Bees that nest in petals

A rare species of solitary bees found in the Middle East, Osima avoseta, constructs its nests from petals, creating chambers of pink, yellow, blue, and purple for its larvae. The colorful nests moist, secure chambers for ...

Insect research gives humans six legs up

(PhysOrg.com) -- You could say that Bert Hölldobler's career began during a childhood walk in the Bavarian woods with his father. The elder Holldobler turned over a rock out in the forest, exposing a colony of carpenter ...

The long quest for the right pollen: how to really help bees

Planting bee-friendly plants seems to be the new fad in many cities around the globe. In the UK, amateur gardeners regularly try to attract such insects, while in France, farmers have offered land to help beekeepers . In ...

Pesticides have knock-on effect for bees, study finds

Chronic exposure to pesticides has a bigger knock-on effect on bees than conventional probes suggest, according to a new study on Sunday touching on the mysterious collapse of bee colonies.

History of 'cuckoo bees' needs a rewrite, study says

(PhysOrg.com) -- The evolutionary history of the bee family Apidae -- which has the largest number of species and includes honeybees -- may need a major revision, according to a new Cornell study published online in the Proceedings ...

Age matters: Young larvae boost pollen foraging in honey bees

Toddlers and tweens have very different needs, which influence how parents provide for them. The same is true in honey bees, but instead of communicating their needs via language, honey bee larvae emit chemical signals called ...

What it is to be a queen bee?

Queen sweat bees 'choose' the role of their daughters, according to a new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology. The amount of food provided for the developing larvae determines whether ...

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