Bee story with a sting in its tail

We’ve been a bit forgetful lately, not submitting items to Scientia Pro Publica, one of the most popular science blog carnivals around. But that doesn’t mean we’ve ignored the latest edition, at Genetic Inference. There’s a bunch of stuff there on climate change, and a link to a long post on David Roubik’s 17-year quest to understand the impact of African Killer Bees.

We nibbled Science Daily’s take on the original scientific paper, but on an amazingly busy day. So it is good to see Greg Laden take a somewhat longer view. To the press release, which he thoughtfully copies, Laden adds the observation that “the so called “African Killer Bees” are nothing other than the wild version of the honey bee,” and points out that people have a hard time relating loving, gentle European honey bees to these killers out of Africa’s dark heart. The interbreeding of wild and domesticated honeybees restored some aggression to domestic stocks and in the process of “Africanizing” them also boosted their honey-gathering abilities.

Roubik’s study concluded that although there have been swings in populations of various bee species, pollination has not suffered. Local bees, sometimes outcompeted by Africanized honeybees, are finding other flowers to sustain them. Most of the local plants are still doing fine, and some that are favoured by local bee species have even spread. But Roubik also sounded a cautionary note that hinges on the insurance value of plant biodiversity.

Basically we’re seeing ‘scramble competition’ as bees replace a lost source of pollen with pollen from a related plant species that has a similar flowering peak–in less-biodiverse, unprotected areas, bees would not have the same range of options to turn to.

That’s crucial. Roubik studied bees in “Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve — a vast area of mature tropical rainforest in Quintana Roo state on the Mexican Yucatan”. With fewer flower species among which to choose, local bees might not do so well. On the other hand, if the flower species aren’t there, they won’t suffer from the loss of local bees.

Nibbles: Markets, Easter Island, Honey, Coffee, Cowpea, Morocco, Urban Ag, Kenya

Nibbles: Kenyan drought, Ugandan agroforestry, American foodways, Beans, Forages, Bees to the nth, Indigenous farming, Brazilian and Cuban farming, Chinese aquaculture, Nigerian seedlings, Belgian dukes, IFPRI climate change study, Phytophthora

  • Internets all aglow today, so hang on to your hats, here we go. Drought forcing Kenyans out of maize, towards indigenous crops, wheat and rice. Wait, what?
  • Making money from tree seedlings in Uganda. Including indigenous stuff. Damn you, allAfrica, why are you so good?
  • ‘Turkey’ Hard Red Winter Wheat, Lake Michigan Whitefish, the Hauer Pippin Apple, and the St. Croix sheep, among others, added to Ark of Taste. Ok, I’m gonna have to see some explanation for that wheat one.
  • Singing the praises of pulses. Even Virgil gets a namecheck.
  • Tall Fescue for the Twenty-first Century? Seriously, who writes these titles?
  • nth study on bees announced. And n+1st reports. And n+2nd called for. CABI does a bit of a roundup. Bless you.
  • Declaration calls for “…the creation of democratic spaces for intercultural dialogue and the strengthening of interdependent networks of food producers and other citizens.” Interesting.
  • Small scale farmers produce most of what Brazilians eat. And no doubt manage most of the country’s agrobiodiversity. And Cuba?
  • Chinese aquaculture goes green? Riiiiight.
  • “Earlier this year, farmers from the north who had benefitted from previous improved seedling activities by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) demanded for more improved seed varieties from scientists.” Oh come on, gimme a clue. What crop? Improved how?
  • Medieval Bruges palace cesspit reveals dukes ate Mediterranean honey. Sybarites even then, the Belgians.
  • Scientific American says IFPRI says “traditional seed varieties and livestock breeds that might provide a genetic resource to adapt to climate change are being lost.”
  • Late Blight 101.