bees

bees /oss/taxonomy/term/635/all en The Hardest Working Caffeine Addicts: Bees! /oss/article/student-contributors-did-you-know/hardest-working-caffeine-addicts-bees Wake up, go to work, seek out caffeinated beverages, get food, share food with others, store leftovers for later, and repeat. This routine sure does sound familiar, doesn’t it? With over 3.5 billion employed people worldwide following a variation of that basic routine, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I was talking about humans. But what if I told you I was actually illustrating the day in the life of a bee? As it turns out, humans and bees have very similar lifestyles. They protect their own, work together during the day and seek the refuge of their hive at night. Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:30:52 +0000 Angelina Lapalme 10110 at /oss Does honey have any value as a preservative? /oss/article/health-and-nutrition-you-asked/does-honey-have-any-value-preservative Yes, in a limited way. Honey is a concentrated solution of various sugars in water. The main sugars are fructose and glucose with smaller amounts of sucrose (table sugar) also present. Of course, there are also various other compounds that are responsible for the flavour and aroma and which may also contribute to the preservative properties. The main preservative action, however, is due to the sugars’ ability to remove water from microorganisms by the process of osmosis. Thu, 26 May 2022 01:43:56 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9121 at /oss Bees vs Wasps: A Case of Mistaken Identity /oss/article/environment/bees-vs-wasps-case-mistaken-indentity As a trained entomologist (insect biologist) I am innately irked when one of my beloved insects is mis-named in public, but especially so when a beneficial one is maligned by association with a more nuisance species. This does a disservice to all bees, when they are lumped together with their aggressive and bothersome cousins, the wasps. Tue, 31 Jul 2018 16:09:30 +0000 Adam Oliver Brown PhD 7197 at /oss You’re sweet, honey, but I’ve got others on my mind /oss/article/environment/youre-sweet-honey-ive-got-others-my-mind I have been hard at work lately trying to convert a half-acre of lawn into a flourishing pollinator garden at home. Basically, this has involved sowing some seeds and letting it grow. I think I like this approach to gardening maintenance because I get so much more time to lounge by the pool, contentedly sipping a cold beverage while calmly cherishing the buzz of my very own pollinator flora and fauna. Thu, 20 Jul 2017 16:31:41 +0000 Adam Oliver Brown PhD 2580 at /oss Fear of Killer Bees /oss/article/did-you-know/fear-killer-bees In about 1956, biologists in Brazil imported a number of queen honeybees from Tanzania, intending to crossbreed them with local honey bees to produce a strain that made more honey and was better adapted to tropical conditions. In 1957, the African bees escaped into the wild, and the original plan backfired. Not only did honey production in the region drop sharply, but according to a 1965 report, hundreds of Brazilian dogs, pigs, and chickens were stung to death. In 1986, a Costa Rican student reportedly died after an estimated 8,000 killer bees stung him. The U.S. Thu, 25 May 2017 00:10:24 +0000 OSS 2489 at /oss Not all facts are created equal /oss/article/controversial-science-health-news/joe-schwarcz-not-all-facts-are-created-equal <div> I often ask myself questions. “Is that a fact?” is perhaps the one that crops up most frequently. That’s because no day goes by without someone soliciting my opinion about an item they have come across on the web, read in some publication, seen on TV or heard from a friend. Here’s a sampling: “The Pentagon is developing a virus that can be spread in the Middle East to prevent people from developing extreme religious views.” “Aspartame causes multiple sclerosis.” “Surgical dilation of veins that drain blood from the brain cures multiple sclerosis.” “Radiation from the Fukushima accident in Japan is killing North Americans.” “A Himalayan salt bath removes toxins from the body.” “Colon cleansing removes toxins from the body.” “Titanium dioxide in cheese causes cancer.” “Drinking alkaline water cures cancer.” “Our Creator made a perfect food in the super-grain, Salvia Hispanica.” “Eating any grain destroys your brain.” “Gluten causes autism.” “Vaccines cause autism.” “Global warming is based on erroneous data.” “Evolution is just a theory.” “Genetically modified crops kill bees.” “Cellphones kill bees.” “Neonicotinoid insecticides kill bees.” “The peer-reviewed literature is often faulty.” So, are these facts? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, maybe, yes. The next question of course is, “How do I know?” Indeed, how do we know anything when it comes to science? There’s no simple answer, because we rely on a combination of experience, plausibility based on established principles and, of course, peer-review. The latter is widely regarded as the cornerstone for building scientific knowledge, but the reliability of the system is increasingly being called into question. In the peer-review process, an editor sends a submitted paper to usually two or three “peers” who are experts in the field. They come back with criticisms, requests for revision and sometimes even ask for parts of the work to be repeated. The identity of the reviewers is not revealed to the authors of the paper. After some back and forth, often some rewriting, the paper is published if the editorial staff is convinced the reviewers’ comments have been properly addressed. While top notch journals such as Science, Nature, The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine can in general be trusted for publishing papers that have been extensively reviewed by highly competent experts, faulty or fraudulent research can still slip through. That was the case with Andrew Wakefield’s notorious 1998 paper in The Lancet alleging a cause and effect relationship between vaccines and autism. In contrast to these top tier publications, the world is now flooded with less rigorous “open access” journals that are available to all without a subscription. All expenses are paid up front by the researchers who would like to see their work in print. Many of these journals have questionable peer-review processes, as has now been exquisitely pointed out by a purposely flaw-ridden paper submitted to 255 open access journals to gauge how many would publish it uncritically. A frightening 157 accepted it for publication! It seems if you don’t pay for a subscription, you can’t get the same quality. Of course it would have been interesting to submit the spoof paper to top notch journals to see how many of those would reject it. Dr. John Ioannidis, a study design expert at Stanford University, believes that many lower tier traditional journals would also have been taken in by the hoax and that a large percentage of all published studies are at least somewhat unreliable. Nevertheless they get referenced and get woven into the fabric of science. That’s why many pet theories can be backed up by cherry-picking peer-reviewed references. </div> <div>In science we don’t cherry pick. We shake the tree, collect all the cherries, mash them together and then taste. And that’s just what we have asked our speakers at this year’s Lorne Trottier Science Symposium to do. They are all experts at shaking. The above mentioned Ioannidis is a professor of medicine at Stanford whose paper on Why Most Published Research Findings are False has been the most-accessed article in the history of the Public Library of Science. He has been dubbed by the prestigious Atlantic magazine as “one of the most influential scientists alive.” Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta whose book, The Cure for Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness and Happiness, is an entertaining and highly informative romp through the battlefield where good and bad science are engaged in fierce combat. Dr. Eugenie Scott is an anthropologist who has forged a remarkable career as executive director of the National Center for Science Education in the U.S. with a particular specialty in explaining evolution to the public. She contends that proponents of antievolutionism and climate change denial use remarkably similar approaches to promote their views. And speaking of denial, we come to Michael Specter, famed staff writer for the New Yorker and author of the bestseller Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. Specter is also well-known for his detailed profiles of such celebrities as Lance Armstrong and Dr. Mehmet Oz. He is troubled by the fact that rapid technological advances have been met not just with skepticism but with denialism. No matter how powerful the data, people refuse to accept facts they don’t happen to like while accepting myths they like as facts.</div> <a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2013/10/31/joe-schwarcz-not-all-facts-are-created-equal">Read more</a> Thu, 31 Oct 2013 13:27:54 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 2023 at /oss Bee Buzz /oss/article/controversial-science-environment-health-news/bee-buzz Bees are critical to agriculture, there is no doubt about that. They fertilize various crops by spreading the pollen that they collect to meet their protein and fat needs. Recently there has been much concern about declining bee populations in some areas and speculation has focused on insecticides known as “neonicotinoids.” Many media reports have tried and convicted the “neonics” and urged that they be banned. But as is so often the case, media reports only scratch the scientific surface and deeper digging produces a different buzz. Neonics at a certain level of exposure can disorient or even kill bees, which comes as no surprise since they are insecticides, and bees are insects. The question is whether these chemicals can be used in a way that protects plants without harming bees. Neonicotinoids, first introduced in 2004, are modeled on nicotine, the natural insecticide produced by the tobacco plant. One advantage is that instead of spraying, these chemicals can be applied to the seeds of crops such as corn, soybeans and canola. They then end up distributed throughout the plant as it grows and are ready to dispatch any insect that dares to dine on the foliage. Bees don’t do that, they go for the nectar in the flowers which has only traces of neonics. Yet bee deaths have been linked with neonic-coated corn and soy seeds, mostly in Ontario. But curiously, not with canola seeds in western Canada which are also treated with the same pesticides. So what is going on? Mechanical planters use a jet of air to blow seeds into the soil. Commonly talc or graphite are added as lubricants to reduce friction between the seeds but these can rub off and can carry insecticide contaminated dust into the air, exposing flying insects such as bees to the neonics. The concern is that the tainted bees return to the hive where they can expose fellow bees to the neonics and wreak havoc. A novel polyethylene wax lubricant that can replace talc and graphite has shown a significant reduction in airborne insecticide during planting. There are also polymers being developed to help the insecticide stick to the seeds. The planting of canola uses different technology and doesn’t produce comparable amounts of dust. Some 20 million acres of canola are planted in Canada with neonicotinoid treated seed and there has been no impact on bee health at all. So it seems the problem may not be the neonics as much as the seeding methodology. Neonics are also commonly used on cut flowers and on plants purchased from nurseries but whether these affect pollinators is an open question. In any case, the neonics are only part of the picture when it comes to bee health. There are mites, parasites and viruses that can infect bees, and transporting hives, which is commonly done, also stresses them, as do harsh winters and long springs. Specifically, the Varroa mite can affect bee health significantly, and it is interesting to note that in Australia, which is free of these mites, no problems have been seen with bee populations in spite of extensive use of neonicotinoid coated seeds. So while the neonicotinoids may be a factor in the decline of bee populations in some areas, they are not the only factor. Furthermore, loss of bee colonies has been observed in places where neonicotinoids are not used at all, and history records many cases of unusual deaths of honey bee colonies long before neonics were introduced. Still, there are some troubling developments. A recent British study showed that bees are more attracted to a sugar solution laced with neonics than to one without, implying the bees may be getting some sort of a buzz from the chemicals and may be more likely to visit plants containing them and end up contaminating hives. And a study in Sweden showed a reduced density of wild bees, but not honey bees, in a field planted with neonic-coated seeds. Because of the cloud hanging over neonics, Europe and Ontario have decided to greatly restrict their use. It will take a while to see the effect, not only on the bees, but also on crop yields which have steadily increased since the introduction of the neonicotinoids. If yields are to be maintained, it may be back to the insecticidal sprays which come with problems of their own, not only for pollinators, but for people as well. Of course in the western world we can forego insecticides and just pay more for our locally-grown food. <a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2015/06/30/bee-buzz">Read more</a> Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:24:27 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 2271 at /oss