Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Native Bees Climb Social Ladder (County News) A native bee which nests in tree-fern fronds is helping scientists understand how life developed to be social and altruistic — and how bees evolved to purposefully hatch sterile young, a fact which defies Darwin’s natural selection theory. The Australian bee Amphylaeus morosus only recently made the jump from being a solitary species to a social one — which made them a perfect, and rare, animal to put under the metaphorical microscope. The...
Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Hundreds of new native bees species added to Oregon database (OPB.org) The Oregon Bee Atlas just got bigger. In an update announced this month, the largest bee and plant database in the state added hundreds of new native bee species that were discovered all over Oregon. The atlas was created because of a lack of information available about the state’s bee populations. The program’s scientists collect data from each county with help from trained volunteers who collect bee specimens. In the latest...