Bees Self-Medicate With Honey To Beat Pesticides
http://www.businessinsider.com/bees-self-medicate-with-honey-2013-4
scout bee (top) comes home and shares her findings with another forager.
Honey contains chemicals that could help bees ward off parasites and protect them from pesticide damage, new research suggests.
The findings, published today (April 29) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the immune-boosting chemicals in honey could be a solution to colony-collapse disorder, which has decimated bee populations worldwide.
"The natural honey has components in it that help trigger defenses in the bees," said Jay Evans, a bee pathologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Maryland who was not involved in the study.
Mysterious disappearance
Honeybees have been disappearing mysteriously, in a trend known as colony-collapse disorder. Though no one knows exactly what causes the dramatic die-off, scientists think a range of factors, including parasites and pesticides, may be culprits.
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