<
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-life-of-a-honeybee-has-been-cut-in-half-in-just-50-years>
"A new paper shows how the lifespan of the adult honeybee appears to have
shrunk by nearly 50 percent in the past 50 years.
The European Red List for Bees suggests nearly one in ten species of wild bees
are facing extinction. Imagine how we would react if human lifespans halved.
The equivalent would be if the average woman in the UK was living to 41 instead
of 82 years old.
Our future is intertwined with bees. Without bees and other pollinators, we
cannot grow the majority of crops we depend on for food.
This research could help explain the high levels of bee colony deaths around
the world over the past few decades. Bee deaths were particularly severe in the
USA in the winter of 2006-07, when some commercial beekeepers lost 90 percent
of their colonies.
Unexplained high rates of bee colony deaths have also been reported in Canada,
Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain,
Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and Poland. In the cold winter of 2012-13, 29
percent of honeybee colonies in the UK died."
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
