Honeybees live in colonies with one queen directing the whole hive. Most people only ever see worker honeybees flying about outside of the hive; they are exclusively female. They construct the honeycombs, forage for food, and guard the hive.
Honeybees pollinate 70% of the world’s major crops, making them an essential component of food supply. Up to 15 times as many baby bees matured into adults in bee colonies that consumed the supplement during the trials. Researchers have created a “superfood” for honeybees that may shield them from the dangers of habitat loss and climate change.
Professor Geraldine Wright, a senior author at the University of Oxford, told BBC News that “this technological breakthrough provides all the nutrients bees need to survive, meaning we can continue to feed them even when there is not enough pollen.”
Due to a number of causes, including dietary deficits, viral illnesses, and climate change, honeybee populations are drastically declining worldwide. In the US, annual colony losses have varied between 40-50% in the last decade and are likely to increase.
Across South Wales, Nick Mensikov, chair of the Cardiff, Vale and Valleys Beekeepers Association, told BBC News that he lost seventy-five percent of his colonies last winter.
Honeybees consume pollen and nectar from flowers that provide essential nutrients, including lipids known as sterols, which are crucial for their growth.
They produce honey in hives, which serves as their food supply during the winter months when flowers cease to generate pollen.
When beekeepers extract honey for sale, or increasingly when there is insufficient pollen available, they provide the bees with supplemental food.
However, this supplementary food consists of protein flour, sugar, and water, and has consistently been deficient in the nutrients that bees require. It is akin to humans following a diet devoid of carbohydrates, amino acids, or other essential nutrients.
Sterol has always been particularly challenging to produce, but Professor Wright has spearheaded a team of scientists for 15 years to determine the specific sterols that bees need and how to synthesize them.
In the laboratory at Oxford, PhD candidate Jennifer Chennells presented small transparent boxes containing honeybees within an incubator, which she nourishes with various homemade foods.
She utilizes kitchen tools commonly found in households to prepare the ingredients and shapes glossy, white tubes of sustenance.
“We incorporate ingredients into a mixture similar to cookie dough, including various proteins, fats, differing levels of carbohydrates, and the essential micronutrients required by bees. This is an effort to determine their preferences and what is most beneficial for them,” she explains.
The “superfood” was administered to the bees in the lab’s hives over a period of three months.
The findings indicated that colonies receiving this food produced up to 15 times more juvenile bees that reached maturity.
“When bees receive complete nutrition, they are expected to be healthier and less prone to diseases,” states Prof Wright.
Prof Wright notes that this food would be especially advantageous during summers like the current one, when flowering plants seem to have ceased early production.
Further extensive trials are now necessary to evaluate the long-term effects of this food on honeybee health; however, the supplement may be accessible to beekeepers and farmers within two years. The research was conducted by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the University of Greenwich, and the Technical University of Denmark.
Source: BBC
The article is edited by Md. Rafikul Islam, Agriculturist, Science writer and Co-founder, Biology School.
