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15th July 2022
02:31pm BST

Bees tell us a lot about climate change[/caption]
Beehives normally sit at a temperature of 35C and while the bees in Canada should've been able to cope with higher temperature, the heat caused a lot of them to die. Dr McAfee said that after six hours at 42C, half of male bees will die from heat stress.
She said: "The more sensitive ones start to perish at two, or three hours. That’s a temperature they shouldn’t normally experience, but we were seeing drones getting stressed to the point of death."
Following this realisation, researchers started testing several methods of insulating beehives in a bid to stop another mass-death situation in future heatwaves. Coating beehives with a protective polystyrene cover, for example, can help them cool down by up to 3.5C. https://twitter.com/canal_community/status/1546750214630940672 The researcher believes male bees could be one of the most effective ways of understanding climate change. She said: "Drones have the advantage that they are very sensitive and easy to see. If drones are dying, it’s much easier to study them than to take a queen from a colony to perform tests. It’s also more conducive to citizen science efforts." The bee population is integral to our own survival, with plant pollination affecting many ecosystems. Research published in April found that the climate crisis could lead to more small-bodied bees but fewer bumblebees, with researchers warning of potential "cascading" effects on plant pollination and across whole ecosystems. A whopping 75 per cent of the top 115 global food crops depend on pollination, according to the study. The main drivers of extinction are thought to be habitat loss and pesticide use. Related links:Explore more on these topics:

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