Russian Scientist: Bees Dying Out Globally, Causes Unknown
Quick Look
- Bees worldwide are facing a mysterious decline, with colonies collapsing in 50 countries, according to Russian apiologist Dmitry Boguslavsky.
- The phenomenon, first scientifically described in 2006, sees all worker bees vanish within a week, leaving only the queen and a few drones.
- Despite controlled conditions, bees still die, baffling scientists who have only hypotheses.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
Bees on Earth are dying out, and scientists still don’t know the reasons for their demise. The bee colony collapse has already been registered in fifty countries around the world.
MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. Bees on Earth are dying out, and scientists still don’t know the reasons for their demise, Dmitry Boguslavsky, apiologist, PhD in biology, and senior researcher at the Koltzov Institute of Developmental Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS.
"The bee colony collapse has already been registered in fifty countries around the world, not just Russia. It’s an inexplicable phenomenon. There are only hypotheses about why it happens: all the worker bees in the hive disappear within about a week. All that remains is the queen bee, who has no one to feed, and sometimes a handful of drones - and that’s it. Scientists thought that bees, for some reason, flew away and then were unable to return to the hive, becoming disoriented. However, even if a colony was confined to the hive, provided with food, water, and the right temperature, all the bees still died," he explained.
The extinction of bees was first scientifically described in 2006, Boguslavsky noted.
Open Questions
- What are the specific causes of bee colony collapse?
- What are the long-term consequences of bee extinction?
