1,503 results
- Animals
Bumblebees lose most of their sense of smell after heat waves
A few hours in high temps reduced the ability of antennae to detect flower scents by 80 percent. That could impact the bees’ ability to find food.
- Life
A vaccine for bees has an unexpected effect
Honeybees vaccinated against a bacterial disease were also protected from a viral disease.
- Health & Medicine
Honeybees can “smell” lung cancer
Bees can detect the scent of lung cancer in lab-grown cells and synthetic breath. One day, bees may be used to screen people’s breath for cancer.
- Ecosystems
Flowers may be big antennas for bees’ electrical signals
The finding suggests a way for plants to share information about nearby pollinators and communicate when to trigger nectar production.
- Animals
A decades-old mystery has been solved with the help of newfound bee species
Masked bees in Australia and French Polynesia have long-lost relatives in Fiji, suggesting that the bees’ ancestors island hopped.
- Animals
Static electricity may help butterflies and moths gather pollen on the fly
Electrostatically charged lepidopterans could draw pollen out of flowers without touching the blooms, computer simulations suggest.
- Animals
Hibernating bumblebee queens have a superpower: Surviving for days underwater
After some bumblebee queens were accidentally submerged in water and survived, researchers found them to be surprisingly tolerant of flooding.
- Life
Some honeybees in Italy regularly steal pollen off the backs of bumblebees
New observations suggest that honeybees stealing pollen from bumblebees may be a crime of opportunity, though documentation of it remains rare.
- Animals
Ants changed the architecture of their nests when exposed to a pathogen
Black garden ants made tweaks to entrances, tunnels and chambers that may help prevent diseases from spreading.
- Math
How geometry solves architectural problems for bees and wasps
Adding five - and seven - sided cells in pairs during nest building helps the colonyfit together differently sized hexa gonal cells , a new study shows.
- Life
‘Polyester bees’ brew beer-scented baby food in plastic cribs
Ptiloglossa bees’ baby food gets its boozy fragrance from fermentation by mysteriously selected microbes.
- Life
Flowers pollinated by honeybees make lower-quality seeds
Honeybees are one of the most common pollinators. But their flower-visiting habits make it harder for some plants to produce good seeds.
