from the bees, lots of lavender that they seem to like as well.
This was taken in the middle of Thornton last summer were the bees are taking up
residence in a traffic bollard, the road was alive and buzzing with them people
coming out on the st to see what was going on.

 
If the wife finds a bee that cant fly she puts it in the conservatory
and gives it a few drops of sugar and water they happily drink this
and off they go, sort of a bee fuel station.
 
If the wife finds a bee that cant fly she puts it in the conservatory
and gives it a few drops of sugar and water they happily drink this
and off they go, sort of a bee fuel station.
If you don't mind me saying so, your wife sounds cool RaM :)
 
If the wife finds a bee that cant fly she puts it in the conservatory
and gives it a few drops of sugar and water they happily drink this
and off they go, sort of a bee fuel station.

A real decent person.
 
If the wife finds a bee that cant fly she puts it in the conservatory
and gives it a few drops of sugar and water they happily drink this
and off they go, sort of a bee fuel station.
Awesome, I'm going to do that.
 
If I find one I try to lift it with a piece of card or something to hand and try to place it on a flower head so that it can get some nectar.
 
Nice to see a bit of bee love here. I'll try the sugar solution rescue next time I find an ailing bee.
 
Old style beehives are illegal to use in the US. Regular checks on the health of the hive aren't possible in the old straw hives.
 
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