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Vandals are damaging a historic site in Wales, and its operators have come up with an ingenious solution: protect the place with bees. This should work, for as noted bee expert Homer Simpson once observed, bees will bite your bottom, and then your bottom's big. More »
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This is one of the most succinct and interesting videos I've ever seen about how bees communicate with each other. Using a series of precise dance moves, they inform their hive mates about the locations of food sources. The vid was made by researchers working with a group at Georgia Tech called the Multi-Agent Robotics and Systems Lab (MARS), where scientists study social insect behavior, and try to apply what they've learned to robotics. Essentially, they'd like to program groups of robots to work together autonomously, but first they need to understand how insects do it. More »
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Something is very wrong with the bees. Since 2006, the mysterious phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder has wiped out countless honeybee colonies throughout Europe and North America, and nobody knows why. But a weird parasite may hold the answer. More »
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When it comes time for honeybee swarm to split off from their mother colony and find a new place to live, something remarkable happens. To communicate most effectively, they organize themselves exactly like the neurons of a complex brain. More »
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You'll not see anything quite like the bee dance created and performed by Michael Smith. Smith made this video and entered it into the 2011 Dance Your Dissertation competition: More »
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When bees leave their old hive, they send out hundreds of scouts to find possible locations for the new hive. This quest for prime bee real estate quickly devolves into another battle between art-forms: specifically, bee dancing vs. bee singing. More »
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If you spend your life studying insects of the order hymenoptera, which includes wasps, bees and ants, you're going to get stung a few times. Justin Schmidt, entomologist at the University of Arizona, never intentionally set out to get stung by as many different species as possible, but entomologist fieldwork involves bagging live nests for study. When you dig an ant nest out of the ground or climb a tree to bag a wasp nest, the hymenopterans inside are generally pissed off. They sting. More »
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For reasons that aren't fully understood, bees are dying off. That could mean disaster for us, since we depend on bees to pollinate crops. The solution? To create disease- and pest-resistant super-bees. What could possibly go wrong? More »
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Crazy people (who are technically scientists) show readers how to make a beard of bees to impress their friends or perhaps kill themselves in the least dignified way possible. More »
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Queen bees are much larger than worker bees, and live years longer, for one reason. They gorge on a sugary protein called "royal jelly." Now a scientist has made ultra-large flies using royal jelly too. Are humans next? More »
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Bees can become mentally young again with just a few simple alterations to their otherwise fixed routines. Because the brains of bees are surprisingly like our own, this trick could help fight dementia and keep human minds young and flexible. More »
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With global bee populations shrinking drastically, designer Karen Ingham's decided our winged pollinating friends need all the help they can get. Enter the Pollinator Frock, a garment doused in a nectar-like solution that's designed to help foraging bees. More »
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There's lots of reason for optimism about the coming year — Game of Thrones! More Doctor Who and Fringe! Dozens of huge movies! But there are also reasons for apprehension. Here's what we're scared could happen this year. More »
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Many people don't think that the collapse of bee populations is as big a mystery as it's made out to be. An EPA memo, leaked last month, reveals that a commonly used pest-control chemical can disrupt bee colonies. More »
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It's not enough that birds are dropping from the skies and fish are washing up on our shores...now we've got disappearing bumblebees to contend with. Some American bumblebee species saw a massive 96% population drop in the last 20 years. More »
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Thanks to a joint investigation from academics and the Department of Homeland Security, the culprit in the Case of the Honeybee Killer has been found. More »
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Alcohol consumption might seem like a particularly human trait, but animals can get drunk too... as long as researchers supply the booze. It turns out bees are the perfect little drunkards, which provides a great way to study alcohol abuse. More »
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Bees and flowers have long been intertwined by pollination, as bees aid flowers in the task of sexual reproduction. But a very special group of bees in Turkey take their work home with them, making beautiful nests out of flowers. More »
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Flowers may use UV patterns to attract bees. See how, and check out photos that shows us approximately what a bee sees when it looks at flowers. More »
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If you ever get into a tense confrontation with a bee, and then you have to back down for whatever reason, don't try to salvage it by saying "Remember the face." Because it turns out bees can do that. More »
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With the number of beehives in the US reduced to nearly a third of what they were 50 years ago, scientists say we can't wait any longer to deal with honeybee mass deaths. The future of farming depends on it. More »
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Scientists have discovered that bees use more than their stingers to defeat potential attackers. Apparently, they're perfectly prepared to mummify enemies who can't be stung. More »
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Bees that are high on cocaine behave more altruistically than sober bees do. Scientists report today in The Journal of Experimental Biology that coked-up bees are much more enthusiastic about helping other bees find food. More »
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British scientists have learned some interesting things about the way animals respond to traumatic experiences and how trauma affects their daily lives. What was the key to their groundbreaking research? Robot spiders that hug bumble bees. Seriously. More »
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In this new trailer from M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, Marky Mark wants bored schoolkids to think about why all the Earth's honeybees are vanishing. The trouble is, unless you've got a video of giant robots decimating swarms of bees with lasers, the schoolkids just won't care. But once everyone starts dropping dead in their tracks, you can bet they'll start paying attention. Snotty little whiners. More »
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