Kristen Brochu: The noxious relationship between pumpkin pollen and bumble bees
This week on the podcast I'm joined by Kristen Brochu, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State University. We discuss her recently published work about how harmful pumpkin and squash pollen is for bumble bees. But why is this? And what exactly can we learn from this? Kristen and I talk about what we currently know (and don't know) about bee nutrition, and how understanding species-specific nutritional needs could be another tool for assessing which bees are at the greatest risk in our climate-changing, urbanizing world.
The Bee Report Podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms such as Apple and Spotify.
Do you have tips, comments, questions or ideas for collaboration? Please send them to tbr@bymattkelly.com.
Survey results: Has the novel coronavirus affected the research you had planned for this year?
Thank you to everyone who answered the call to take a quick survey I posted on the Bee Report: Has the novel coronavirus affected the research you had planned for this year? Twenty-one of you responded. And if we can take this as a reasonable sampling, here is a summary of how things are currently looking for the bee research community in North America.
The big take away: No one who responded is proceeding as originally planned this year. Many of you have cancelled your plans, partly or completely. Everyone has adjusted in some way. And everyone is contending with a pervasive uncertainty.
The comments you provided are particularly informative about the level of disruption; here are a select few. You can read through a more extensive collection of comments in the full story I published on the Bee Report.
Select comments
“We had planned to conduct surveys for Rusty Patched Bumble Bee queens but have had to cancel that. We may still have a field assistant who is local to the area conduct the surveys, but it’s up in the air. Spending lots of time working on our computer-based/genetics projects now instead!”
“Community science projects where volunteers come to events to help collect data have been cancelled. Other community science project where people work individually may still happen. One lab study had to be cut short. One replicate that was started later was eliminated. These were bumble bee microcolonies so we had to kill off the microcolonies as well as the parent colonies as we couldn’t make daily observations with limited access to the building.”
“I had a project funded and in place to investigate a rare poppy specialist bee in the Mojave desert (Perdita meconis). This bee is being considered for federal listing and we were supposed to do some population assessment to try and determine where the bee lives and does not. Because the host flower blooms in April, we have had to postpone the research until next year.”
Conservation
For bees and other wildlife, a stretch of sand is a land of plenty
(Chesapeake Bay Program) Near a swampy forest littered with trash, two biologists went searching for insects. A chance of rain had dampened their morning prospects, but with the temperature climbing, the mild afternoon in March held the chance that their target species would be active: ground-nesting bees and tiger beetles. “Sand habitats are a cornerstone of where we go to look for rare things, but also should be the cornerstone of conservation.”
Wildflowers to be planted on top of Welsh bus stops to help attract bees
(The Telegraph) Wildflowers will be planted on top of bus stops in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, to help attract bees. The plans follow in the footsteps of the Dutch city of Utrecht which installed wildflowers on more than 300 of their bus stops last summer.
Economics
What is the Asian hornet invasion going to cost Europe?
(EurekAlert/Pensoft Publishers) Since its accidental introduction in 2003 in France, the yellow-legged Asian hornet is rapidly spreading through Europe. Within its native and invasive range, the hornet actively preys on honeybees. Due to its active praying on wild insects, the Asian hornet also has a negative impact on ecosystems in general and contributes to the global decline of pollination services and honey production. In a recent study, French scientists tried to evaluate the first estimated control costs for this invasion.
Bee Vectoring Technologies to begin first crop demonstrations in Morocco
(Yahoo Finance) BVT announced that it will start conducting trials in Morocco covering four different crops, including strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and tomato crops.
Science
WSU scientists enlist citizens in hunt for giant, bee-killing hornet
(Washington State University) In the first-ever sightings in the U.S., the Washington State Department of Agriculture verified two reports and received two unconfirmed reports of the Asian giant hornet late last year. WSDA scientists are working with WSU researchers, beekeepers and citizens to find, trap and eradicate the pest. At home in the forests and low mountains of eastern and southeast Asia, the hornet feeds on large insects, including native wasps and bees. In Japan, it devastates the European honey bee, which has no effective defense.
Museum of the Earth’s bees exhibit is now online
(Museum of the Earth) The current special exhibit at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, is “Bees! Diversity, Evolution, Conservation”. While the museum has made the decision to keep the physical building closed until further notice, they are pleased to announce that an online version of the exhibit is now available. The physical exhibit was developed in conjunction with Bryan Danforth, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology at Cornell University.
Technology
Pollen-based 'paper' holds promise for new generation of natural components
(EurekAlert/Nanyang Technological University) Scientists at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) have created a paper-like material derived from pollen that bends and curls in response to changing levels of environmental humidity. The ability of this paper made from pollen to alter its mechanical characteristics in response to external stimuli may make it useful in a wide range of applications, including soft robots, sensors, artificial muscles, and electric generators.
Photographing insects in the field: basic tips for success
(Entomology Today) If you’ve tried using a macro lens to photograph arthropods in the field, you know it can be far more challenging than shooting in the lab or studio. As the lens gets closer to the subject, a movement of even 1 millimeter can throw your target area out of focus. Here are some tricks we use to obtain sharper, more detailed, and better-composed macrophotographs in the field.
One More Thing…
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