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Bee Informed: Appreciate the Little Things (Microbes) in Life, What's Being Done to Save the Bees, and the Humble Moth

Bee Informed: Appreciate the Little Things (Microbes) in Life, What's Being Done to Save the Bees, and the Humble Moth

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. How One Entomologist Learned to Appreciate the Little Things (Microbes) in Life (Entomology Today, by Jacqueline Serrano, Ph.D.) The Entomological Society of America’s Early Career Professionals (ECP) Committee, highlights outstanding ECPs that are doing great work in the profession. During his Ph.D. work at the University of California, Riverside, Jake Cecala, Ph.D., conducted a project looking at the effects of irrigation and pesticide use in ornamental plants on solitary bee reproduction. The project comprised 20 mesh flight cages set up...

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Bee Informed: Eliminating the Varroa Mite, Native Grasses to Revitalize Your Yard, Solitary Wasps, and Increased Pathogens in Urban Bees

Bee Informed: Eliminating the Varroa Mite, Native Grasses to Revitalize Your Yard, Solitary Wasps, and Increased Pathogens in Urban Bees

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Australia is in a unique position to eliminate the bee-killing Varroa mite. Here’s what happens if we don’t (The Conversation) Varroa mites – notorious honey bee parasites – have recently reached Australian shores, detected at the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales last year. If they establish here, there would be significant implications for agricultural food security, as honey bees are heavily relied on for the pollination of many crops. However, while Australia is the last continent to be...

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Bee Informed: Challenging Garden Norms, Photographing California's Native Bees, Bees Flock to Clearcut Areas, and EPA Report on Neonics

Bee Informed: Challenging Garden Norms, Photographing California's Native Bees, Bees Flock to Clearcut Areas, and EPA Report on Neonics

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. She ripped up her manicured lawn and challenged the norms of gardening stories (npr.org, by Melissa Block) "I love a person who talks kindly to plants," poet Camille Dungy writes in her new contemplative memoir. And for sure, Dungy can be counted among those who do exactly that. In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, Dungy describes her years-long project to transform her weed-filled, water-hogging, monochromatic lawn in suburban Fort Collins, Colo., into a pollinator's paradise, packed instead...

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Bee Informed: Celebrate Earth Day with a Bee Walk, Squash Bees are Spreading across North America, and Mapping People's Knowledge of Bees

Bee Informed: Celebrate Earth Day with a Bee Walk, Squash Bees are Spreading across North America, and Mapping People's Knowledge of Bees

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Celebrate Earth Day with a bee walk (Environment America, By Steven Blackledge) Earth Day—April 22nd—is a day to not only celebrate our planet but also to take part in environmental education and activism to build a greener, healthier world. And what better way to help the planet than by helping the fuzzy little critters whose hard work holds up entire ecosystems? I’m talking about bees. These humble heroes pollinate 80% of the world’s flowering plants, and there are more than...

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