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.
The solution is so simple. Crop/pollen diversity. Instead of letting fields lay fallow for crop rotation, they could plant diverse wildflower meadows to improve quality of bee health for the traveling bees that get shipped around for crop rotation. Or the bee keepers themselves that sell the services of their bees, could ensure diverse flower and pollen options when their bees aren’t traveling.
Get outta here with your sensible, practical solutions! ;-)
Seems easier than engineering edible yeast to get them the sterols they need.
But you see they can sell this! Can’t sell “fallow fields”…
Yes well known fact we shouldn’t research any technology to reverse the collapse of our biosphere or to alleviate climate change. Wouldn’t want anyone being able to sell that tech. Best we just turn off the lights and plant some flowers.
I love planting some flowers, but we’re going to need technology to undo the mess we created.
Fellows can sell seeds for fallow fields, my friend. never fear for they will forage, and be fine.
Didn’t use fertile or follow or falter. Fine folly.
Frankly, foul folly feels fitter.
“They” being the University of Oxford?
Plenty of companies have been founded by former university researchers based on discoveries they’ve made while at said universities. Seems like nothing prevents those folks from patenting the newfound methods for themselves.
Or, they will license the technology to a big manufacturer. Seeing as the University of Oxford is probably ill-equipped to produce industrial amounts of yeast.
You would be surprised, yeast vats and breweries have a ton of overlap, IE pretty cheap tanks and reasonably standard infrastructure. Most universities with a biology research wing are going to have a few bio-reactors, and while they may not be able to produce the feed itself industrially, they can easily breed starters to sell to places like breweries and companies that already produce yeast at massive scale.
That’s it! I’m calling my beer brewing vessels ‘bio-reactors’! No more carboys for me!
In the end, it probably isn’t easier at all. Once the yeast is created, yeast is dirt cheap and easy as hell to grow, and wouldn’t require managing a field of wildflowers that are going to drop seeds for the following year when you intend to plant crops there. I’m not saying it’s a good or ethical choice, but the yeast definitely has the potential to be easier and cheaper
It also doesn’t degrade ecosystems further.
Bees aren’t just the domesticated honey bees.
Don’t worry. Dust bowl 2 comming in hot to teach this lesson the hard way.
Note for those passing through and not reading articles:
This is not a summary of the article, but OP’s suggestion for a solution. The article talks about creating a yeast product that’s lacking in bees’ diet due to climate change and a lack of diversity in flowers.
OP suggests combatting the effects climate change has on biodiversity by planting your own diverse flowers. Which may work, or climate change may just kill those too.
I learned during COVID about planting diverse local wildflowers to help with pollination in my small little garden I used to have. I ended up dedicating like an 8x6 planter just for wildflowers every year. Always had tons of bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. I honestly never realized how many species of bees there were. The first year I did it I tripled my veggie yield, never looked back.
I can see a potential problem with this suggestion. How many of those wildflowers are net nitrogen fixers? If they are net-negative this approach could be draining all the nitrogen out of the soil during off-rotation years meaning large amounts of petrochemical fertilizer would have to be used to make the field productive again for nitrogen consuming crops (like wheat and corn).
Key Native Nitrogen-Fixing Wildflowers:
https://edgeofthewoodsnursery.com/wp-content/uploads/Native-Plants-for-Nitrogen-Fixation.pdf
Cheers
Bees went fucking nuts for my lupine, even while living in an urban environment. Only problem was that the aphids did too. So many that it was revolting. I had to aggressively remove them every single day of the colonies would explode and destroy my lupine within a very short time. They’d suck it dry.
Several of those are going to be perennial and end up competing with mono-culture crops the following year(s) (not that I’m trying to defend mono-culture crops, but that’s what they’re planting). It’s a good idea, but not necessarily as simple as you’re implying. Still it’s an idea that’s not without some merit. The biggest obstacle to adoption is no one is making a significant profit off of it, so it’s unlikely to see much uptake.
You aren’t wrong, but soil can be turned over, and the wildflowers can be removed.
I’m sure things are different in different parts of the world, but where I’m from, pretty much none of the big crop farms let fields lay truly fallow. Most of them plant various cold season cover crops that include things like clover, brassicas, and legumes like vetch. Those all produce lots of flowers that feed the bees in the off season.
The issue with wildflower meadows, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that most of those wildflowers bloom at times when the fields would otherwise be needed for crop production. Of course, there are farmers who skip planting at all some years, but in my neck of the woods, nobody does that. They plant every year, at least once, they just rotate different crops in and out. Corn one year. Hay then soy, the next. And so on.
Bee extinction means no polination, no polination means no crops; penny wise and pound foolish.
Bee extinction means drastically fewer crops and less pollination, but not no crops. It would be devastating, but there would still be agriculture. Lots of staple crops are wind pollinated and don’t rely on insects at all. But for the rest of our food, that would all become very expensive and widely unavailable.