(Michigan Radio) Winters are warming faster than other seasons across much of the United States. While that may sound like a welcome change for those bundled in scarves and hats, it’s causing a cascade of unpredictable impacts in communities across the country – impacting pollinators and the plants they’re connected with. Temperatures continue to steadily rise around the globe, but that trend isn’t spread evenly across the map or even the yearly calendar.
(ABC) Humans are one of very few animals known to be able to recognize objects across senses. This ability exists at least partly because we are able to imagine the object in our brain. Researchers from the U.K. and Australia now report they have evidence that bumble bees can also create mental imagery.
(The Conversation) As awareness increases about native bee death, some companies are taking advantage of public concern by touting their products as bee-friendly or making other claims. This marketing strategy, called bee-washing by critics, uses the plight of bees to mislead consumers.
(The Sealy News) Texas law allows bees and beehives to qualify for reducing property taxes on plots ranging from five to 20 acres similar to livestock or raising hay.
(British Ecological Society) Researchers from Scotland’s Rural College joined forces with 22 pollinator experts from across Europe to evaluate how different Ecological Focus Area options varied in their potential to support insect pollinators such as bumble bees, solitary bees and hoverflies. Despite significant investment in EFAs, the study found they are failing to provide all the resources insect pollinators require.
(The Guardian) Pollination has become big business, and thieves are now targeting hives with growing sophistication in the U.S. The heists are often undertaken in the dead of night using forklifts and trucks. Hives are regularly split open or dismantled, interventions that can kill tens of thousands of the kidnapped bees. The problem has become severe enough in California that certain police officers now specialize in hive crime.
(The Guardian) A controlled experiment reveals how high wind speeds can significantly reduce the efficiency of foraging honey bees. With no wind, the bees on average took nectar from 5.45 flowers during their 90-second time trial. When wind speeds were increased, this fell to an average of 3.73 flowers. Over the course of a day, a bee’s capacity to supply its colony with food would be significantly curtailed.
(The Star Tribune) Lawmakers may give cities throughout Minnesota the authority to ban some widely used pesticides – including neonicotinoids – as native bumble bee and pollinator populations continue to collapse. The recently-introduced measure would grant each city the choice to issue a blanket ban on a group of pesticides that the Minnesota Department of Agriculture has labeled as lethal to pollinators.
