Jul 18, 2025
Honeybees in clover. In Field and Forest. 1928.
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Book uploaded by LexW
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Honeybees in clover. In Field and Forest. 1928.
Internet Archive
Book uploaded by LexW
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Scientists have developed a breakthrough “superfood” for honeybees by engineering yeast to produce the essential nutrients normally found in
From the article:
Scientists have developed a breakthrough “superfood” for honeybees by engineering yeast to produce the essential nutrients normally found in pollen. In controlled trials, colonies fed this specially designed diet produced up to 15 times more young, showing a dramatic boost in reproduction and overall health. As climate change and modern agriculture reduce the availability of natural pollen, this innovation could offer a practical way to support struggling bee populations.
Honeybees play a critical role in food systems but have faced increasing environmental pressure due to climate change and wildflower habitat loss, so this is huge news for food security and sustainability. It also may end up helping native bees too--being able to provide honeybees with a nutritionally complete, man-made food could decrease competition with native pollinators for limited wildflowers.
I think there are too many people throwing around that wasps can recognise human faces for something that has only been confirmed in one wasp species (and not even the species people usually seem to bring up)
Northern paper wasps (Polistes fuscatus) have been found to process the faces of other wasps as a whole, rather than just a collection of individual parts. This is called holistic processing, and it's the same way humans typically process each other's faces. This has been tested in a couple of other Polistes species and they did not process faces in the same way. This is very cool for Northern paper wasps! But crucially, processing each others' faces this way does not mean they process human faces the same. Recognising one another aids them due to their specific social dynamics, but recognising humans wouldn't present the same evolutionary pressures. In one study, their holistic processsing didn't even extend to another paper wasp species, but recognition of human faces has not been tested in paper wasps so we can't say one way or the other even if it looks unlikely
However, it has been tested in other species! Common yellowjackets (Vespula vulgaris) and Western honeybees (Apis mellifera) were capable of discriminating between human faces (although they had to be taught to do so as they probably don't do so naturally) and it seems they also have some capacity for holistic processing. Nevertheless, I feel like I see paper wasps brought up more often than yellowjackets when this fact comes up
There's a lot that still needs studying on this topic, and what we do have points to some really interesting hymenopteran abilities that are not found in many other animals, but it does frustrate me seeing these things exaggerated and overgeneralised to all wasps/Hymenoptera and then presented as facts when there simply isn't evidence for that yet. I love wasps and I typically see this brought up to endear people to them, which I respect, but spreading misinformation for a 'good cause' is still unhelpful
References
Tibbetts et al. (2021) 'Individual recognition is associated with holistic face processing in Polistes paper wasps in a species-specific way'
Sheehan and Tibbetts (2011) 'Specialized Face Learning Is Associated with Individual Recognition in Paper Wasps'
Avarguès-Weber et al. (2017) 'Recognition of human face images by the free flying wasp Vespula vulgaris'
Dyer, Neumeyer and Chittka (2005) 'Honeybee (Apis mellifera) vision can discriminate between and recognise images of human faces'
Avarguès-Weber et al. (2018) 'Does Holistic Processing Require a Large Brain? Insights From Honeybees and Wasps in Fine Visual Recognition Tasks'
"Saints of No God" watercolor on paper. 2024.
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Went out for a walk and saw one of the most beautiful things in the world—a pollinator!
Though there can be many negative impacts of honeybees on the landscape in North America: honeybees are not going anywhere and beekeepers are some of the most powerful allies in the fight against insecticides and herbicides. Right now we NEED honeybees to pollinate our crops. Eventually we should move towards requiring native hedgerows to reduce our reliance on honeybee shipments...not only will this be cheaper for farmers in the future, it will help reduce the amount of insect diseases that are spread by honeybees. (As the bees are shipped all over the continent) However, honey is always going to be something people want. The important thing for beekeepers to keep in mind, is making sure there are not too many hives per square mile! A single hive is 15,000-50,000 additional mouths to feed in an area that may already have limited pollen resources for native bees. (Who are often solitary) Responsible bee keepers can improve the impact their hives have by learning how many hives are in an area, planting abundant native flower resources on whatever land they manage, and taking feral hives out of the ecosystem rather than propagate new hives from scratch, or buying queens from retailers. People who keep honeybees are not bad people for loving honeybees! Honeybees are fascinating animals and often act as ambassadors to the beauty of the insect world. There are many ways we can and do work together to mitigate harm on all insects!
~ Bluebonnets in Bloom ~
