California court paves way for protection of imperiled bumble bees. Using bees to create bioplastics. A new short film about the secret microbial world of bees.
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Conservation
Photo: Seeker
Short film: A hidden reason bees are being threatened
(Seeker, Day’s Edge Productions) What if bees are not the herbivores we thought they were? Scientists have unveiled the secret microbial world that is vital to bees’ population, and our food supply.
Bumble bees of Michigan iNaturalist project
(Twitter, Michigan Natural Features Inventory @MichiganNFI) “If you live in Michigan and enjoy looking for bumble bees, please consider joining this project”
Economics
Photo: Purdue University
Limited pesticide use brings wild bees
(Agri-View) A multiyear study of commercial-scale fields in the Midwest found that an as-needed approach to pesticides led to a 95% reduction in pesticide applications, while maintaining or increasing crop yield for corn and watermelon.
New virus variant threatens the health of honey bees worldwide
(Phys.org, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) A dangerous variant of the deformed wing virus is on the rise worldwide. The virus infects honey bees, causing their wings to atrophy and the animals to die. The new variant, which has already replaced the original strain of the virus in Europe, is spreading to other regions of the world and causing entire bee colonies to collapse.
Bee populations plummet in Gaza
(Al-Monitor) The Gaza Strip is witnessing a major decline in the bees that used to swarm farmland and gardens across the coastal enclave. Many Gazans accuse Israel of the deliberate killing and displacement of bees by spraying toxic pesticides near apiaries and flowering trees in border areas, which have also been heavily bulldozed in the name of security.
Policy/Law
Photo: Xerces Society, Stephanie McKnight
California court paves the way for protection of imperiled bumble bees and other insects
(Xerces Society) California’s Third District Court of Appeal ruled that the California Endangered Species Act can protect invertebrates, including four species of imperiled native bumble bees that the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, the Center for Food Safety, and Defenders of Wildlife successfully petitioned the State of California to protect in 2018.
Do bumble bees count as fish? Here’s why a California court just said yes.
(San Francisco Chronicle) California’s endangered species law, one of the nation’s first when it was signed by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970, granted protections to any “bird, mammal, fish, amphibia or reptile” whose existence in the state was threatened, and included “invertebrates” in the definition of fish. When the law was updated in 1984 under Gov. George Deukmejian, the reference to invertebrates was removed, but the new law protected the Trinity bristle snail, an invertebrate mollusk that lives on land.
New law proposed to save native Irish bee, now facing threat of extinction
(Irish News) Proposed legislation that would ban imports of non-native bees was scheduled for debate in the Seanad this week with support from all parties. Banning imports has been problematic up to now because bees are considered livestock which have freedom of movement across the EU. The Protection of the Native Irish Honey Bee Bill 2021 is the work of beekeepers, scientists and barristers from the Climate Bar Association who believe they have found a wording to get around this.
Science
Photo: Dartmouth Electron Microscope Facility, Wikimedia Commons
Pollen grains carry hundreds of plant viruses
(Scientific American) Researchers used genetic sequencing to catalog viruses on wildflower pollen from four different environments: California grasslands, the California coast, an agricultural area in Pennsylvania and the Appalachian Mountains. The team found 22 known viruses – some of which have serious effects on crops. They also found evidence of hundreds of viruses scientists had never seen.
Busting myths about working with bees in the lab
(Apimondia) “As someone who’s worked with bumblebees in a science laboratory for five years, I’ve been asked just about every bee-related question imaginable. So, for world bee day, I thought I’d lay out some of the common misconceptions about what it means to work with bumblebees.”
‘Fuel of evolution’ more abundant than previously thought in wild animals
(ScienceDaily, Australian National University) The raw material for evolution is much more abundant in wild animals than we previously believed, according to new research. The study is the first time the speed of evolution has been systematically evaluated on a large scale, rather than on an ad hoc basis. The team of 40 researchers from 27 scientific institutions used studies of 19 populations of wild animals from around the world. These included superb fairy-wrens in Australia, spotted hyenas in Tanzania, song sparrows in Canada and red deer in Scotland.
Technology
Photo: Humble Bee Bio
New Zealand’s Humble Bee Bio is using bees to create bioplastics
(Tech Crunch) Humble Bee Bio is on a mission to create a biodegradable alternative to plastics by synthesizing the biology of bees. While the New Zealand-based company is still at an early stage – it’s about halfway through its proof of concept – if Humble Bee is successful, its bioplastics are likely to make it into the sustainable textiles industry. Humble Bee has been studying the Australian masked bee, a type of solitary bee that doesn’t make honey, but does make a nesting material for laying larvae in, which has many plastic-like properties.
Why honey bees may be the key to better robots and drones
(Forbes) Opteran Technologies, a startup that is creating artificial intelligence inspired by what we know about how bee brains work, has built an AI system based on the way bees think and has programmed it directly into specialized computer chips. Its first-use case is in helping robots and drones navigate autonomously.
One More Thing…
Warming up for Flight of the Bumble Bee? From Threatening Music Notation via Twitter.