Comment on Scientists found the missing nutrients bees need — Colonies grew 15-fold
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Scientists have developed a breakthrough food supplement that could help save honeybees from devastating declines. By engineering yeast to produce six essential sterols found in pollen, researchers provided bees with a nutritionally complete diet that boosted reproduction up to 15-fold. Unlike commercial substitutes that lack key nutrients, this supplement mimics natural pollen’s sterol profile, giving bees the equivalent of a balanced diet.
TL;DR: Bees need balanced nutrition and we figured out how to make healthy bee food.
three_trains_in_a_trenchcoat@piefed.social 2 days ago
okay, next question: why aren't they getting those sterols?
follow up: are wild, native bees also affected, or is it just the European honeybees?
Scrawny@reddthat.com 2 days ago
A healthy hive would get proper nutrients. Usually you only need to feed a hive pollen when it is a weaker hive that doesn’t have the population needed to collect pollen. This boosts brood production and the hive can recover faster.
Another issue is commercial beekeeping. Hundreds of hives could be working a few square miles while in nature it would be just a few. Not enough resources for that many hives so weaker hives struggle. This is a human solution for a human problem.