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.

Using CRISPR-Cas9, scientists engineered a yeast to produce the nutrient feed. Farmers could have it in two years.

  • Sculptus Poe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    9 hours ago

    Well, domestic bees are intrusive. I wonder if they are going to try to feed this to wild bees… Probably not. Still, I want domestic bees to flourish, because I like honey, so I’m not that mad.

    • ButteryMonkey@piefed.socialEnglish
      3·
      6 hours ago

      I don’t like honey so the things I do will be 100% to support non-honey bees because they are far far far more valuable than invasive honey bees ever could be…e.

      I love my native bees. Especially mason bees. I love that they can’t be commercialized. I hate that people don’t care about them because they can’t be commercialized and that’s the whole reason my yard is mostly wild.

      Fuuuuuuuck honey and the damage it causes the natural ecosystem. Fuck importing plants and making them work through invasive agriculture. If something can’t grow because we can’t keep the bees here because they aren’t native here…. TOO FUCKING BAD! Import it, don’t ruin the ecosystem trying to make it work.

      • LincolnsDogFido@lemmy.zipEnglish
        11·
        3 hours ago

        I’d bet my life savings you don’t actually feel this strongly about honey bees. And secondly, honey bees don’t need “invasive agriculture” to survive or produce honey. They produce honey just fine from natural wildflowers and wildflowers benefit all the same from pollination.

        • ButteryMonkey@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          I feel that strongly about native bees and honey bees cause problems for them so… yeah. I’m big on native wildlife. Fuck invasive species.

          Honeybees are not native where I am, and somehow we have so many crops that supposedly rely on them or they would fail entirely, how is that not invasive agriculture? People truck bees across the country to support these crops.

          I’m not saying they can’t produce honey from native flowers, they can but that’s entirely beside the point, and that’s also competing with native bees, of which there are hundreds of species.