Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Climate change ‘making male bees more interested in sex than pollinating flowers’
Metro UK ^ | November 7, 2014 | by Harry Readhead

Posted on 11/08/2014 7:24:15 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

Anyone with a basic knowledge of how ecosystems work knows how important the role of the humble bee is.

But a study suggests that climate change may be making male bees too easily distracted by females to bother carrying out pollination.

According to research by the University of East Anglia, warmer springs have resulted in both bees and flowers emerging earlier than usual, meaning they do not coincide with each other.

This means that by the time the flowers bloom, the bees are too busy mating with females to help fertilise plants.

‘Warming by as little as 2C causes the males to emerge much earlier, meaning they are less well synchronised with the orchids,’ said lead researcher Anthony Davy, from the university’s school of biological sciences.

‘The problem is compounded by the female bees which are also emerging earlier, and attracting the attention of the male bees.

‘This means that the male bees are more likely to copulate with the female bees, rather than pollinating the orchids.’

(Excerpt) Read more at metro.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: beewhores; climate; globalwarminghoax; hoax; honey; marxism; socialism; sting; unitedkingdom
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last
To: Oldeconomybuyer

Warmer earlier in the year? Not less cold in winter or more warm any other time, just earlier spring? And this is caused by fossil fuel use? So the flowers adjust to the temp, but bees are stuck with tiny hive calendars, so they can’t handle any change?


21 posted on 11/08/2014 7:46:16 AM PST by Yaelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pikachu_Dad

Yes, but you are missing out on the male rape/war on women side of the story. The science is settled on that topic too.


22 posted on 11/08/2014 7:56:41 AM PST by outofsalt ( If history teaches us anything it's that history rarely teaches us anything.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(bee)

Male bees are called drones. Their only function is to fertilize the queen. Kids learn this in grade school or at least they used to.


23 posted on 11/08/2014 7:58:03 AM PST by Snickering Hound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Climate change ate my baby!


24 posted on 11/08/2014 8:04:57 AM PST by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Male” bees don’t pollinate flowers, they just hang around the bee hive and fertilize the queen. The bees that pollinate the flowers are neuter.


25 posted on 11/08/2014 8:09:36 AM PST by upcountryhorseman (An old fashioned conservative)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

> climate change may be making male bees too easily distracted by females to bother carrying out pollination

Huh. That’s odd, since in commercial beekeeping only ONE male mates with the ONLY reproducing female in the hive, the rest being DRONES and WORKERS.

Amd if they’re talking about the Orchard Mason bee, then they’re really full of crap.


26 posted on 11/08/2014 8:10:13 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Celebrate the Polls, Ignore the Trolls)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Same university that was at the center of the email scandal a while back. Got caught colluding on falsifying research. They have less than zero credibility.


27 posted on 11/08/2014 8:10:35 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

So basically everyone is just running around getting it on and not getting it done. Global warming caused the Clinton White House, iow.


28 posted on 11/08/2014 8:15:56 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Every time some phenomena occurs in nature, like bees having more sex, the hot airheads immediately link it to climate change, and adjust all theories to support their supposition. It gets in the way of real science, and real reasons why things happen. ...The guys doing real science can’t get any grant money.


29 posted on 11/08/2014 8:17:11 AM PST by pallis
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

I thought the worker bees were undeveloped females, genetically?


30 posted on 11/08/2014 8:17:14 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

What the hell.. i was taught that all worker bees were sterile females. That the hive did not produce as males except when need to reproduce an then once he did his one job he died off... or am i thinking ants


31 posted on 11/08/2014 8:28:19 AM PST by tophat9000 (An Eye for an Eye, a Word for a Word...nothing more)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Evolution; They are doing it RIGHT...


32 posted on 11/08/2014 8:44:44 AM PST by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: upcountryhorseman
"“Male” bees don’t pollinate flowers, they just hang around the bee hive and fertilize the queen. The bees that pollinate the flowers are neuter."

NOT exactly correct.

True that male bees (drones) do no pollination. But they do not mate with their own queen. Thus they fly several miles away from their own hive to mate with a queen from another hive. A queen will only have one mating flight and from that stores the sperm that will last her the rest of her life. So you can see that the chances of a particular drone being the lucky (?) guy to get to mate is unlikely. Only a few of them get lucky and then die doing it. So there are not many drones produced in the hive. The queen actually controls how many drones are made. All the other bees are female and all the females except the queen are worker bees. These workers are NOT neuter . They are true females. Sometimes if the queen of the hive dies and the hive has none of her eggs at the right stage to raise one as a new queen, then a few of the workers will mate and lay eggs as an attempt to revive the hive. These worker laid eggs are not successful though so this attempt never really works properly.

33 posted on 11/08/2014 8:54:16 AM PST by Apple Pan Dowdy (... as American as Apple Pie)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Nice try-—But a Male BEE is called a DRONE. They do not collect pollen. They stay in the hive and pork the queen. The worker bees are genetically FEMALE but do not mature to egg laying status until they are fed “Royal Honey” and then activate their ovaries. Somebody needs to tell the author about the Birds and the Bees!!!


34 posted on 11/08/2014 8:58:13 AM PST by timlilje
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Apple Pan Dowdy

If a hive loses its queen, some of the worker bees will start to lay eggs. But because the eggs haven’t been fertilized, they hatch into drones—which does the dying hive no good.

In a healthy hive, the drones are driven out in the fall, since their only function is to mate with a new queen. A queen only mates once—she takes the drone’s reproductive bits with her—that’s why the drones die after mating. Isn’t nature wonderful?


35 posted on 11/08/2014 9:12:38 AM PST by hanamizu
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Lonesome in Massachussets

True. A female queen develops when the worker bees give the larva of a female, Royal Jelly to develop her into a queen.


36 posted on 11/08/2014 9:45:11 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

I should have gotten on the climate change bandwagon decades ago—it explains much of my youthful behavior. /S


37 posted on 11/08/2014 10:09:14 AM PST by Pearls Before Swine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: molson209

But why do they bother to make all this crap up? Can’t they find something useful to contribute to society?


38 posted on 11/08/2014 2:25:37 PM PST by abclily
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

This is gibberish on a number of levels. It does not describe the behavior of social bees at any time during evolution or since creation. Bees visiting flowers do so to gather nectar and or pollen mostly for feeding to juveniles. Males social bees are not equipped to do that.

The article probably refers to the specialized solitary male bees which may pollinate certain species of orchids because they mistake part of the orchid flower as a female solitary bee of the same bee species. If the time of male bee sexual activity does not coincide with the blooming period of the orchid there may be a problem. However, none of that information seems to appear in the article.


39 posted on 11/08/2014 5:05:19 PM PST by Western Phil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

This makes no sense. The bees are early. The flowers are early. Everything is early. So how could they now be “out of synch”? They are all just earlier.

Plus, it appears that things are still being pollinated.

And anyway, I thought the problem was that the bees were dying, not that they were having excessive sex.

Of course, anytime I see East Anglia, I laugh too hard to think about science.


40 posted on 11/08/2014 6:27:21 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson