G06: I&S From Little Things, Big Things Grow: 4. Bees & other Insects

Beginning in 1952 and for the next twelve years, master beekeeper and photographer, Charles Hofmann, created the images and wrote the narrative for The World of Bees. He did not intend to teach people how to keep bees, but to show people something of how honey bees live and work, and to share his love of bees and the beauty of the environment in which they work.

Beeing is an Italian start-up revolutionizing the way bees are kept and tracked. As it turns out, bees are so much more remarkable than we’ve ever known, and I think you’ll agree after this episode that this small company, founded by Roberto Pasi and Gabriele Garavini, is really doing something worthwhile.

Rapidly changing market demand, climate change, and unexpected events, such as the current COVID pandemic, are forcing all market players to adjust and to find a way to diminish losses. Traditional business in the food sector, such as highly important beekeeping, has found a way to apply innovative technology and successfully fight.

The Kadoorie Conservation China department (KCC) promoted the concept of keeping native bee species to farmers around nature reserves in Hainan in hopes of encouraging them to preserve their community forests.

Insecticides in particular pose the most direct risk to pollinators
As their name indicates, these are chemicals designed to kill insects, and they are widely applied in the environment, mostly around cropland areas.

The numbers aren’t improving for bees in the US, and scientists still haven’t figured out what exactly is causing the problem.

Bees are having a really hard time right now. For about a decade, they’ve been dying off at an unprecedented rate—up to 30 percent per year, with a total loss of domesticated honeybee hives in the United States worth an estimated $2 billion.

We’re pretty certain that bees are not dying from GMOs, cellphones, ultraviolet lights, electromagnetic radiation, or aliens, all of which have been blamed at one point or another. There is no single cause, according to most scientists who have studied the problem, but rather a combination of factors that include parasites, pathogens, pesticides, poor nutrition, and habitat loss.

While thousands of fires roar and crackle through the Amazon rainforest, Brazil faces a quieter tragedy playing out in farm country: the silence of empty hives.

In the state of Rio Grande do Sul, 400 million dead bees were found - with beekeepers in four states reporting the mass deaths.
Researchers have blamed the use of pesticides - chemical substances which are used to kill pests.

Bees play a pivotal role in US agriculture but are dying at alarming rates. Can this vaccine save them?