What do cucumbers, mustard, almonds and alfalfa have in common? On the surface it appears to be very little. However, there is one thing they do share: They all owe their existence to the service of bees. There is more to the tiny striped helper than sweet honey and a painful sting. For millennia, it has carried out its service [...]

As spring begins, the surviving bees in the hive pick up their first task of the new year: dumping the corpses of the bees that died over winter.

Trees, shrubs and woody vines are among the top food sources for honey bees in urban environments, according to an international team of researchers. By using honey bees housed in rooftop apiaries in Philadelphia, the researchers identified the plant species from which the honey bees collected most of their food, and tracked how these food resources changed from spring to fall. The findings may be useful to homeowners, beekeepers and urban land managers who wish to sustain honey bees and other bee and pollinator species.

Modifying bacteria found in the guts of bees could help protect the insects against lethal infections affecting hives worldwide

Climate change has significantly increased the likelihood of bumblebees being driven to extinction in certain regions across North America and Europe

We love to hate wasps, but they pollinate flowers, kill off pests and their venom might even help us treat cancer

We love to hate wasps, but they pollinate flowers, kill off pests and their venom might even help us treat cancer

Andre J. Riveros, Anne S. Leonard, Wulfila Gronenberg, and Daniel R. Papaj

Similar to animal communication displays, flowers emit complex signals that attract pollinators. Signal complexity could lead to higher cognitive load, impairing performance, or might benefit pollinators by facilitating learning, memory and decision-making. Here, we evaluate learning and memory in foragers of the bumble bee Bombus impatiens trained to simple (unimodal) vs. complex signals (bimodal) under restrained conditions. Use of a proboscis extension response protocol enabled us to control the timing and duration of stimuli presented during absolute and differential learning tasks. Overall, we observed broad variation in the performance under the two conditions, with bees trained to compound bimodal signals learning and remembering as well as, better, or more poorly than bees trained to unimodal signals. Interestingly, the outcome of training was affected by the specific colour-odour combination. Among unimodal stimuli, the performance with odour stimuli was higher than with colour stimuli, suggesting that olfactory signals played a more significant role in the compound bimodal condition. This was supported by the fact that after 24 h, most bimodal-treatment bees responded to odour but not visual stimuli. We did not observe differences in latency of response, suggesting that signal composition affected decision accuracy, not speed. We conclude that restrained bumble bee workers exhibit broad variation of responses to bimodal stimuli and that components of the bimodal signal may not be used equivalently. The analysis of bee performance under restrained conditions enables accurately control the multimodal stimuli provided to individuals and to study the interaction of individual components within a compound.

David J. Pritchard and Mario Vallejo-Marin

Vibrations play an important role in insect behaviour. In bees, vibrations are used in a variety of contexts including communication, as a warning signal to deter predators and during pollen foraging. However, little is known about how the biomechanical properties of bee vibrations vary across multiple behaviours within a species. In this study, we compared the properties of vibrations produced by Bombus terrestris audax (Hymenoptera: Apidae) workers in three contexts: during flight, during defensive buzzing, and in floral vibrations produced during pollen foraging on two buzz-pollinated plants (Solanum, Solanaceae). Using laser vibrometry, we were able to obtain contactless measures of both the frequency and amplitude of the thoracic vibrations of bees across the three behaviours. Despite all three types of vibrations being produced by the same power flight muscles, we found clear differences in the mechanical properties of the vibrations produced in different contexts. Both floral and defensive buzzes had higher frequency and amplitude velocity, acceleration, and displacement than the vibrations produced during flight. Floral vibrations had the highest frequency, amplitude velocity and acceleration of all the behaviours studied. Vibration amplitude, and in particular acceleration, of floral vibrations has been suggested as the key property for removing pollen from buzz-pollinated anthers. By increasing frequency and amplitude velocity and acceleration of their vibrations during vibratory pollen collection, foraging bees may be able to maximise pollen removal from flowers, although their foraging decisions are likely to be influenced by the presumably high cost of producing floral vibrations.

We’re back for another week of wacky antics and thrilling adventures! Wait, we just talk about RPG news don’t we? But we have thrilling news!...

A protein-coding gene called GB45239 is responsible for thelytokous parthenogenesis — the ability to produce daughters asexually — in the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis), a subspecies of honeybee found in the two southern provinces of South Africa, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The female worker caste of the [...]

Asian giant hornet, which became more active in the state in April, is the world’s largest and can kill humans with multiple stings

• Alarm over deaths of bees from rapidly spreading viral disease
  

Researchers and citizens in Washington state are on a careful hunt for invasive “murder hornets”, after the insect made its first appearance in the US.

The Asian giant hornet is the world’s largest and can kill humans. But it is most dangerous for the European honeybee, which is defenseless in the face of the hornet’s spiky mandibles, long stinger and potent venom.

The Asian giant hornet stings through clothing like a red-hot needle and slaughters honeybees by the thousands.

With almost all football off because of the coronavirus, star players have found themselves at a loose end. How are they filling their time?

Marshwood Vale, Dorset: It began in March, when the buff-tailed queens emerged from hibernation, zigzagging from bloom to bloom

In the garden on a bright morning, with sunshine lancing the cherry blossom, my eye is drawn to the fat glitter of a queen bumblebee gathering nectar in the golden bowl of a tree peony flower. A black, almost velvety, body and rich orange-tipped rump indicate that this is a red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius). Her wings shine as if newly waxed, while her tongue briskly probes a tassel of stamens. After a few seconds she’s off to check the next bloom – then airborne again, zooming over the wall.

Lockdown has replaced the background hum of distant traffic with the low, blundering drone of bumblebees. It began in March when buff-tailed queens emerged from hibernation, zigzagging across the lawn. Buff-tails are easily recognised by their size – the queens can be more than 2cm long – and their markings, two well-separated yellow bands and a brown-tinged tail-tip. Because they nest in holes in the ground, they are also called earth bumblebees (Bombus terrestris). The name is like an anchor, tethering a creature of sunlight, pollen and warmth to the chthonic darkness underground.

"Theo Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons

Appeals court calls EPA approval of bee-threatening sulfoxaflor “based on flawed and limited data.”

I grew up in the West of England. I like hard cider. And as a failed beekeeper, I owe a deabt of gratitude (or guilt?) to our furry pollinating friends. So I was delighted to hear that one purveyor of hard cider is

As part of their "I Have a Green Job" series, Grist talks to Michael Thompson, a professional bee keeper and co-founder of Chicago Honey Co-op, an agricultural cooperative that's dedicated to chemical-free beekeeping.When

The plight of the bumblebee is a matter of great concern. Their numbers are declining, some species are on the brink of extinction and colony collapse disorder has spread in the U.S. Albert Einstein may (or may not) have said

Earlier in the week, the New York Times reported that bees in Brooklyn had started turning red, and their honey was looking like bright red goo. It turned out that

Two years after legalizing urban beekeeping New York City could be running out of space for bees.

What happens when you find bees have made your home into their hive? You call Mike 'The Bee Guy' and document it their removal.

Was he a role model or a victim?

Do posh bees make better honey? These bees, living in the heart of Mayfair, only forage in the best places such as St. James Park and Buckingham Palace.

The most important pollinators on the planet are disappearing in areas where temperatures are getting hotter.

It's a surprisingly simple DIY project.

This self-sustaining mini-ecosystem is made by a designer who wants to create habitable structures that are also themselves alive.

One in three bites of food depends on pollinators; these images show how bleak our plates would be without our partners in pollination.

Welcome to your dystopian nightmare installment #4692.

Beekeepers will soon be able to track the health of their colonies right from their smartphone.

The Africanized bees slipped in through a small opening, set up home, and were busy making honey.

In defense of biomimicry and of scientific research with no foreseeable applications

Boring old bee hives get exciting with these curly shaped structures, built by bees that don't sting.

Listen to the Betty Boops of the insect world as they "boop oop a doop" in the hive.

The colorful papier-mache cocoons provide a safe haven for bringing baby bees into the world.

Big fuzzy bumblebees do plants a favor, while smaller bee species steal pollen from plants with little in return

ZGF builds interesting hives on the roof of a fascinating building.

These clever, all-natural wraps cut down on plastic use and make food last longer, too.

Michael Thiele is 'rewilding' honeybees in California, returning them to more natural nest environments in order to help them survive.