One in four species of bee is at risk of extinction in North America. Buntysmum / Needpix
By Leslie Brooks
More than 75 percent of the world's food crops rely on pollinators, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Through their pollination, bees not only promote biodiversity, but also secure our food supply.
But one in four species of bee is at risk of extinction in North America, according to the United Nations Environment Program. And the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has recorded declines in bee populations in Europe, South America, and Asia.
<p>A combination of factors are contributing to the decline of bees, including habitat loss and degradation, pesticide use, the invasive parasitic <em>Varroa destructor</em> mite, and other <a href="https://ento.psu.edu/pollinators/resources-and-outreach/buzzkills-abiotic-and-biotic-stressors-of-pollinators" target="_blank">diseases</a>. The effects of climate change are compounding these stressors on bee populations worldwide.</p><p>But people around the world are working to create an environment that helps bees thrive. In honor of National Honey Month, Food Tank is highlighting 15 organizations and initiatives working to preserve the livelihood of bees, the ecosystem, and the global food supply.</p>
<p>1. Bees for Development, United Kingdom</p><p><a href="http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bees for Development</a> is an international organization that utilizes beekeeping as a tool to alleviate poverty and retain biodiversity around the world. They work in over 50 countries within local communities, and implement sustainable beekeeping techniques that use only local bees and local resources. They have an open-access information portal that provides information on bees and beekeeping worldwide. Bees for Development also provides advice and guidance to the World Bank, the United Nations, and other international organizations. </p><p>2. BEES for the World, Germany</p><p><a href="http://beesfortheworld.de/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BEES for the World</a> is dedicated to designing sustainable supply chains for high quality organic-certified bee products all over the world. Their commitment is to Biodiversity, Education, Empowerment, and Sustainability (BEES). They work primarily within African countries to support forest beekeeping. By empowering local communities in the production of high-quality beeswax and connecting them to markets, the group protects local ecosystems while fostering the creation of jobs. </p><p>3. Elephant and Bees Project, Kenya</p><p>What began as a strategic plan to save the elephants, grew into a conservation project for elephants and bees alike. The <a href="https://elephantsandbees.com/" target="_blank">Elephant and Bees Project</a> uses beehive fences – a natural deterrent of elephants – to keep elephants off of farmland, reducing crop damage. This not only increases protected habitats for bees, but also helps educate farmers on the relationship between bees and crop health. The project supports increased bee populations and works in multiple countries throughout Africa.</p>
<p>4. Federation of Nepal Beekeepers, Nepal</p><p>The <a href="http://www.fnbk.org.np/index.php" target="_blank">Federation of Nepal Beekeepers</a> was established in 1999 to support and empower local beekeepers throughout Nepal. This umbrella organization advocates for national policies that benefit beekeepers, their bees, and their livelihoods. The organization also works to increase the capacity of beekeepers by training and educating farmers on the importance of bees in pollination and pasture management. </p><p>5. Honeybee Research Institute, Pakistan</p><p>The <a href="http://www.parc.gov.pk/index.php/en/hb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Honeybee Research Institute</a> promotes beekeeping in Pakistan with the honeybee <em>Apis </em><em>mellifera</em>. While <em>Apis mellifera</em> honey bees were initially imported from Australia, the species has thrived in Pakistan since the late 1970s. With over 400,000 colonies present today, the bees contribute to increased honey production, income-production for rural populations, and increasing biodiversity. The Institute provides beekeeping training courses, promotes beekeeping for income generation, and has on-going research projects. </p><p>6. Pesticide Action Network Europe, Belgium</p><p>Founded in 1987, the <a href="https://www.pan-europe.info/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pesticide Action Network</a> (PAN Europe) is a network of consumer, public health, and environmental organizations, trades unions, women's groups, and farmer associations from across Europe. As advocates for a pesticide-free Europe, PAN Europe works closely with government representatives to try to reduce the use of hazardous pesticides. Through their European Citizens' Initiative, "Save Bees and Farmers", they are collecting signatures and calling on the European Commission to phase out synthetic pesticides in agriculture by 2035. </p>
<p>7. Pollinator Partnership Canada, Canada</p><p>As a leader in pollinator research and habitat improvement for over 20 years, <a href="https://pollinatorpartnership.ca/en/" target="_blank">Pollinator Partnership Canada</a> provides and supports various projects that help protect pollinators. They offer a Pollinator Steward Certification program for land managers, communities, and organizations. Pollinator Partnership also successfully advocated for Pollinator Week- inaugurally designated June 22-28, 2020 – in Canada to raise awareness about the importance of pollinators.</p><p>8. Purple Hive Project, Australia</p><p>Australia is the only continent not yet affected by the <em>Varroa destructor</em> mite, but researchers fear that Australian honey bees may soon be at risk. The <a href="https://purplehiveproject.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Purple Hive Project</a> is on a mission to prevent this mite – which decimates colonies and spreads honey bee viruses – from impacting honey bees in Australia. The Purple Hive uses Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) technology to detect the mite in real-time so that its spread can be prevented. Their long-term goal is to create a network of hives in high-risk locations across Australia. </p><p>9. Slovenian Beekeepers Association, Slovenia</p><p>The <a href="http://www.czs.si/wp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Slovenian Beekeepers Association</a>, originally founded in the late 1800s, offers key beekeeping knowledge and support within the country. The Association advocates and raises awareness on behalf of bees and their importance in the environment, provides beekeeping camps and workshops, and publishes a monthly beekeeping magazine. They are also registered as a research institution, where they develop safe bee products and research ways to protect the Carniolan bee, a type of honey bee indigenous to Slovenia. </p>
<p>10. The Bee Girl Organization, United States</p><p>Sarah "Bee Girl" Red-Laird founded <a href="https://www.beegirl.org/" target="_blank">The Bee Girl Organization</a> to inspire communities to conserve bees, flowers, and food. The Bee Girl team engages communities across the globe, providing educational classes and resources for regenerative beekeeping. In 2019, Bee Girl partnered with a local vineyard to initiate a Bee Friendly Vineyards pilot program. They planted 1800 square feet of sunflowers on a plot of unused land to attract bees to the area. This year, they are partnering with an additional vineyard to begin an in-depth research and habitat project. </p><p>11. The Honeybee Conservancy, United States</p><p><a href="https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Honeybee Conservancy</a> is dedicated to protecting bees and securing food justice through education, research, habitat creation, and advocacy. Their flagship program, Sponsor-A-Hive, places native bee homes within urban gardens, schools, and organizations that grow produce to bolster local ecosystems. Last year they unveiled an eight-foot-tall rooftop beehive on the Empire State Building, which will house over 70,000 honey bees. Their goal is to place one million bees to support communities of need across the U.S..</p><p>12. Under the Mango Tree, India</p><p><a href="https://www.utmt.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Under the Mango Tree</a> was founded with the mission to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in rural India. The organization teaches farmers how to maintain bee boxes on their farms and harvest honey, and connects them to markets to sell their honey. They specifically focus on the indigenous bee, <em>Apis cerana indica</em>, to increase pollination and crop yields. In addition, the organization has trained upwards of 1,000 women to be beekeepers.</p>
<p>13. United Nations Development Program, International</p><p>To help achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, the <a href="https://bees.undp.org/" target="_blank">United Nations Development Program</a> (UNDP) partners with local communities in multiple countries to work with smallholder beekeepers and farmers around the world. Through training and resources they help beekeepers earn a decent living and support the health of their communities, while providing a healthy habitat for bees. With help from the UNDP, beekeepers can more easily access markets and improve their livelihoods.</p><p>14. Wheen Bee Foundation, Australia</p><p>Gretchen Wheen, a pioneer in bee research and one of Australia's most well known beekeepers, donated her estate to establish the <a href="https://www.wheenbeefoundation.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wheen Bee Foundation</a> upon her passing in 2012. The Foundation promotes awareness of the importance of bees for food security and ecosystem health. It funds research and development projects that seek to improve the health of the local bee population. They are currently working in partnership with other organizations to save the Green Carpenter Bee on Kangaroo Island, as the island recovers from the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-07/quarter-of-kangaroo-islands-ligurian-beehives-lost/11845372" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">destructive fires</a> earlier this year. </p><p>15. World Bee Project, England</p><p>Using cloud computing technology, the <a href="http://worldbeeproject.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bee Project</a> created the world's first globally coordinated honeybee hive monitoring initiative. This Network will provide data that can inform international actions to improve pollinator habitats, food security, and nutrition. With this project, developers hope to deliver findings to smallholder farmers around the world.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/09/fifteen-organizations-and-initiatives-helping-to-save-the-bees/" target="_blank">Food Tank.</a></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Honeybee venom has shown promise against an aggressive type of breast cancer. Susan Walker / Moment / Getty Images
Could honeybees hold the key to treating an aggressive form of breast cancer?
A new study out of Australia found that honeybee venom rapidly killed the cells for triple-negative breast cancer, a type of breast cancer that currently has few treatment options.
<p>"It provides another wonderful example of where compounds in nature can be used to treat human diseases," said Western Australia Chief Scientist Professor Peter Klinken in a <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200901093412.htm" target="_blank">Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research press release</a>.</p><p>The research, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41698-020-00129-0" target="_blank">published in Nature Precision Oncology</a> Tuesday, was led by Dr. Ciara Duffy of the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and the University of Western Australia.</p>
<div id="82bdc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ed2c281143c65c36dc400dc7f947a8a8"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1300955670452158464" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Perkins and @uwanews researcher Dr Ciara Duffy has found that honeybee venom can induce cancer cell death in hard t… https://t.co/N29IwLsu0s</div> — The Perkins (@The Perkins)<a href="https://twitter.com/PerkinsComms/statuses/1300955670452158464">1599006977.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>As far back as 1950, bee venom was shown to kill tumors in plants. It has also been shown to work against other cancers like melanoma, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53994058" target="_blank">BBC News explained</a>. However, Duffy said in the press release that this was the first time honeybee venom had been tested against every type of breast cancer cell, as well as normal breast cells.</p><p>Duffy and her team tested both the venom itself and a synthetic version of a compound in the venom called melittin. They found that both were effective against triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells. In fact, a certain concentration of honeybee venom could kill 100 percent of cancer cells without seriously impacting healthy ones.</p><p>"The venom was extremely potent," Duffy said.</p><p>Duffy explained to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-01/new-aus-research-finds-honey-bee-venom-kills-breast-cancer-cells/12618064" target="_blank">Australia's ABC News</a> how the melittin worked.</p><p>"What melittin does is it actually enters the surface, or the plasma membrane, and forms holes or pores and it just causes the cell to die," Duffy said.</p>
<p>The researchers also found that the melittin interfered with the cancer cells' messaging system, which is essential for the cancer to reproduce and grow.</p><p>The fact that melittin makes holes in the cancer cells actually means it could potentially be paired with existing chemotherapies that would enter the cancer cells through the openings it carved and kill them. Duffy found this treatment strategy worked to shrink tumors in mice.</p><p>However, outside <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scientists" target="_self">scientists</a> cautioned that there is a big difference between killing cancer in a lab and successfully treating it in humans.</p><p>"It's very early days," Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney associate professor Alex Swarbrick told BBC News. "Many compounds can kill a breast cancer cell in a dish or in a mouse. But there's a long way to go from those discoveries to something that can change clinical practice."</p>
<p>Duffy agreed that more research had to be done before the melittin could be used on human patients.</p><p>"There's a long way to go in terms of how we would deliver it in the body and, you know, looking at toxicities and maximum tolerated doses before it ever went further," she told ABC News.</p><p>For the study, Duffy gathered venom from 312 honeybees and bumblebees in Perth, Western Australia; England; and Ireland.</p><p>"Perth bees are some of the healthiest in the world," she said.</p><p>She found that the national origin of the honeybees did not alter their venom's impact on the cancer. The bumblebee venom, however, had no cancer-killing powers.</p>
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Honey Bees Can’t Practice Social Distancing, So They Stay Healthy in Close Quarters by Working Together
16 August
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By Rachael Bonoan and Phil Starks
As many states and cities across the U.S. struggle to control COVID-19 transmission, one challenge is curbing the spread among people living in close quarters. Social distancing can be difficult in places such as nursing homes, apartments, college dormitories and migrant worker housing.
<p>
As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F4R8GeDV0D7J0vQFYo0EIN7WE8S0Xsrf4iyl4ou0xv5TZonYueaMbYJDhdcKG2t9nSNTBoqL1mmVdkOJC3x69uokwCbiw&user=KF4sBDIAAAAJ" target="_blank">behavioral ecologists</a> who have studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=B6WmgvLL8vMC&hl=en" target="_blank">social interactions in honey bees</a>, we see parallels between life in the hive and efforts to manage COVID-19 in densely populated settings. Although honey bees live in conditions that aren't conducive to <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-distancing-works-just-ask-lobsters-ants-and-vampire-bats-135383" target="_blank">social distancing</a>, they have developed unique ways to deal with disease by collectively working to keep the colony healthy.
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Life in a Crowd
<p>Honey bees, like humans, are highly social organisms. A honey bee colony is a bustling metropolis made up of of thousands of individuals.</p><p>Three "types" of bees share space inside the colony. The queen, who is the only reproductive female, lays eggs. Drones, the male bees, leave the hive to mate with queens from other colonies. Workers – sterile females – make up the bulk of the colony and do all the nonreproductive work. They construct wax comb, collect and bring back food, tend to the young and more.</p><p>Members of a colony work so well together that the colony can be referred to as a "<a href="https://www.npr.org/2008/11/29/97547749/the-secret-society-of-superorganisms" target="_blank">superorganism</a>" – a highly connected community that functions like a single being.</p><p>Being this social comes with many benefits: Just ask any single parent how helpful it would be right now to live in a community that featured cooperative child care! But it also imposes costs – notably, the spread of disease. Inside the hive, worker bees transfer nectar to each other, essentially swapping the essential ingredient for honey. They crawl on top of each other and bump into others all the time.</p><p>What's more, humans keep many honey bee colonies next to each other for agricultural purposes. This creates unnatural, densely populated "cities" of these superorganisms, where pests and disease can spread rampantly.</p>Social Immunity
<p>Like humans, individual worker bees have immune systems that recognize invading pathogens and fight to get rid of them. However, there are some classes of pathogens that the honey bee immune system <a href="https://insectessociaux.com/2018/11/02/honey-bee-immunity-more-specific-than-we-thought" target="_blank">does not seem to recognize</a>. Bees thus need a different tactic for fighting them.</p><p>For these threats, honey bees defend the colony via social immunity – a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00186" target="_blank">cooperative behavioral effort</a> by many bees to protect the colony as a whole. For example, worker bees remove diseased and dead young from the colony, reducing the likelihood of transmitting infections to other bees.</p><p>Worker bees also line the hive with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1051/apido/2010016" target="_blank">an antimicrobial substance called propolis</a>, made from plant resin that they collect and mix with wax and bee enzymes. Applied to hive walls and between cracks, this "bee glue" kills various types of pathogens, including the bacterium that causes a dreaded honey bee disease called <a href="https://beeaware.org.au/archive-pest/american-foulbrood/#ad-image-0" target="_blank">American foulbrood</a>.</p><p>Another pathogen, the fungus <em>Ascosphaera apis</em>, causes a honey bee disease known as <a href="https://beeaware.org.au/archive-pest/chalkbrood/#ad-image-0" target="_blank">chalkbrood</a>. Because the fungus is heat sensitive, chalkbrood usually does not affect a strong honey bee hive, which maintains its own temperature somewhere between 89.6 degrees F and 96.8 degrees F. But when a colony is small or the outside temperature is cool, as in an early New England spring, chalkbrood can become a problem.</p><p>The chalkbrood pathogen affects young honey bees, or larvae, which become infected when they are fed spores from infected food. It lies dormant in the larval gut waiting for the temperature to drop below 86 degrees F. If this happens, the pathogen grows inside the larval stomach and eventually kills the young bee, turning it into a white chalk-like mummy.</p><p>When this pathogen is detected, worker bees protect the vulnerable young by contracting their large flight muscles to generate heat. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s001140050709" target="_blank">raises the temperature in the brood comb area of the hive</a> just enough to kill the pathogen. (Honey bees use heat for many reasons: to optimize offspring development, to fight pathogens, and even to "<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/3/120316-hot-bee-balls-hornets-insects-brains-animals-science/" target="_blank">bake" invading hornets</a>.)</p><p>In a recent study, we investigated how the efficiency of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-020-00754-5" target="_blank">colony-level fever</a> might change with colony size. At the <a href="https://ase.tufts.edu/biology/labs/starks/" target="_blank">Starks Lab Apiary</a>, we infected colonies of various sizes with chalkbrood and tracked the response of the colonies with thermal imaging.<br></p><p>Larger colonies successfully generated a colony-level fever to fight the disease. Smaller colonies struggled, but individual bees in the smaller colonies worked harder to raise the temperature than those in the larger colonies. Even if they fail, the bees don't cave in to fever fatigue by abandoning the fight.</p>In the Hive, Public Health is for Everyone
<p>Like honey bee colonies in agricultural fields, many humans live in extremely dense conditions, which has been especially problematic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The point of social distancing is to act as if we live in lower densities by wearing masks, keeping at least 6 feet away from others and allowing fewer people in stores.</p><p>Data from early in the pandemic show that social distancing was slowing the spread of the virus. But then humans became <a href="https://theconversation.com/complying-with-lockdown-does-become-harder-over-time-heres-why-138691" target="_blank">lockdown-fatigued</a>. By summer, many people were no longer social distancing or wearing masks; on average, individuals were <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/07/05/maskless-parties-and-crowded-beaches-across-us-as-coronavirus-spikes-over-holiday-weekend/" target="_blank">doing less to slow the spread of the virus than in April</a>. The five-day running average of new U.S. cases <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases" target="_blank">rose</a> from less than 10,000 in early May to more than 55,000 by late July.</p><p>Although honey bees cannot wear masks or socially distance, each individual worker contributes to the public health of the colony. And they all follow the same practices.</p><p>They also excel at making group decisions. For example, when it comes time to choose a new home, a worker bee who has checked out a new nest site <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/02/19/172385254/the-filibuster-solution-or-what-if-honeybees-ran-the-u-s-senate" target="_blank">dances to promote it to other bees</a>. The more suitable the site, the longer and harder she will work to convince the others.</p><p>If others express agreement – via dancing, of course – the colony moves to the new nest site. If the bees do not agree, that specific dance stops, that option eventually falls out of favor, and the search continues. In this way, only a group of informed supporters can win the day.</p><p>As many commentators have observed, the strong focus on <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/masks-coronavirus-america.html" target="_blank">freedom and individualism in American culture</a> has hampered the U.S. response to COVID-19. We see honey bees as a valuable counter-model, and as powerful evidence that social benefits require a community.</p><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachael-bonoan-387475" target="_blank">Rachael Bonoan</a> is an Assistant Professor at Providence College. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/phil-starks-412898" target="_blank">Phil Starks</a> is an Associate Professor of Biology at Tufts University.</em></p><p><em><strong>Disclosure statement: </strong></em></p><p><em>Phil Starks receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</em></p><p><em>Rachael Bonoan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/honey-bees-cant-practice-social-distancing-so-they-stay-healthy-in-close-quarters-by-working-together-141106" target="_blank" style="">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Bees are responsible for pollinating key crops like apples, and their decline now threatens crop yields. Pikist
Without bees, future generations may not be able to identify with adages like, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."
Crop yields for key crops like apples, cherries and blueberries are down across the U.S. because of a lack of bees in agricultural areas, a Rutgers University-led study published Wednesday in The Royal Society found. This could have "serious ramifications" for global food security, reported The Guardian.
<p>The scientists wanted to understand the degree to which insect pollination, or lack thereof, actually limits current crop production. Surveying 131 locations across major crop-producing areas of the U.S., they found that five out of seven crops showed evidence of "pollinator limitation" and that yields could be boosted with full pollination, the study said. </p>
<p>"The crops that got more bees got significantly more crop production," said Rachael Winfree, an ecologist and pollination expert and the senior author of the paper, reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "I was surprised, I didn't expect they would be limited to this extent."</p><p>The <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0922" target="_blank">research</a> further noted that pollinator declines could "translate directly" to decreased production of most of the crops studied and that wild bees "contribute substantially" to the pollination of most studied crops.</p><p>Declines in both managed honeybees and wild bees raise serious concerns about global food security, the study said, because most of the world's crops rely on pollinators.</p><p>Bees and other pollinators like bats and birds underpin the global food system, but their <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-lockdowns-bees-2646042322.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" target="_self">populations are dwindling due to human activity including settlement building, pesticide use, monoculture farming and climate change</a>. This is part of what many are calling the "<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/insect-apocalypse-2634239696.html" target="_self">insect apocalypse,</a>" a precipitous decline in insects across the globe.</p><p>Wild bees, in particular, suffer from loss of flowering habitat, toxic pesticide use, and climate change, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported, and managed honeybees have fallen to disease. Overall, three-quarters of the world's food crops are dependent up pollinators and could falter due to lack of bees, the news report added.</p><p>According to the <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/384726/icode/" target="_blank">United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization</a>, crop production has increasingly become dependent upon insects and other pollinators over the past 50 years by 300%, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported. At the same time, farming has become more intensive to produce enough volume to feed a growing global population, the news report said, by flattening wildflower meadows, spraying insecticides and using monoculture crops ‒ all tactics which damage bee populations.</p><p>"Pollination shortfalls" could cause certain fruits and vegetables to become rarer and more expensive, The Guardian reported. This could trigger nutritional deficits in diets as fresh foods are replaced by rice, wheat and corn, which are pollinated by wind rather than insects.</p>
<p><br></p><p>The <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0922" target="_blank">study</a> estimated that the five limited crops are valued at over $1.5 billion annually, and decreased yields or production seriously undercut that. They also noted that the value of all pollinator-dependent crops is much higher. A 2019 <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-biodiversity-loss-hurts-humans-as-much-as-climate-change/a-48579014" target="_blank">UN-backed assessment</a> estimated that pollinator loss could threaten $235-577 billion in annual crop output globally.</p><p>The study suggested adopting better conservation or augmentation methods for wild bees, such as enhancing wildflowers, using managed pollinators other than honey bees to boost crop yields and investing in honey bee colonies, reported <a href="https://www.futurity.org/bees-crop-yields-pollinators-2412322-2/" target="_blank">Futurity</a>. The paper also recommended farmers review how much pollination might be needed to boost crop yields and assess whether pesticide and fertilizer levels used remains appropriate, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/29/bees-food-crops-shortage-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>"The trends we are seeing now are setting us up for food security problems," Winfree told The Guardian. "We aren't yet in a complete crisis now but the trends aren't going in the right direction. Our study shows this isn't a problem for 10 or 20 years from now – it's happening right now."</p>
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Holger Casselmann / Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
The climate crisis has caused Japanese cherry blossoms to bloom in October and sped the arrival of spring in much of the U.S. But it turns out that humans aren't the only animals who can trick plants into flowering early.
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<p>Scientists have discovered that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" target="_self">bumblebees</a> can cause plants to flower as much as 30 days ahead of schedule by biting their leaves.</p><p>"I think it's fascinating how much we still don't know about organisms that we think we know really well," study coauthor and ETH Zurich professor Consuelo De Moraes <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52759804" target="_blank">told BBC News</a>. "It absolutely increases our sense of wonder at the cleverness of nature in all its many forms."</p>
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<p>The discovery, published in <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6493/881" target="_blank">Science Friday</a>, was made by accident. One of De Moraes' students, Foteini Pashalidou, observed buff-tailed bumblebees making small slits in the leaves of greenhouse plants, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/bumblebees-bite-plants-flower-early/" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> explained. However, the bees didn't appear to eat the leaf bits or bring them back to their nests.</p><p>The researchers did notice that the bees from colonies with less food were the ones most damaging the leaves, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/hungry-bumblebees-make-plants-flower-early-cutting-holes-their-leaves" target="_blank">Science reported</a>. This led the scientists to wonder if the bees were trying to get the plants to flower early out of hunger, so they set up an experiment to test this hypothesis, as Science described:</p><blockquote>The researchers set up a greenhouse experiment with black mustard (<em>Brassica nigra</em>), a crop they had been studying. Ten plants were put in mesh bags with bumble bees that hadn't eaten any pollen for 3 days; they proceeded to nibble five to 10 holes in each plant. On average, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aay0496" target="_blank">those plants flowered after 17 days</a>; undamaged plants that had not been exposed to bumble bees took an average of 33 days, the researchers report today in Science. In a similar experiment, tomato plants sped up their flowering by 30 days.</blockquote>
<p>Further experiments confirmed that the behavior was motivated by hunger. Pollen-deprived bees cut four times as many holes in lab leaves as fully fed bees. Outside the lab, bees cut holes in plants on a rooftop garden in early spring, but stopped doing so as frequently once more flowers began to bloom. The researchers also observed leaf-biting in two wild species: red-tailed and white-tailed bumble bees.</p><p>"That was super exciting," De Moraes told Science.</p><p>While this behavior is new to scientists, we may have encountered its evidence for years without realizing it. </p><p>"You see these semi-circular sort of incisions, often in the leaf," coauthor Dr Nark Mescher told BBC News. "One of the students was saying that they were eating a salad the other day, and they saw that kind of damage on the leaf that was probably from a bumblebee."</p>
<p>Beyond its novelty, the finding has important implications for bumblebees' ability to adapt to the climate crisis, National Geographic explained. As warmer spring temperatures cause <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators" target="_self">pollinators</a> to awaken before plants flower, this activity could ensure early-rising bees find food. It might also help farmers increase human food supply if they can copy the bees' technique.</p><p>But so far the researchers aren't sure how the bees' trick works. Attempts to duplicate it in the lab by damaging leaves in similar ways were only partially successful.</p><p>"We really tried to replicate it with the best of our ability," De Moraes told BBC News. "It's possible that the bees also have some cue that they are providing to the plants that is specific to the bee. And that could be secretions that we don't know about, but it's something that we plan to investigate."</p>
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Beekeeper Younes Kheir shows Julia Klöckner, federal minister of Food and Agriculture, honeycombs on World Bee Day, May 20, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Carsten Koall / picture alliance via Getty Images
By Ajit Niranjan
Coronavirus lockdowns that keep farmers from fields and suppliers from markets are restricting another cornerstone of the agriculture industry: bees.
<p>Responsible for pollinating about a third of the plants we eat, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bees" target="_self">bees</a> are in short supply and their numbers are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/insect-apocalypse-dying-ecosystem-species-loss-a-52160360/a-52160360" target="_blank">declining globally</a>. In large, food-exporting countries like the U.S. and China, there are too few local bees to pollinate crops — so beekeepers truck hives thousands of kilometers to pollinate fields.</p><p>Now, travel restrictions to halt the spread of the coronavirus are hurting the pollination industry by keeping bees at home. They are also stopping some beekeepers from feeding their hives, grounding flights that could import bees from abroad, and making it harder to hire seasonal workers to transport them, said Etienne Bruneau of Apimondia, the international federation of beekeepers. Some farmers "arrive in the [pollinating] season without bees and nobody to help them."</p>
<p>In the U.S., which is the world's biggest agricultural exporter but has fewer beehives than Spain, farmers rely on bees trucked long distances on pallets and forklifted into fields. California grows more than 3 in 4 of the world's almonds and each spring about two-thirds of the country's bee population is mobilized to pollinate them. The bees are then loaded onto trucks and sent elsewhere to fields of cherries, apples, blueberries, cranberries, pumpkins and other foods.</p><p>Pollination services contribute $15-20 billion (€13.7- €18.3 billion) to the value of U.S. crop production and, for many beekeepers, it is more lucrative than making honey. When bees gather nectar, pollen sticks to their bodies and rubs off onto other plants they land on. Harvest losses without their help can range from 5-10% for grains like rapeseed to as high as 80% for almonds and cherries, said Bruneau. </p>
<h3>Food Security</h3><p>Bees, together with pollinators like bats and birds, underpin the global food system. But their populations are dwindling and colonies collapsing as a result of human activity like building settlements, overusing pesticides, farming with monocultures and changing the climate through greenhouse gas emissions. A UN-backed assessment of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-biodiversity-loss-hurts-humans-as-much-as-climate-change/a-48579014" target="_blank">life on earth</a> last year found that pollinator loss threatens $235-$577 billion in annual crop output.</p><p>While experts say the food security risk from restrictions to bee movements is small, it represents yet another coronavirus-induced shock to a global food system already reeling from the pandemic. The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/world-food-program-act-now-to-prevent-coronavirus-famine/a-53219305" target="_blank">World Food Programme</a> warned last month that COVID-19 could double the number of people facing acute hunger — currently estimated at 135 million people — by the end of 2020.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">Climate change</a>, conflict and poverty have worked together to drive food crises.</p><p>Across East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/locust-swarm-africa-wildfires-australia-climate/a-52208213" target="_blank">swarms of locusts</a> have ravaged vegetation after a year of weather extremes that included abnormally heavy rains and strong cyclones. While African bees have not been greatly affected by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/do-coronavirus-lockdowns-in-africa-make-sense/a-53228689" target="_blank">lockdowns</a> — unlike in North America and Asia, beekeepers typically use fixed hives and do not move them large distances — pesticides to fight locusts have, in turn, hurt pollination, said David Mukomana, Apimondia's Africa president.</p><p>"Many [farmers] resorted to aerial sprays that had serious effects on many pollinating insects, bees included."</p><p>Meanwhile, across Asia and South America, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/food-security">food security</a> is particularly threatened by a growing dependence on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators">pollinators</a>, according to a study published in the journal Global Change Biology last year. Areas that are more biologically diverse encourage pollination, researchers say, but countries are farming in ways that hurt <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a>.</p><p>What's more, the increase in pollinator dependency has not been matched by a rise in managed honeybees, the authors wrote, adding that this was an "alarm call" for pollinator-friendly farming methods such as targeted use of insecticide and planting hedgerows next to crops.</p><p>"The picture is worse for wild pollinators that are in decline in several regions," the authors wrote.</p>
<h3>Learning From Bees</h3><p>Even as lockdowns keep industrial bees grounded, wild bees may benefit from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-air-pollution-might-raise-risk-of-fatality/a-52977422" target="_blank">a drop in pollution and traffic</a> as humans stay at home. A study published in the <em>Journal of Insect Conservation</em> in 2015 estimated that billions of pollinating insects were killed on roads each year in North America alone. A global fall in transport may have kept some bees safe.</p><p>Yet despite these short-term benefits, "lockdown will do virtually nothing to reverse the major causes of bumblebee declines, which are habitat loss and degradation," a spokesperson from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said.</p><p>Bees also have their own viruses to deal with. Like people, honeybees live in large groups and thrive on social interactions.</p><p>"That poses risks when it comes to pathogen transmissions," said Adam Dolezal, an insect scientist at the University of Illinois. "If a pathogen evolves that can circumvent those risks, the bees have to respond or become more infected."</p>
<p>Honeybees may be in an "evolutionary arms race" with the deadly Israeli acute paralysis virus, according to a study published in the journal <em>PNAS</em> last month. While bees are known to socially distance from infected nest mates and touch each other less, the virus has evolved a way of sneaking sick bees past guards of other colonies and spreading itself into new hives.<br></p><p>In the wild, where beehives are sparsely spread and there is little interaction between colonies, this evolutionary trait offers little advantage. But in industrial farms — with up to thousands of bees per square kilometer — it gives viruses a greater chance of starting new outbreaks.</p><p>It suggests that intensive agriculture can increase the danger of pathogens that target insects, as well as humans and other animals. Modern farming practices have come under scrutiny since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic as scientists have sounded alarm bells about the dangers of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-pandemic-linked-to-destruction-of-wildlife-and-worlds-ecosystems/a-53078480" target="_blank">habitat destruction and zoonotic diseases</a>.</p><p>This doesn't mean we should stop keeping bees this way, but it does show how manipulating natural environments can give advantages to viruses, said Dolezal, who co-authored the study. "We should be on the lookout for places where pathogens can find chinks in the armor of the organism."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/bees-coronavirus-lockdowns-pollination/a-53500622?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">DW</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A blue bee on a firebush in Palm Beach, Florida on Sept. 10, 2016. Bob Peterson / CC BY 2.0
Scientists have "rediscovered" a rare blue bee that they feared was extinct.
<p>Until this spring, the "ultra-rare" blue calamintha bee (<em>Osmia calaminthae</em>) had only been observed in four locations in central Florida, and it hadn't been seen at all since 2016. So when <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/" target="_blank">Florida Museum of Natural History</a> research team Chase Kimmel and Jaret Daniels set out to document the bee's population status and habits, they weren't sure what they would find.</p><p>"I was open to the possibility that we may not find the bee at all so that first moment when we spotted it in the field was really exciting," Kimmel, a postdoctoral researcher, said in a museum <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/floridas-rare-blue-calamintha-bee-rediscovered/" target="_blank">press release</a>.</p>
<div id="e4e3a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d3d0ff48bece951400e71a2b8a3c59fb"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1258421385090805766" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#Florida’s rare blue calamintha bee was feared extinct until researchers in @jcdaniels lab rediscovered the species… https://t.co/BbdU6ZDrJq</div> — Florida Museum (@Florida Museum)<a href="https://twitter.com/FloridaMuseum/statuses/1258421385090805766">1588866013.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Kimmel first spotted the bee March 9, he told <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/16/rare-blue-calamintha-bees-spotted-lake-wales-ridge-florida/5207086002/" target="_blank">USA TODAY in an email</a>. Since then, he has spotted the elusive pollinator in three of its previous locations and six additiona locations, according to the museum.</p><p>The research could have important implications for the bee's chances of survival. Florida's State Wildlife Action Plan lists the bee as a species of greatest <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> need, and the study will help determine if it warrants <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species-act" target="_self">Endangered Species Act</a> protections.</p><p>The bee is so vulnerable in part because it is thought to rely on a threatened plant called Ashe's calamint and live only in Florida's Lake Wales Ridge region, a hotspot of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> that the museum calls "one of the nation's fastest-disappearing ecosystems."</p>
<p>The ridge hosts so much unique life because, when most of Florida was underwater, it was raised above the waves in high sand dunes that acted like islands, giving isolated ecosystems a chance to flourish. Now, these habitats are islands of pine scrub in a sea of orange groves.</p><p>"It's one thing to read about habitat loss and development and another to be driving for 30-40 minutes through miles of orange groves just to get to a really small conservation site," Kimmel said. "It puts into perspective how much habitat loss affects all the animals that live in this area."</p>
<p>The bee also exhibits unique behaviors. It gathers pollen by bobbing its head side to side to collect it on its facial hairs. The very first time he saw the bee, Kimmel got a chance to see this in action.</p><p>"We observed a shiny little blue bee grabbing the flower and rubbing its head on the top portion of the flower two or three times before moving on to another flower," <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/16/us/florida-blue-calamintha-bee-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">Kimmel told CNN</a>. "In reading about this unique behavior we were pretty shocked to see it."</p><p>Kimmel and Daniels' research is set to last two years and determine the bee's feeding and nesting habits. So far, the team has found another plant the bee will use if it can't find Ashe's calamint.</p>
<p>The research has been hampered somewhat by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> pandemic, since travel restrictions mean Kimmel is in the field alone during the bee's flight season from mid-March to early May.</p><p>"It's a very time-limited flight. Now is when the bulk of that activity has to take place," Daniels, who is acting as Kimmel's adviser and is also the director of the museum's <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/index.php/mcguire/home/" target="_blank">McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity</a>, said in the press release. "Chase is doing a fantastic job and we're getting a lot of great data, but if it wasn't for the COVID-19 virus we would have had more people in the field, so it has definitely scaled back what we're able to do."</p>
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Asian giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia japonica) drinking sap from tree bark in Japan. Alpsdake/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA
By Akito Y Kawahara
Editor's note: According to recent press reports, two Asian giant hornets – a species not known to occur in North America – were found in northwest Washington state in late 2019, and a hornet colony was found and eliminated in British Columbia. Now scientists are trying to determine whether more of these large predatory insects are present in the region. Entomologist Akito Kawahara explains why headlines referring to "murder hornets" are misleading.
<p><br/></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/akito-y-kawahara-739749" target="_blank">Akito Y Kawahara</a> is an Associate Professor and Curator of Insects at Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida.<br/></em></p><p><em>Disclosure statement: </em><em>Akito Y Kawahara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-asian-giant-hornets-and-are-they-really-dangerous-5-questions-answered-137954" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em></p>
1. How Common Are These hornets in Asia, and How Much Alarm Do They Cause?
<p>The Asian giant hornet (<em>Vespa mandarinia</em>) is fairly common in many parts of Asia, where it is called the "Giant hornet." Growing up in Japan, I saw them relatively frequently in the mountains outside of Tokyo.</p><p>These insects are large and distinctive, with a characteristic orange head and black-banded orange body. Like any other social wasp, they will defend their nest if the colony is disrupted. But in most cases they will not do anything if people aren't aggressive toward them.</p><p>Giant hornets have longer stingers than a honeybee's, and hornets do not break off their stingers when they sting. Because hornet stingers can puncture thick clothing, people should avoid hornets and their nests whenever possible.</p><p>Giant hornets frequently are attracted to tree sap: I was stung by one when I was looking for butterflies on trees. The sting is painful, but the swelling and pain in most cases subside in a few days.</p><p>Just as with honey bee stings, an allergic reaction, or anaphylaxis, can occasionally put people in the hospital. In rare cases, <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bee-stings/symptoms-causes/syc-20353869" target="_blank">severe reactions can become fatal</a>. But wasp and hornet stings killed <a href="http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~vespa/vespa0562.htm" target="_blank">less than 13 people a year in 2017 and 2018 in Japan</a> – less than 0.00001% of the national population – in a country where many people spend time in the woods.</p><p>If you are allergic to bee and wasp stings, it is best to avoid getting close to these insects and their nests, wear white clothing outdoors (they are attracted to dark colors), and avoid carrying open-top sweet drinks such as sodas in the woods.</p>
2. Are You Surprised That the Hornets Have Appeared in North America?
<p>To some degree, yes. Most likely, a single, fertile queen hornet entered Canada via shipping packaging and created the colony that was discovered in 2019.</p><p>It's easy for invasive species to travel this way. More than 19,000 cargo containers <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/policing-americas-ports-108008881/" target="_blank">arrive daily at U.S. ports</a>, and inspectors can only do random searches of shipping containers. One estimate suggests that just <a href="https://www.ncrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/jrnl/2001/nc_2001_haack_004.pdf" target="_blank">2% of shipments</a> are searched for evidence of harmful organisms such as plant pests. Many invasive species are intercepted, but some do get through.</p><p>It's very unlikely that an entire colony of hornets was transferred to North America. Colonies of this hornet are often large, and the hornets would be visible and potentially aggressive if their nest were disturbed.</p><p>A genetic test indicated that one of the hornets found in Washington was <a href="https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2020/05/06/murder-hornets-invade-headlines-not-us" target="_blank">not related to the Canadian colony</a>, but those results have not been published or peer reviewed. The Giant hornet has not been found in 2020 in either the U.S. or Canada.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3OTM0OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NjY1MzYxMX0.r_Wa-PDa8oNFiB_ociakQHDhDnjSqAmc7nVin0-0FYQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="f4562" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cdc146b7493cb5256374321f9336ca5d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Four wasp and hornet species often confused with the Giant hornet. Upper left: European hornet (Vespa crabro). Upper right: Common aerial yellowjacket (Dolichovespula arenaria). Lower left: European paper wasp (Polistes dominula). Lower right: Baldfaced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata). gailhampshire (upper left), Gilles Gonthier (upper right), Judy Gallagher (bottom images), all via Flickr, CC BY
3. What Kind of Conditions Do These Insects Need to Live?
<p>Giant hornets are fairly common in mountainous regions of Asia, but they're not often seen in large cities or highly urbanized areas. They usually nest at the base of large trees and inside dead logs. The fact that they can't tolerate extremely hot or <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25008806" target="_blank">cold temperatures</a> makes it unlikely that they would spread to very hot or cold areas of North America.</p><p>If active colonies are discovered in 2020 in the Pacific Northwest, which has a more temperate climate, it's possible that they could spread there. However, it is unlikely that this would happen quickly, as foraging ranges of <em>Vespa</em> are only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185172" target="_blank">about 2,300 feet (700 meters) from their nest</a>.</p><p>The key to prevent spread is surveillance. Anyone in the Pacific Northwest should be alert for Giant hornets while they are outdoors this summer and fall.</p>4. If More Hornets Are Found, Could They Threaten Honeybees and Other Pollinators?
<p>Possibly. Some media posts have described destruction of honeybee nests by what could have been Giant hornets, but honeybees are not these insects' only prey. The hornets feed on different kinds of insects, and bring captured dead prey back to their hive to feed to their young.</p><p>In Japan, beekeepers surround their hives with <a href="https://shop.r10s.jp/diokasei/cabinet/suzume/imgrc0068904247.jpg" target="_blank">wire screen nets</a> to protect them from hornets. North American beekeepers can replicate these with wire netting from local hardware stores.</p><p>Many honeybees in Asia have the ability to protect their hive from intruding Giant hornets by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2007.07.033" target="_blank">scorching them</a>. They wait for a hornet to enter their nest, then mob it by surrounding it completely with their bodies. Each honeybee vibrates its wings, and the combined warming of honey bee bodies raises the temperature in the center of the cluster to 122 degrees F (50 degrees C), killing the hornet. Carbon dioxide levels in the nest also increase during this process, which contributes to the hornet's death.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="21f08ef1a03946a68aa8e913227b5eb8"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/awoV5Wj9Iys?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awoV5Wj9Iys#action=share" target="_blank">youtu.be</a></p>
5. Are News Stories About “Murder Hornets” Overreacting?
<p>Yes, very much so. In parts of Japan, people consider these hornets beneficial because they remove pests, such as harmful caterpillars, from crops. They are also thought to contain nutrients, and have been used as ingredients in <a href="https://www.splendidtable.org/story/the-japanese-tradition-of-raising-and-eating-wasps" target="_blank">Japanese food and some strong liquors</a>. Some people believe the hornets' essence has medicinal benefits.</p><p>People who live in Vancouver, Seattle or nearby should certainly take note of what these insects look like. They are 2 inches long or more, with a <a href="https://extension.psu.edu/asian-giant-hornets" target="_blank">3-inch wingspan</a>, and have distinctly orange heads and broad striped orange and black-banded abdomens. That's different from typical North American hornets, which have yellow or white bodies with black marks.</p><p>In the unlikely case that you see a Giant hornet in Washington state, do not try to remove nests yourself or spray hornets with pesticides. Cutting down trees to prevent nesting sites is also unnecessary, and can affect many other kinds of native wildlife, including beneficial insects that are needed for pollination and decomposition. Many native insects are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-011019-025151" target="_blank">declining globally</a>, and it's important to make sure these insects are not affected.</p><p>Instead, take a photo from a distance and report it to the <a href="https://agr.wa.gov/departments/insects-pests-and-weeds/insects/hornets" target="_blank">Washington State Department of Agriculture</a>. Photos are essential to verify that identifications are accurate.</p><p>Consider also uploading your images to <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/" target="_blank">iNaturalist</a>, which is one of the primary sources for information on tracking wildlife. The images are archived and carry data, such as location, time of observance and the insect's morphological features, that scientists can use for research. </p>From Your Site Articles
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The Asian giant hornet, the world's largest, was spotted for the first time in the U.S. in December. Photography by Shin.T / Moment / Getty Images Plus
Invasive "murder hornets" have been spotted in the U.S. for the first time, prompting concerns for the nation's honeybees and the trajectory of a year that has already brought locust invasions and a global pandemic.
<p>Four sightings of the world's largest hornets — officially called the Asian giant hornet (<em>Vespa mandarinia</em>) — were reported and verified in Washington State in December 2019, <a href="https://agr.wa.gov/departments/insects-pests-and-weeds/insects/hornets" target="_blank">according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA</a>). But "murder hornet" began trending after the publication Saturday of a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/us/asian-giant-hornet-washington.html?campaign_id=51&emc=edit_MBE_p_20200504&instance_id=18199&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=88631294&section=whatElse&segment_id=26545&te=1&user_id=d8eb7cee9d3c5ab39515239b6ec54d19" target="_blank">New York Times</a> piece about Washington's efforts to find and eradicate the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects" target="_self">insects</a> before they take hold, as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/asian-giant-hornet-invasion-becomes-latest-2020-concern-n1199046" target="_blank">NBC News reported</a>.</p><p>"Murder hornets. Sure thing, 2020," actor and comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted. "Give us everything. Hypno-frogs. Fecal blizzards. Toilet tsunamis. A CATS sequel. We can take it."</p>
<div id="72bfb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b14dede7f55875db4ef9a466cacc6d4f"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1256634924997607424" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Murder hornets. Sure thing, 2020. Give us everything. Hypno-frogs. Fecal blizzards. Toilet tsunamis. A CATS sequel.… https://t.co/tblYGIT3kT</div> — Patton Oswalt (@Patton Oswalt)<a href="https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/statuses/1256634924997607424">1588440087.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>But for honeybees, the Asian giant hornet is no joke. The hornets enter a "slaughter phase" where they decapitate bees, WSDA said. They destroy an entire hive within hours and then claim it as their own, feeding the brood to their young.</p><p>Washington beekeeper Ted McFall told The New York Times of driving home in November to find a pile of decapitated bee carcasses on the ground.</p><p>"I couldn't wrap my head around what could have done that," McFall told The New York Times. He later came to suspect murder hornets, though this has not been confirmed.</p><p>There have also been sightings of the hornet across the border in British Columbia, but at least one of the Canadian hives was proven to be unconnected to one of the Washington hornets, meaning the insect was likely introduced to the region at least twice.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5a0c3060cc2a0d28f28e80f8e4243672"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/36TFu_W1Vio?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>While the hornets do not typically attack humans or pets unless threatened, their stings are extremely painful and can be deadly. They earned the nickname "murder hornet" because their group attacks can expose the victim to as much venom as a snake bite, Kyoto Sangyo University researcher Jun-ichi Takahash told The New York Times. In Japan, they kill as many as 50 people a year.</p><p>"It was like having red-hot thumbtacks being driven into my flesh," Conrad Bérubé, a beekeeper who was stung while exterminating a hive on Vancouver Island, told The New York Times of the experience.</p><p>The hornets are 1.5 to two inches long and have a yellow or orange head with bulging eyes and a black and yellow striped abdomen, according to WSDA.</p><p>"They're like something out of a monster cartoon with this huge yellow-orange face," Washington State University's (WSU) Department of Entomology bee breeder Susan Cobey said in a <a href="https://news.wsu.edu/2020/04/06/wsu-scientists-enlist-citizens-hunt-giant-bee-killing-hornet/" target="_blank">university press release</a>.</p>
<div id="1e9eb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4cc32dfb0ee30802bf777cd7c53dc593"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1257081857402826752" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#ICYMI Here is our image comparing #AsianGiantHornet to other flying insects. No, its name is not the #murderhornet https://t.co/cwIgIPGC1t</div> — WA St Dept of Agr (@WA St Dept of Agr)<a href="https://twitter.com/WSDAgov/statuses/1257081857402826752">1588546644.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>WSU is working with WSDA, beekeepers and citizen scientists to locate and contain the hornets now that they are beginning to become active again. Queens usually emerge from hibernation in April, but the species is most destructive in the late summer and early fall.</p><p>If scientists can't stop the hornets' spread, it is uncertain what it would mean for the nation's bees. In Japan, they are a serious problem for European honeybees, who have no natural defenses. A similar hornet introduction to Europe saw beehives decline 30 percent and their honey tally fall by as much as two-thirds, WSDA eradication coordinator Rian Wojah told <a href="https://time.com/5831256/asian-hornets-murder-hornets/" target="_blank">TIME</a>.</p><p>WSU entomologist Todd Murray said he was worried about what the hornets' spread would mean for a state that relies on bees to pollinate crops like apples and cherries. He warned <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/invasive-species" target="_self">invasive species</a> could change ecosystems permanently.</p><p>"Just like that, it's forever different," Murray said. "We need to teach people how to recognize and identify this hornet while populations are small, so that we can eradicate it while we still have a chance."</p><p>If you see an Asian giant hornet and live in Washington state, you can help by reporting it to the WSDA Pest Program at 1-800-443-6684, pestprogram@agr.wa.gov or online at <a href="https://agr.wa.gov/departments/insects-pests-and-weeds/insects/hornets" target="_blank">agr.wa.gov/hornets</a>. If you live outside Washington and think you spot one of the hornets, WSDA advises you contact your state or province's department of agriculture.</p>
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Deadly Pathogen Alters Honey Bee Behavior to Gain Access to Foreign Hives, Researchers Find
30 April
Animals
Honey bees touch their mouthparts and antennae together to share food and information, but the practice also can transmit viruses. Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois
Honey bees guarding the entrances to their respective hives are twice as likely to allow access to virus-infected trespassers, suggesting that the pathogen is capable of altering the insect's behavior and physiology to boost its spread to neighboring colonies.
<p>Israeli acute paralysis virus (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/israeli-acute-paralysis-virus" target="_blank">IAPV</a>) is a widespread virus that has been <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1004261" target="_blank">linked</a> with colony losses, such as the mysterious outbreak of honey bee <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070906140803.htm" target="_blank">Colony Collapse Disorder</a> across the U.S. Publishing their work in <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/21/2002268117" target="_blank"><em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em></a>, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign determined that the virus is capable of changing certain host behaviors and physical traits, particularly in social contexts, of one of the world's most critical pollinators.</p><p>"The most important finding of our study is that IAPV infection increases the likelihood that infected bees are accepted by foreign colonies," <a href="https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/808197" target="_blank">said</a> lead study author and professor of <a href="https://sib.illinois.edu/entomology/" target="_blank">entomology</a> <a href="https://sib.illinois.edu/profile/adolezal" target="_blank">Adam Dolezal</a>. "Somehow, the infected bees are able to circumvent the guards of foreign colonies, which they shouldn't be able to do."</p>
<p>IAPV is considered a "category of concern" and previous research has shown that honey bees infected with the virus are more likely to get lost when returning to their home hives. To determine how the pathogen manipulates host behavior, researchers built on previous work that employed an automated system to study bees' use of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347203922561" target="_blank">trophallaxis</a>, the regurgitation of food and other liquids to feed colony members.</p><p>"Honey bees use trophallaxis to share food with each other as well as hormones and other signaling molecules that can affect their physiology and behavior. They do it in pairs by touching their mouthparts and antennae, and each bee does this with hundreds of partners a day," said study co-author and entomologist <a href="https://www.igb.illinois.edu/people/eab" target="_blank">Gene Robinson</a>.</p><p>"Trophallaxis is essential to the spread of information and nutrition throughout the hive, but unfortunately, a behavior performed with such close social contact also allows viral infections to be transmitted through a hive."</p>
<p>Bees were tagged with a barcode for continuous monitoring to determine how IAPV affects the use of trophallaxis. Observations showed that individuals infected with IAPV were just as mobile but engaged less in trophallaxis with home colony members, which protected their hive from viral infection. However, when a honey bee was placed at the entrance of a <em>foreign </em>hive, bees were more likely to engage through trophallaxis with guards – and those guards were then more likely to permit hive entrance to infected bees than healthy ones.</p><p>Further analysis determined that the virus also changes the chemistry of hydrocarbons that coat the bees' exoskeletons – in essence changing how they smell – suggesting that the infected bees may also be "behaving in a way that is meant to appease the guards by engaging more in trophallaxus."</p><p>The findings show that the virus is evolving in ways that enhance its ability to spread, which could be detrimental to honey bee colonies in the long-run. Human-induced environmental changes create conditions that make emerging diseases more likely – a problem that the study authors write is "likely to worsen as humans continue to move domesticated species around the world and adopt increasingly intense management practices."</p>
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Trending
A red admiral butterfly stands on a flower in an urban garden in the city center on August 9, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. Sean Gallup / Getty Images
If you haven't noticed as many bees, butterflies and fireflies as you used to, there's a good reason for that.
<p>It turns out that insects that live on land have seen their population decline 9 percent every decade, which means we have lost nearly one-fourth of them over the last 30 years and 50 percent of them over the last 75 years, according to a new analysis published in <em><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aax9931" target="_blank">Science</a></em>, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/23/world/insect-declines-scn/index.html" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p><p>"And because it's a mean, there are places where it is much worse than that," Dr. Roel van Klink, an ecologist at the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, told the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52399373" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p>
<p>"Insect declines happen in a quiet way and we don't take notice from one year to the next. It's like going back to the place where you grew up. It's only because you haven't been there for years that you suddenly realize how much has changed, and all too often not for the better," added van Klink from the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/23/world/insect-declines-scn/index.html" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> story.</p><p>The losses were strongest in the West and Midwest in the U.S. and in Europe, especially in Germany, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52399373" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p>
<p>The analysis looked at 166 long-term surveys from almost 1,700 sites between 1925 and 2018. It found that some insects were not following the trend. In fact, freshwater insects like mosquitoes and midges were increasing their numbers by about 11 percent per decade, which is likely due to conservation efforts to clean up polluted rivers and lakes. However, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/23/insect-numbers-down-25-since-1990-global-study-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> noted, these bugs make up only 10 percent of insect species and do not pollinate crops.</p><p>"Insect populations are like logs of wood that are pushed under water. They want to come up, while we keep pushing them further down. But we can reduce the pressure so they can rise again," said van Klink in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/23/world/insect-declines-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> report. "The freshwater insects have shown us this is possible. It's just not always easy to identify the causes of declines, and thus the most effective measures to reverse them. And these may also differ between locations."</p>
<p>The researchers said the study is by no means complete, and there is an urgent need to accelerate the study of insect populations to paint a clearer picture. The rapid decline of insects worldwide has concerned scientists. Insects are among the most abundant and diverse species on the planet. They serve vital functions in preserving ecosystems, from aerating the soil to pollination and recycling of nutrients, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52399373" target="_blank">BBC</a> reported.</p><p>The researchers would like to see data from understudied areas like South America, South Asia and Africa, where there is virtually none. They said that the rapid destruction of wild habitats in these places for farming and urbanization is likely to have drastically reduced insect populations, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/23/insect-numbers-down-25-since-1990-global-study-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>Professor Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex, who was not involved in the new analysis, told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/23/insect-numbers-down-25-since-1990-global-study-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, "People should be as concerned as ever about insects. It is great news that some aquatic insects seem to be increasing, probably from a very low level. But the bulk of insects are terrestrial and this new study confirms what was already clear: they have been declining for many decades."</p><p>The researchers do not take much heart from the increase in freshwater insect populations.</p><p>"The area of freshwater we have on earth is just a small percentage of the total land mass, so the numbers of freshwater insects will never be able to compensate for the terrestrial insects," van Klink related to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52399373" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p>
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5 Biggest Pesticide Companies Are Making Billions From 'Highly Hazardous' Chemicals, Investigation Finds
20 February
Health + Wellness
Worker spraying toxic pesticides or insecticides on corn plantation. D-Keine / E+ / Getty Images
Poor people in developing countries are far more likely to suffer from exposure to pesticides classified as having high hazard to human health or the environment, according to new data that Unearthed analyzed.
<p>The analysis shows that the world's top five pesticide makers are making billions, accounting for more than 36 percent of their income, from chemicals that are proven to hazards to humans and the environment and are contributing to the precipitous demise of bee populations, as Unearthed reported.</p>
<p>The researchers found that the sale of these highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), disproportionately occurred in poorer nations, which often have fewer regulations than industrialized nations, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/firms-making-billions-from-highly-hazardous-pesticides-analysis-finds" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. In India, for example, sales of HHPs were nearly 60 percent, while in the UK it was just 11 percent. </p>
<p>The report from the investigative team at Unearthed focused on the practices of Bayer, BASF, Corteva (formerly Dow and DuPont), FMC and Syngenta, which are continuing to sell HHPs like neonicotinoids and glufosinate that have been banned in other parts of the world, according to the produce industry publication <a href="http://www.fruitnet.com/fpj/article/180959/pesticide-firms-profit-off-hazardous-products-says-report" target="_blank">Fresh Produce Journal</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">Unearthed</a> dove into data collected by Phillips McDougall, the leading agribusiness analysts, from buyer surveys that concentrated on the best sellers in the top 43 pesticide buying countries, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>While regulations have stopped the sale of certain pesticides in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, it has hardly slowed down chemical companies, which sold $4.8 billion worth of products containing HHPs in 2018, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/firms-making-billions-from-highly-hazardous-pesticides-analysis-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. Bayer called the analysis "misleading" but did not offer proof of that assessment.</p>
<p>Since the investigation focused on just 43 countries, it covered less than half of the companies' global sales. That suggests that the companies actually made billions more from pesticides that regulatory agencies have said pose hazards like acute poisoning or chronic illness in people, or high toxicity to bees and other wildlife, <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">according to Unearthed</a>. </p>
<p>The investigation found that pesticide manufacturers sold the majority of its highly hazardous pesticide in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India, where experts say the risks posed by using these chemicals are greatest, according to Unearthed. The biggest market for HHPs were for corn and soya crops. </p>
<p>About a quarter of sales were from products known to be human carcinogens or dangerous to reproductive health. Another 10 percent were toxic to bees. An additional 4 percent of chemicals sold are acutely toxic to humans. Every year, nearly 200,000 suicides are linked to pesticide poisoning, almost entirely in developing countries, according to The Guardian. </p><p>"This investigation shows that there is a huge disconnect between what those companies are saying in the international policy arena and what they are actually doing," Meriel Watts, a senior science and policy advisor to the Pesticide Action Network, said to Unearthed.</p><p>Baskut Tuncak, the United Nations' <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/ToxicWastes/Pages/BaskutTuncak.aspx" target="_blank">special rapporteur on toxic substances</a> and human rights, told <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">Unearthed</a>, "There is nothing sustainable about the widespread use of highly hazardous pesticides for agriculture."</p><p>"Whether they poison workers, extinguish biodiversity, persist in the environment, or accumulate in a mother's breast milk, these are unsustainable, cannot be used safely, and should have been phased out of use long ago," Tuncak said.</p>
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A bumblebee on a Dusky Cranesbill geranium plant on May 14, 2018 in London, England. Victoria Jones - WPA Pool / Getty Images
Rampant pesticide use and habitat loss has already crippled bumblebee populations. New research now shows that warming temperatures around the world will further push bumblebees to the brink of extinction, as The New York Times reported.
<p>The loss of bumblebees spells trouble for plant <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> since they are some of the most important <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators" target="_self">pollinators</a> in the world. Bumblebees pollinate and fertilize a wide array of plants and crops, including tomatoes, blueberries and squash. However, if you are in North America, you are nearly 50 percent less likely to see a bumblebee in any given area than you were prior to 1974, according to the new research, as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> reported.</p><p>The new research, published in the journal <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6478/685" target="_blank">Science</a>, employed a massive dataset and a complex modeling system to look at bee populations and to find the reason for their decline. The researchers found that bee populations have experienced the largest decline in places that have warmed at a faster rate than the rest of the planet.</p>
<p>Some bumblebee species have disappeared from areas where they once flourished. For example, the rusty-patched bumblebee once thrived in Ontario, but now it is no longer found in Canada. In the U.S., it is <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered</a>, as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> reported.</p><p>"The things [we] grew up with as kids are fading away very fast," said Dr. Jeremy Kerr, senior author of the study and a biology professor at the University of Ottawa, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/us/bumble-bee-climate-change-extinction-study-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>"It's not just that we're looking at what our kids will experience; it's that we are looking back not even a full generation, just to when we were kids, and saying, 'Could we take our children to places we loved and find what we found?' What our study says is that that answer is no across entire continents."</p><p>The scientists at the University of Ottawa looked at 66 different bumblebee species across two continents. They found that bumblebee populations have declined by 46 percent in North America and by 17 percent in Europe compared to the period from 1901 to 1974, according to the <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6478/685" target="_blank">study</a>.</p>
<p>"The scale of this decline is really worrying," said Peter Soroye, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the study, to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/06/climate/bumblebees-extreme-heat-weather.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. "This group of organisms is such a critical pollinator in wild landscapes and agricultural regions."</p><p>To build their model, the researchers relied on a database of roughly 550,000 bee records over a century. The researchers looked at two time periods: 1901 to 1974 and 2000 to 2015. Then they examined if temperatures and precipitation exceeded the bumblebees' tolerance level, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/us/bumble-bee-climate-change-extinction-study-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>Bumblebees, which prefer cooler, slightly wet temperatures, perished in areas that had heat waves, prolonged dryness, or frequently <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" target="_self">extreme weather</a>. That pattern, which is commensurate with the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, threatens bumblebees with extinction and from the possibility of establishing colonies or creating new species, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/us/bumble-bee-climate-change-extinction-study-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>.</p>
<p>Kerr said that there are several mechanisms at play. Bees can simply overheat. Or, as plants wither, the bees starve. Additionally, early springs and re-freezings threaten queens, which spend the winter in forest leaf litter, as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> reported.</p><p>The loss of bees may have a devastating effect on plants that rely on them and animals that rely on those plants.</p><p>"As these plants are then used by myriad other organisms, the decline of bumblebees can have cascading ecological [effects] that may collectively cause biodiversity loss," said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew_Austin3" target="_blank">Matthew Austin</a>, a Ph.D. student and researcher at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who wasn't involved in the paper, to <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/#close" target="_blank">National Geographic</a>.</p><p>"Our results show that we face a future with many less bumble bees and much less diversity, both in the outdoors and on our plates," said Soroye in a University of Ottawa statement.</p>
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