Breeding a better bee: Three social immunity traits, one massive experiment

Photo: Amanda Goodman-Lee

Sick honey bee colonies can be treated with antibiotics and miticides, but pathogens are evolving resistance to fight back. Now, researchers have developed a new counter-attack.

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Hives for Humanity: Using bees for social empowerment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

Photo: Sarah Common

A Canadian mother-daughter team is bringing life and colour to the Hastings homeless community by installing therapeutic apiaries and gardens.

Precision Pollination

PHOTO: ALISON MCAFEE

A simple trick could let beekeepers improve their colonies’ pollination efficiency

The surprising benefit of laying workers

Photo: Malcolm Rickets

Laying workers are usually unwelcome pests, but they are also a window into how insect societies may have evolved.

Life without fumagillin

PHOTO: ALISON MCAFEE

The only registered treatment for Nosema disease is no longer commercially available.

Long live the sperm

Photo: Alison McAfee

Honey bee queens keep drones’ sperm alive inside them for years, but some surprising environmental triggers can cause massive sperm death.

The blueberries and the bees

Photo: Marta Guarna

Thousands of honey bee colonies arrive in the Fraser Valley’s blueberry fields every spring, but beekeepers are worried this crop may be harming their bees.

Who’s got the guts?

Image: Waldan Kwong

The honey bee gut is home to hundreds of millions of microbes – some of which help the host, and some of which destroy it.

Hygienic behavior and the scent of death

Photo: Alison McAfee

HYGIENIC WORKER BEES are key players in the hive’s social immune system, removing sick and dying brood before the diseases they harbor can spread. 

How a Nobel Prize in physiology created tomorrow’s Varroa control

Photo: Alison McAfee

Every beekeeper has wrestled with the Varroa destructor mite. Every beekeeper also knows we’re running out of weapons. 

Transgenic honey bees: Should they take wing in the field, or stay in the lab?

Love it or hate it, in this INK article I argue that genetic engineering is not inherently evil. Whether it’s good or bad is dictated by the context, motive, and intent – not the technology.