Bees

We love to hate wasps, but they pollinate flowers, kill off pests and their venom might even help us treat cancer Life 18 March 2020 By Richard Jones Many people equate “wasps” with these yellow-and-black insects, but there are over 100,000 specieslessy doang/getty imagesEVERYBODY loves bees. They are celebrated for…

With the urban concrete jungle pushing insects out and forcing bees to travel farther and farther between green areas, we are facing decreasing insect- and, most alarmingly, bee-populations. But these projects have made a home for insects in urban areas to help get the city buzzing with insect life. Refugio…

Loading metrics Open Access Peer-reviewed Research Article Logan R. Appenfeller,  Sarah Lloyd,  Zsofia Szendrei x Published: March 10, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230007 AbstractNative bees provide essential pollination services in both natural and managed ecosystems. However, declines in native bee species highlight the need for increased understanding of land management methods that can…

Written by TR Shankar Raman | Updated: March 9, 2020 2:01:45 pm The Red Carpet: A red silk cotton tree towers over the canopy in the Western Ghats. (Courtesy: Divya Mudappa)The scarlet dome erupts over the rainforest canopy. On this cool, clear January morning in the mountains, the tree emerges…

Monty revisits one of his classic books, Gardening at Longmeadow, in the first of an occasional series. The sweet violet, Viola odorata, is one of the most quietly modest and yet beautiful of all flowers. Although perfectly suited to any garden and wonderful in pots on a windowsill or balcony, they are…

Chris Hiatt knows he's had a good summer for honey when he can barely close his hands by the end of the season. At Hiatt Honey, his family's business, he regularly moves around hive boxes that weigh up to 70 pounds. "It is hard work, man," Hiatt, also the vice…

Bees perform around 80% of all pollination worldwide, and support around $20 billion of crop production in the United States alone. Their numbers are in rapid decline. For over a decade bees have been disappearing in what National Geographic has coined the “colony collapse disorder” (30% of flying insects may…

Entomologists at UC Riverside have documented that a species of native sweat bee widespread throughout North and South America has a daily routine that makes it a promising pollinator. Because the bee can thrive in environments that have been highly modified by humans, such as cities and agricultural areas, it…

While rummaging through part of Amsterdam's city park, citizen scientists discovered new insect species. Their aim was to show that even in Earth's busiest places, biodiversity is still underexplored. Vondelpark, Amsterdam's public urban park in the southwest of the city, is anything but a remote place. Even on a weekday,…

Image: Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-NC Just like humans, animals like living near coastal plains and waterways. In fact, cities such as Sydney and Melbourne are “biodiversity hotspots” – boasting fresh water, varied topographies and relatively rich soil to sustain and nourish life. Recent research showed urban areas can support…