Bumblebee

Talking about the most popular and lovely animals in the world, most people will chose puppies, cats, or birds. However, there is a few people who raise a kind of small insect as their pets, a tiny animal that can be seen everywhere in gardens and farms. At the same time, as one of the biggest groups of insects, bees are facing the unprecedented challenge; their population has been dramatically decreasing since 1971, especially between 2006 and 2007. The main reasons can be attributed to the…

What Females Want To a female barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), darker colors on the males will be the preferred mate choice. Females judge males by their reddish colored breast and belly feathers. The reddish feathers indicate a males quality, health, their ability to raise young, and is linked to a signal of high testosterone. Kevin McGraw, Cornell Ph.D. an assistant professor at Arizona State University in Tempe. Conducted studies of barns wallows finding that "Factors like ultra violet…

The authors of this paper recognized a lack of literature on the indirect effect predators have on prey, and pondered that this perceived risk might have a greater influence on prey behavior and life history than direct predation. By consistently removing any possibility for potential predators to reach the nests of a population of song sparrows, as well as playing recordings of potential predators, the authors reported a 40% decrease in the number of offspring produced. They also report a…

Honeybees have made a major impact on the world, not just agriculturally, but economically. Honey bees are accountable for pollinating 80% of the United State’s fruit, vegetables, and seed crops. More than 100 different variety of plants in the United States are pollinated. The work of the honey bee is essential to the production of $7 billion worth of agricultural crops in Arizona alone. More than $15 billion a year in United States crops, are pollinated by bees, including apples, berries,…

Leafcutter bees are members of the genus Megachile. Along with resin and mason bees, they make up the Megachilidae family (Serrano). There are 131 different species of leafcutter bees native to North America although most of the species are too poorly known to have common names. Of those, 28 species are found in Kansas (Young et al.). They are moderately-sized, varying from 5 to 24 millimeters in length (Serrano). Their appearance is mostly black with several whitish hair bands across the…

It is difficult to find exactly that which continent has been facing highest death rate of bees. The entire world is facing the decline in wild bee population due to several reasons. The reasons may vary among these continents because of the diversity in agricultural procedures. The Washington Post (2013) reported the causes of bees dying in the United States and the European countries. The European Union has recognized that the major cause of bee deaths in Europe is a specific class of…

Our most humbled, endangered, and unappreciated workers are the worker bees. These fuzzy creatures are making 1 in every 3 bites taken, possible. So before calling them a nuisance that goes around stinging people, consider that they are feeding majority of the world and are the biggest, most relied on pollinators. Unfortunately, our fuzzy friends are on decline, this can cause major damage to the worlds health and many farmers income,it is due to several factors such as Colony Collapse Disorder…

The Western Honey Bee and its twenty sub species have been extensively spread across the planet due to economic benefits relating with pollination and honey production. Honey bees live in colonies and split the division of labor among individuals. There are three castes of Western Honey Bees: Workers, Drones, and Queens (Krell 1996). Worker bees are non-reproductive females that make up the largest group in the colony. They specialize in the collection of pollen/nectar and feeding the young.…

In Science magazine, Jonas Geldmann and Juan P. González-Varo wrote a piece talking about the loss of western honey bees. It is done by compiling evidence performed by tests and other articles on the subject. They bring attention how society has grown to know that the loss of bees, or natural pollinators, has been an epidemic. They reference this to bring the attention that, “pollinators for global food security; ~75% of all globally important crops depend to some degree on pollination.” While…

Symbiosis or a symbiotic relationship is a close a relationship/interaction between two organisms of different species. The three main types of symbiosis are mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism. Mutualism is the symbiotic relationship where both the species benefits from the other. For example, clownfish live in sea anemones and because of this the clownfish eventually become immune to the paralyzing sting of the sea anemone. The sea anemone gives the clownfish a home and protects the…