TownScientists uncovered the nutrients bees were missing — Colonies surged 15-fold
WashedupcynicThe solution is so simple. Crop/pollen diversity. Instead of letting fields lay fallow for crop rotation, they could plant diverse wildflower meadows to improve quality of bee health for the traveling bees that get shipped around for crop rotation. Or the bee keepers themselves that sell the services of their bees, could ensure diverse flower and pollen options when their bees aren’t traveling.
Seems easier than engineering edible east to get them the sterols they need.
Plenty of companies have been founded by former university researchers based on discoveries they’ve made while at said universities. Seems like nothing prevents those folks from patenting the newfound methods for themselves.
Or, they will license the technology to a big manufacturer. Seeing as the University of Oxford is probably ill-equipped to produce industrial amounts of yeast.
despoticruinYou would be surprised, yeast cats and breweries have a ton of overlap, IE pretty cheap tanks and reasonably standard infrastructure. Most universities with a biology research wing is going to have a few bio-reactors, and while they may not be able to produce the feed itself industrially, they can easily breed starters to sell to places like breweries and companies that already produce yeast at massive scale.
Yes well known fact we shouldn’t research any technology to reverse the collapse of our biosphere or to alleviate climate change. Wouldn’t want anyone being able to sell that tech. Best we just turn off the lights and plant some flowers.
I love planting some flowers, but we’re going to need technology to undo the mess we created.
It also doesn’t degrade ecosystems further.
Bees aren’t just the domesticated honey bees.
But Brawndo has the electrolites that plants crave!
Just in case the joke is too far of a stretch to make the connection, what I’m saying is the obvious simple solution isn’t profitable.
They’d rather sell you a solution that doesn’t actually work, then give you a solution that works that they can’t make profit on.
President CamachoSo Brawndo for bees too? Done!
In the end, it probably isn’t easier at all. Once the yeast is created, yeast is dirt cheap and easy as hell to grow, and wouldn’t require managing a field of wildflowers that are going to drop seeds for the following year when you intend to plant crops there. I’m not saying it’s a good or ethical choice, but the yeast definitely has the potential to be easier and cheaper
cobysevNote for those passing through and not reading articles:
This is not a summary of the article, but OP’s suggestion for a solution. The article talks about creating a yeast product that’s lacking in bees’ diet due to climate change and a lack of diversity in flowers.
OP suggests combatting the effects climate change has on biodiversity by planting your own diverse flowers. Which may work, or climate change may just kill those too.
I re call watching Clarkson’s Farm and he was paid to grow wildflowers in one of the fields for these very reasons.
AniviaTrue but at the same time bees help spread pollinating plants - it’s a two way relationship. They may be commercialised for crops, but they will go to any plants in range and contribute to their spread.
So a method of increasing bee populations may also be helpful in spreading wildflowers and speeding up rewilding efforts.
In addition dramatically increasing bee populations may help resolve issues with pollination such as in some regions of China where damage is so bad that hand pollination is needed for crops. Restoring bee pollinators in those areas may increase crop yields, which in turn reduces the general pressure globally on expanding the use of fertile land for farming.
So while crop/pollen diversity is certainly very important, this kind of research still has potentially big benefits for the environment both in the fight to rewild and slow the spread of land use being moved to farming.
I’m sure things are different in different parts of the world, but where I’m from, pretty much none of the big crop farms let fields lay truly fallow. Most of them plant various cold season cover crops that include things like clover, brassicas, and legumes like vetch. Those all produce lots of flowers that feed the bees in the off season.
The issue with wildflower meadows, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that most of those wildflowers bloom at times when the fields would otherwise be needed for crop production. Of course, there are farmers who skip planting at all some years, but in my neck of the woods, nobody does that. They plant every year, at least once, they just rotate different crops in and out. Corn one year. Hay then soy, the next. And so on.
Bee extinction means no polination, no polination means no crops; penny wise and pound foolish.
Bee extinction means drastically fewer crops and less pollination, but not no crops. It would be devastating, but there would still be agriculture. Lots of staple crops are wind pollinated and don’t rely on insects at all. But for the rest of our food, that would all become very expensive and widely unavailable.
I learned during COVID about planting diverse local wildflowers to help with pollination in my small little garden I used to have. I ended up dedicating like an 8x6 planter just for wildflowers every year. Always had tons of bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. I honestly never realized how many species of bees there were. The first year I did it I tripled my veggie yield, never looked back.
mojofrododojonah man. bees just crave brawndo.
Instead of letting fields lay fallow for crop rotation, they could plant diverse wildflower meadows to improve quality of bee health for the traveling bees that get shipped around for crop rotation.
I can see a potential problem with this suggestion. How many of those wildflowers are net nitrogen fixers? If they are net-negative this approach could be draining all the nitrogen out of the soil during off-rotation years meaning large amounts of petrochemical fertilizer would have to be used to make the field productive again for nitrogen consuming crops (like wheat and corn).
Key Native Nitrogen-Fixing Wildflowers:
- Lupines (Lupinus spp.): Includes Texas Bluebonnet and various perennial species; they thrive in poor soil and are loved by pollinators.
- Prairie Clover (Dalea spp.): Purple (Dalea purpurea) and White (Dalea candida) are drought-tolerant perennials that fix high levels of nitrogen.
- False Indigo (Baptisia spp.): Sturdy perennials with showy, pea-like flower spikes (e.g., Blue False Indigo).
- Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata): An annual that grows rapidly, making it excellent for disturbed soils.
- Wild Senna (Senna hebecarpa): A tall perennial that produces yellow flowers.
- Canada Milkvetch (Astragalus canadensis): A hardy, native perennial.
- Groundnut (Apios americana): A vine-like wildflower with edible tubers.
edgeofthewoodsnursery.com/…/Native-Plants-for-Nit…
Cheers
GreenBeardSeveral of those are going to be perennial and end up competing with mono-culture crops the following year(s) (not that I’m trying to defend mono-culture crops, but that’s what they’re planting). It’s a good idea, but not necessarily as simple as you’re implying. Still it’s an idea that’s not without some merit. The biggest obstacle to adoption is no one is making a significant profit off of it, so it’s unlikely to see much uptake.
You aren’t wrong, but soil can be turned over, and the wildflowers can be removed.
StalinwolfBees went fucking nuts for my lupine, even while living in an urban environment. Only problem was that the aphids did too. So many that it was revolting. I had to aggressively remove them every single day of the colonies would explode and destroy my lupine within a very short time. They’d suck it dry.
redlemaceWorks for me. I only mow early spring and early autumn. During spring and summer the yard runs on it’s own. Every year is different. Each year it looks different. Every year honey tast little different. But … that is how it’s supposed to be!
“brands” hate that, taste must be 100% predictable year to year. Just like wine. Grapes are different each year too. Imagine the amount of additives required to adjust (read that as ruin) the original flavor.
Do farmers still do crop rotation? Here in the Netherlands they pump the ground full of the appropriate chemicals so they can grow the same crop in the same place every year.
As for your plan, the fact that bees are getting essential nutrients from those flowers proves a fallow field with wildflowers isn’t being fallow; it’s extracting resources from the soil which may have needed replenishment for crop rotation to work. You can sacrifice productivity for wildflowers, but at that point you’re just designating a space to be a meadow.
The solution is complicated and requires society to step away from the industrial model of agriculture entirely. Food forests are diverse and resilient permaculture, where a farmer does the labor of monitoring nutrient flows through the ecosystem so that a large population of humans can be part of that balanced ecosystem (possibly at a distance, with food being exported and feces imported). Bees are a natural part of such an ecosystem.
gandalf_der_12tethe thing with diverse flowers approach is that they don’t grow everywhere … some places you will naturally only have like 1-2 types of flowers because certain flowers prefer a certain soil and some soil is maybe too meager or sth to support a wild diversity of flowers.