Sometimes it's nice to hear some uplifting news, so:
1) In today's news: Bee species thought to be extinct is actually not:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/blue-calamintha-bee-rare-blue-metallic-bee-spotted-in-florida/
2) From a recent TIME magazine article: Honeybees are thriving in Slovenia:
https://time.com/5815141/slovenia-bees-climate-change/
Awesome news! Bees are such an important part of nature. Let's root for them!
Honey bees are usually nice once you get to know them... usually. The Russian honeybees are a bit... jumpy to say the least and there are some other breeds that were faisty. The Italian bees seems chill, though.
On a serious note, yes, we need to help them to thrive, as without them most of the fruit harvest would end with failure since they rely on bees for polination. Thus affecting the food source. That's not even mentioning the fact they played a very important part of the eco system.
. The Italian bees seems chill, though.
I'm guessing the Slovenian bees are a similar subspecies to the Italian bees, given the geographic proximity. The TIME article is pretty interesting.
When I was little, my grandfather would take me across a field to visit neighbor's beehives. I wasn't afraid and I thought it was all pretty cool. (Plus my grandfather would get honeycomb from the neighbor and give some to us kids to chew on. LOL)
And for anyone who's into bees, here's a more detailed article about the metallic blue bee:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/floridas-rare-blue-calamintha-bee-rediscovered/
While surfing on Twitter, there is a post about an Irish beekeeper building a functional beehive out of lego.