Latest Bumblebee Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Researchers wrote in the Journal of Theoretical Biology about how bumblebees are actually more unstable when they hover rather than when they fly fast. Na Xu and Mao Sun from Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics in China analyzed the way bumblebees fly at different speeds by using a mathematical model. Their model showed that the bumblebee is unstable when it hovers and flies slowly, and becomes neutral or weakly stable...
Most people are not aware of the fact that 84% of the European crops are partially or entirely dependent on insect pollination. While managed honeybees pollinate certain crops, wild bees, flies and wasps cover a very broad spectrum of plants, and thus are considered the most important pollinators in Europe. The serious decline in the number of managed honeybees and wild bees reported in Europe over the last few decades has the potential to cause yield decreases with threats to the...
As gardeners get busy filling tubs and borders with colorful bedding plants, scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol have discovered more about what makes flowers attractive to bees rather than humans. Published today in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology, their research reveals that Velcro-like cells on plant petals play a crucial role in helping bees grip flowers – especially when the wind gets up. The study focuses on special cells found on the...
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), a new species of gecko has been discovered in Papua New Guinea. Dressed in black and yellow stripes, biologists from the Papua New Guinea National Museum say the gecko resembles a bumblebee. Its unique coloring and rows of skin nodules act as camouflage for the gecko who lives on the forest floor. According to the survey, specimens of the new lizard measure about 5 inches long from head to tail. Specimens were captured in 2010 in Sohoniliu...
A pair of new studies reveals the multiple ways that a widely used insecticide harms bumblebees and honeybees. The reports, one by a U.K. team and one by a French team, appear online at the Science Express Web site of the journal Science, on 29 March, 2012. Science is published by AAAS, the nonprofit, international science society. Bumblebees and honeybees are important pollinators of flowering plants, including many major fruit and vegetable crops. Each year, for example, honeybee...
Scientists reported in the journal Science on Thursday that even low doses of widely used pesticides can harm bumblebees and honeybees. British and French researchers looked at bees and neonicotinoid insecticides in two studies, which is a class of pesticides that was introduced in the 1990s and has become one of the most commonly used pesticide in the world. Bee populations have been dropping rapidly throughout the world, and scientists fear pesticides are partly to blame for it....
SANTA MONICA, Calif., March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), is bringing the ultimate TRANSFORMERS video game experience to kids of all ages with the TRANSFORMERS PRIME video game. Based on the hit animated television show produced by Hasbro Studios and currently airing on The Hub television network in the U.S., the game lets fans play as their favorite AUTOBOT characters and embark on an...
Scientists suspect that a parasitic fly that preys on honey bees could be the cause behind the alarming phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which thousands of worker bees exhibit bizarre behavior before suddenly vanishing from their colony. Since the problem was first observed in the U.S. in 2006, experts have been attempting to explain the strange ‘zombie-like’ behavior in usually robotically predictable worker bees. European scientists have also joined in to solve...
IRVING, Texas, Nov. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- After receiving nearly 183,000 total entries, Hostess®, maker of America's most iconic snack cakes, announced that Clarissa Rock of Hudson Falls, NY, is the $25,000 grand prize winner of the "Transform Your Treat" instant win game. Beginning September 12, 2011, Hostess invited consumers to play the instant win game online as part of a partnership with Paramount Home Entertainment's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Hostess and Transformers fans...
CARLSBAD, Calif., Sept. 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Earth will soon shroud in the dark of the moon as the great war between the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS explodes, threatening to tear our planet apart. Razer, the world leader in high performance gaming hardware, under license from Hasbro, Inc., will unleash a unique Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon Collector's Edition product line to prepare you for the metal on metal battle of epic proportions now available on DVD and Blu-ray. OPTIMUS PRIME,...
Latest Bumblebee Reference Libraries
Carpenter bees (Xylocopinae subfamily) are considered to be important pollinators, especially of open-faced flowers, though they are also known to "rob" nectar by boring holes in the sides of flowers with deep corollas (thus not accomplishing pollination). The smaller species tunnel into pithy stems to build their nests. Other species bore holes in wood and can become pests in wood construction. Carpenter bees are often mistaken for bumblebees. They are similar in size and coloring. The...
Bees (Apoidea superfamily) are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants. They are adapted for feeding on nectar, and play an important role in pollinating flowering plants, and are called pollinators. Bees have a long proboscis that they use in order to obtain the nectar from flowers. Bees have antennae made up of thirteen segments in males and twelve in females. They have two pairs of wings, the back pair being the smaller of the two. Bees are fuzzy and carry an electrostatic...
