Following up on the bees

Apparently, bees are not only sipping mojitos by the pool but also getting “vaccinated” (*it’s not an actual vaccine, but please bear with us *😇).

Last week, we learnt that the Netherlands is building bee hotels and a honey highway to prevent their bee population from declining. Beemmunity, a Colorado-based company, took a different path and developed a pollen-sized microparticle that, when ingested, captures pesticide before it reaches the bee’s brain.

According to research published in the renowned Nature journal, this antidote increases the survival rate from 0% for untreated bees to 80% for the treated ones!

To deliver the microparticle to bees, the company sells a sugar bar that you can put in your garden to feed the visiting bees, as well as a sugar powder that beekeepers can apply directly into their hives.

Today, 98% of honeycombs in North America are contaminated with pesticides, and 40% of the managed colonies are lost each year. While the long-term solution includes removing pesticides from industrial agriculture’s operations, Beemmunity’s products provide a way to mitigate the issue until then.

Shout out to the team for coming up with a concrete solution that is available to everyone and helps solve a pressing issue while being so cute 😍