The mystery of the worrisome decline in the numbers of bees needed to pollinate plants may have been solved: It all comes down to modern farming methods. Modern farmers, especially in the US where the problem is worst, tend to plant a single crop, such as corn. But in order to develop a strong immune system that can ward off the mites that tend to infect a hive, bees need to eat pollen from a VARIETY of plants.
read more
Will there be flowers (and food crops) next spring? European Honey bees are dying off, leading farmers to worry about how to pollinate their fields. A replacement for them might be the native American bumble bee. A recent study shows that native bumble bee species have consistently high pollination and seed production levels in red clover. What will happen next year? Could they be as successful with farm crops?
read more
Here’s another reason why honeybees may be disappearing: the electromagnetic waves given off by cell phone towers may cripple their navigational abilities.
A recent study done in India reveals that a sudden decrease in the bee population in New Delhi is linked to the installation of a series of new cell phone towers there, as phone companies increase their networks. The researchers found that when a cell phone was kept near a beehive, worker bees were unable to find their way home, leaving the hives with only the queens and eggs. The affected bee colony collapsed with 10 days.
read more
What attracts them to flowers? Iridescence! – We know what blind people see in their dreams, but what do bees see?why do they zoom in on certain nectar-rich flowers and ignore others? It?s not just the colors they?re attracted to, it’s their shimmering iridescence.
In the January 2nd edition of the Independent, John von Radowitz explains that bees can see colors and “landing strip” markings on flowers that are invisible to us. One of the things that attracts them the most is a pearly luminescence of the kind that we can see in an oil slick on a highway. CDs are another example of a man-made iridescent item. Iridescence depends on surface structure of the petal, so the tones change according to the angle at which the flower is seen.
read more