bees

Idaho highway is COVERED IN BEES

So that's what was happening with all the bees! It wasn't cell phones (okay, it really wasn't) or pesticide. They were just all inside a truck. And now that truck has crashed on an Idaho highway, releasing 14 million bees to go make a giant vat of potato honey or whatever bees do in Idaho.

Jess Zimmerman Science

EPA risks kiling bees to fight invasive stink bugs

The brown marmorated stink bug threatens crops in 33 states. But the EPA will allow farmers to use a pesticide that could wipe out bee populations, too

Tom Laskawy Science

Bee season: Urban beekeeping in Hong Kong [VIDEO]

Take three minutes out of your day to watch this absolutely beautiful short video portrait of Michael Leung, a product designer and beekeeper in Hong Kong. (It’s part of a promotional campaign for Nokia called “Success Redefined,” but don’t let that put you off.) Leung is the founder of HK Honey: HK Honey is an […]

Sarah Goodyear Food and Agriculture

More evidence cell phones kill bees

There's a new study fingering cell phones as the culprit behind mysteriously dwindling bee populations. That's been one of the theories floating around for years — others include viruses, global warming, insecticide, and en masse return to the planet Melissa Majora — but new research out of Switzerland provides solid evidence that cell phone signals […]

Jess Zimmerman Science

Critical List: Scientists’ report pushes emissions policy, Greenlanders warm to climate change

A government report that Congress ordered back when most members believed in climate change recommends creating some — any — sort of policy to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. Newt Gingrich needs to admit his support for climate change solutions was "a brain fart," Republicans say. Democrats just wish he'd return to the '90s, where he belongs. […]

Sarah Laskow Climate & Energy

The USDA’s top bee scientist talks pesticides and colony collapse at a D.C. luncheon

Buzz kill: honey bees face a variety of threats from industrial agriculture.Photo: Muhammad Mahdi KarimThere was a moment during a luncheon talk yesterday when Jeffrey Pettis, the United States Department of Agriculture’s lead bee researcher, almost defended Bayer, the agrichemical company whose pesticide he has tied to the global destruction of bee populations. Pettis pointed […]

Monica Potts Food and Agriculture

Should some pesticides be banned to protect bees? A USDA scientist dances around the question

Photo: Maury McCownAs I reported in January, the USDA’s top bee researcher, Jeffrey Pettis, has publicly revealed that he has completed research showing that Bayer’s blockbuster neonicotinoid pesticides, used on million of acres of crops across the country, harm honeybees even at extremely low doses. The revelation was significant because a growing number of U.S. […]

Tom Philpott Food and Agriculture

U.K. guv takes threat of bee-killing pesticides seriously. Why doesn’t the U.S.?

Remember neonicotinoids? They’re the widely used class of pesticides that an increasing body of evidence — including from USDA researchers — implicates in the collapse of honeybee populations. Neonicotinoids are marketed by the agrichemical giant Bayer, which reels in about $800 million in sales from them each year. Germany (Bayer’s home country), France, and Slovenia […]