A quick update this week...
Hey everyone!
Just a quick update this week to let you know that the next episode of the Bee Report podcast will be coming out next Friday. As some of you already know, I'm currently working on a short documentary film about the bees of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and that process got kicked into high gear this week. I had to leapfrog the podcast to next week. But I can promise you that the episode will be a fascinating one about flower-borne pathogens and bees!
And, yes, I will also be sharing more information about the Bees of Grand Staircase-Escalante film very soon!
In the meantime, if you're all caught up on your previous episodes of the Bee Report, here are a couple other bee-related items you might want to take a look at.
Scott McArt @McArtLab asked a question and started a conversation on Twitter about wild bumble bee queens entering managed bee colonies and being killed. Anyone else have experience with this? This thread caught my eye because I’ve been thinking about queen bumble bees quite a bit since my last conversation with Elaine Evans and Tam Smith.
And Joe Wilson @BeesBackyard takes us into the field looking for the rare Mojave poppy bee in a three-part video series. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Do you have tips, comments, questions or ideas for collaboration? Please send them to tbr@bymattkelly.com.
Conservation
‘Murder hornet’ panic driving a surge in insecticide interest
(Washington Post $) Google searches for “hornet spray,” “hornet traps” and “insecticide” have surged. Searches for “how to kill hornets,” for instance, are currently running 20 to 30 times their usual levels for this time of year. Similarly, searches for hornet spray and hornet traps are up three to tenfold. It’s not clear how much increased online interest translates into real-world behavior.
The Asian giant hornet resurfaces in the Pacific Northwest
(New York Times) The Asian giant hornet has resurfaced in the Pacific Northwest, with two reported discoveries that indicate the invasive insect has already been circulating in a broader territory than previously known. On the U.S. side of the border, state entomologists received a report this week of a dead hornet on a roadway near Custer, Wash. Several miles north in Canada, a provincial apiculturist for British Columbia confirmed that one of the large hornets had been discovered in the city of Langley this month.
Economics
75% of staff impacted as California Academy of Sciences projects $12 million in lost revenue
(California Academy of Sciences) Since March 12, the California Academy of Sciences has been temporarily closed in response to COVID-19. As a result, the Academy is projecting a 36 percent decrease in revenue due to what will likely be a gradual return of visitors. Beginning June 13, the Academy will implement layoffs, furloughs, and reductions to salary and hours impacting 75 percent of the institution’s 504 employees.
Bees, birds and butter: New study shows biodiversity critical for shea crop in Africa
(EurekAlert/Trinity College Dublin) Shea trees, an important agroforestry crop in West Africa, benefit from bees moving pollen between their flowers to produce fruit. A new study found that in sites with low tree and shrub diversity, fruit production was severely limited by a lack of pollination. In higher-diversity sites, more honey bees were observed, and other bees visited flowers in greater numbers, boosting pollination services.
Policy/Law
EPA asked to approve dinotefuran on apples, peaches, nectarines
(Center for Biological Diversity) The Environmental Protection Agency is considering granting “emergency” approval of a neonicotinoid pesticide for use on more than 57,000 acres of fruit trees, including apples, peaches and nectarines, in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. If granted, this would mark the tenth straight year that emergency exemptions of dinotefuran have been granted in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania to target the brown marmorated stink bug on pome and stone fruit trees, which are highly attractive to bees.
Science
Wildflower’s spiny pollen adapts to help plants reproduce
(University of Missouri) Researchers at the University of Missouri discovered that the spiny pollen from a native wild dandelion species in the southern Rocky Mountains has evolved to attach to traveling bumble bees. When compared with the average lawn dandelion, which does not need pollen to reproduce, the researchers saw that the pollen on the lawn dandelion has a shorter distance between these spines, making it harder to attach to traveling pollinators.
Pesticides disrupt honey bee nursing behavior and larval development
(ScienceDaily/Goethe University Frankfurt) A newly developed video technique has allowed scientists to record the complete development of a honey bee in its hive. Researchers discovered that neonicotinoids caused nurse bees to feed the larvae less often. Larval development also took up to 10 hours longer; a longer development period in the hive can foster infestation by parasites.
(National Center for Biotechnology Information/Toxicon) “There is one discovery we would like to report here... A total of 5115 beekeepers were surveyed from February 23 to March 8, including 723 in Wuhan, the outbreak epicentre of Hubei. None of these beekeepers developed symptoms associated with COVID-19... After that, we interviewed five apitherapists in Wuhan and followed 121 patients of their apitherapy clinic... none of them were infected eventually… Our purpose in writing this letter is to ask scholars with appropriate research conditions to test this assumption.”
Technology
New app helps Wisconsin farmers, researchers track wild bee populations
(Wisconsin Public Radio) A new smartphone app from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is helping the state's fruit and vegetable growers understand bee populations on their farm. WiBee (pronounced Wee-bee) was created after hearing from farmers who were uncertain about the prevalence of wild bees on their land.
One More Thing…
From Jonathon Koch @jonbkoch (and Grand Staircase-Escalante) via Twitter. This speaks to me on so many levels this week.