Just a comment… Its spring and my car is covered in tree pollen… Could some hungry bees please go clean that stuff up? People’s allergies are kicking in.
Colonies fed with the enriched diet were more likely to continue rearing brood up to the end of the three-month period, whereas colonies on sterol-deficient diets ceased brood production after 90 days.
Uhh m not crazy right, that’s the same thing?
Some were observed brooding for up to 12 weeks!
I’m with you, it’s confusing. But I think what it means is this:
The study ran for 90 days. Non-sterol bees had stopped doing bee sex by then. Sterol bees were doin it all the way up to the end of the 90 days - and then the study ended. We can therefore assume they wanted to continue having freaky beedsm sex for even longer.
It has what bees crave!!
Allow native wild flowers and plants to grow and get rid of the damn grass.
It’s the bees needs.
This is the most uplifting science article I’ve read in a while. The process they describe in the article sounds long and involved with many dependent steps. Great work!
Sterols. Lipids found in pollen. Specifically, yeast enriched with sterols.
Doing great work. Thanks.
And of course! Sterols! What I’ve been saying all along!
TL;DR: They found six sterols found in pollen could be produced from engineered yeast and increased brood production dramatically. The article talks about them as essential nutrients but is it possible they are signaling molecules affecting bee behavior?
I thought the reason they die was pollution. I’m confused at why some new nutrient would save them.
There’s a lot of problems bees (both honey bee and native bees) are facing. There’s varroa mite, a virus spread by mites, pesticides, pollution, habitat loss, monoculture… a lot of stuff. However, healthy bees are more resilient, so healthy hive is much more likely to shrug off a event that could be “the straw that broke the camels back” for a weakened malnourished hive.
For anyone wanting to save the bees, look into making bee hotels. If you have a power drill and a variety of small bits, easy money. Spend a half hour watching videos, not too much to learn. They’re basically free to make if you can lay your hands on some wood or non pressure-treated lumber. Chunk the old one every year and roll an new one.
Damned cool when you see your first guests having waxed off the entrance hole!
I researched that, maybe it’s just in Australia but apparently the bees here don’t use those bee hotels? They apparently just get stacked with earwigs. I read the best thing you can do for bees here is plant native flowering plants like the Bottle Brush, and let leaves biodegrade naturally instead of hoovering em up.
Easy money? Do they pay rent?
I thought that honeybees were the last bees that we should be saving since they harm native bee populations, which are move vulnerable.
The European honeybee in the Americas is kinda a double edged sword. It’s an invasive species, which both steals resources from and spreads diseases to native bees. However, for better or worse at this point a good portion of agriculture is dependent upon the European honey bee.
… And they produce honey, which I like.
Um, isn’t this like majorly good news? Like maybe among our most important discoveries?
Sorta. If you’re a beekeeper I can see this being a major deal. Not clear on how hard this yeast is to grow or how well the process scales.
Bees got a threefold problem, and we need to get at the roots of the issue.
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Pesticides and herbicides. Won’t happen, but governments need to ban these products for consumers, restrict them to professionals. Karen and Ken don’t need a perfect lawn sacrificing the bottom of the food chain.
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We need to grow more, and more indigenous, plants of all kinds. Working on it in my yard, doing well so far. Last year the bumblebees were so loud I thought it was construction on the next block over. :)
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Verona mites are a monster issue. They came to America in the 90s and are whipping our ass. Haven’t looked into beekeeping for awhile, not sure where we’re at with that.
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