Bees boost crops and could steady food prices

Supporting and enhancing pollinators could help stabilise the production of important crops like oilseeds and fruit, reducing the sort of uncertainty that causes food price spikes, new research has shown.

The habitat of important wild pollinators is under threat

Honeybees are common pollinators, but wild bees, including bumble bees, and other insects such as hoverflies, beetles and butterflies, are also needed for pollination and are important in many different ways. With simple ...

Wild bees need diverse agricultural landscapes

Mass-flowering crops such as oilseed rape or faba bean (also known as broad bean) provide valuable sources of food for bees, which, in turn, contribute to the pollination of both the crops and nearby wild plants when they ...

Flower diversity may mitigate insecticide effects on wild bees

A higher diversity of flowering plants increases the breeding success of wild bees and may help compensate for the negative effects of insecticides. This is what researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Hohenheim, ...

Dance of the honey bee reveals fondness for strawberries

Bees are pollinators of many wild and crop plants, but in many places their diversity and density is declining. A research team from the Universities of Göttingen, Sussex and Würzburg has now investigated the foraging behaviour ...

New research warns of a resistance gene at risk in oilseed rape

A new study by University of Hertfordshire researchers has discovered that an important source of gene resistance against one of the leading pathogens of oilseed rape, Phoma stem canker, is becoming less effective, which ...

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