bees

New paper: feral honey bees and competition for natural cavities

Manu Saunders2 Comments

Our new paper is out in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (open access). We used a combined search of peer-reviewed literature and iNaturalist observations to determine what evidence is available on the use of natural cavities and hollows by feral (wild) western honey bees (Apis mellifera). Our paper addresses an important knowledge gap on how invasive honey bees compete with native species in their introduced range.

The western honey bee (A. mellifera) is one of the world’s most successful invasive species. It has spread far and wide beyond its home range in Europe and the Middle East, and is found on every continent (and most islands) except Antarctica.

Continue reading →

Bees and meat consumption: a spurious correlation

Manu Saunders

I’ve seen and heard a few claims circulating that removing meat from your diet is essential to ‘save the bees’. This is misleading and draws a long bow between lots of random correlations to promote a particular agenda.

Sure, intensive meat production contributes to some big environmental problems and there are plenty of reasons to reduce your meat consumption. But there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support claims that eating meat is bad for bees.

Meat comes in many forms. From wild game to highly-processed ‘meat products’, from large-scale intensive feedlots to diversified low-intensity grazing systems, from locally-produced to high food miles. It is generally impossible to make blanket statements about all meat. Continue reading →

Bees in her eyes: lost in translation or fake news?

Manu Saunders

On Wednesday afternoon, I noticed the steadily increasing coverage of the story about sweat bees living in a Taiwanese woman’s eye. It seemed implausible – very few bees are small enough to get in your eye without knowing it, and they certainly wouldn’t survive very long.

But what first caught my attention was the poor communication around this story. The use of words like ‘nightmarish’ and ‘weird’ for a completely normal animal interaction. And the number of stories that were headlining their report with a picture of a totally unrelated bee (usually Apis mellifera), or even other insects. Toby Smith and I have previously looked at how misuse of pictures of Apis mellifera in media stories can affect accuracy of science communication. Continue reading →

A community of solitary hymenopterans

Manu Saunders1 Comment

You don’t need to plan expensive field expeditions to find exciting natural history observations.

Last weekend, my husband dragged me away from grant-writing for a quick afternoon outing. We headed to Dangars Gorge, about 20 minutes’ drive from Armidale. The gorge is part of the World Heritage Gondwana Rainforests, a protected area we are so lucky to have on our doorstep. Sadly, it’s a bit dry this year.

February 2017
January 2019

Every time we’ve visited, I’ve hit the ecology observation jackpot: an interesting interaction, a new species record, or a natural history mystery. So I had my camera on hand, just in case. And I didn’t have to look far… Continue reading →

Sugar teaspoons for bees and science communication

Manu Saunders1 Comment

Fakenewsflash: the recent Facebook post claiming to be from David Attenborough, suggesting that we should feed floundering bees a sugar solution to ‘save’ them, was faked.

I’m not on Facebook, but I saw the original post via Twitter, where many popular non-profit and government organisations promoted it (it now seems that many have deleted their posts).

I didn’t know it was a fake post at the time, but I didn’t agree with it so didn’t share it or comment on it. I didn’t want to be the Grinch that disagreed with the popular personality. And perhaps the pollinator message would reach a new audience, despite the fake news…

But what price new audiences? Continue reading →

New story: Farmer wants a hive

Manu Saunders

I haven’t written for The Conversation (TC) for a while, and this article was a new experience for me: a commission via Twitter! A TC editor saw a live tweet from a talk I gave at a conference in April (where I mentioned that Australian almond growers rent honey bee hives to pollinate blossoms), and contacted me to write a story elaborating on the theme.

Read the story here, covering the basic ins and outs of hive rental, as well as the important role of wild pollinators in crop pollination, which we still know very little about. Continue reading →

Robo bees are back, but will they last?

Manu Saunders6 Comments

The robot bee story is back in the news. I covered some of the new research and associated media hype last year. The latest: a patent has been filed for building ‘pollinator drones’ and the media (both newsy and social) are in despair, as the end is clearly nigh.

But don’t worry. Here are a few challenges the pollinator drones will need to overcome before they can take over agriculture: Continue reading →

Why repetition is good for science

Manu Saunders5 Comments

‘Avoid repetition’. Most scientists had this command drummed into their heads early in their career. Science writing should be devoid of repetitive words and sentences. I had to include a preface in my PhD thesis to warn examiners of impending repetition…because my thesis chapters were published/submitted studies from the same system and with somewhat similar sampling methods.

Sure, thoughtless repetition of words and sentences does not make enjoyable reading in any discipline. But repetition of ideas and concepts is essential to storytelling and building memories. So when it comes to science communication, repetition is key. Continue reading →

Artificial pollinators are cool, but not the solution

Manu Saunders4 Comments

Agreed, bees and other insect pollinators are under threat globally from multiple human pressures. If pollinators disappear completely from an ecosystem, their loss will affect the structure of those ecosystems and the natural foods and fibres we use from the ecosystem. So, finding solutions to the problem of pollinator decline are imperative.

This is why the robo bees story sounds like such a seductive idea. Imagine creating tiny drones with hairs on them that can be programmed to do a bee’s job? Wow! We are off the hook. Continue reading →

Natural history mystery: Party lights for nocturnal bees

Manu Saunders4 Comments

It’s true, nocturnal bees exist. Bees are generally considered a day-active creature, but there are many species around the world that have evolved to love the night…perhaps because their favourite flowers open at night, or maybe they just prefer to feed in peace and quiet!

Because bee species, like most insects, are very sensitive to cold temperatures, most of these nocturnal bee species are found in tropical and sub-tropical areas. One species is known from Australia and it’s found in north and central Queensland. It’s likely that others exist, but they either haven’t been found or night activity hasn’t been observed yet. Continue reading →