Starvation as babies makes bees stronger as adults
March 31, 2016
From: Phys.org
Short-term starvation as larvae actually makes honey bees more resilient to nutritional deprivation as adults. This suggests they have an anticipatory mechanism like solitary organisms do. These findings change the current understanding of colony collapse disorder and provide new avenues to study. Credit: Christofer Bang
A lack of adequate nutrition is blamed as one of many possible causes for colony collapse disorder or CCD—a mysterious syndrome that causes a honey bee colony to die. Parasites, pesticides, pathogens and environmental changes are also stressors believed responsible for the decline of honey bees.
Since bees are critical to the world’s food supply, learning how bees cope with these stressors is critical to understanding honey bee health and performance.
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