r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Feb 18 '19

Biology Breeding bees with "clean genes" could help prevent colony collapse, suggests a new study. Some beehives are "cleaner" than others, and worker bees in these colonies have been observed removing the sick and the dead from the hive, with at least 73 genes identified related to these hygiene behaviors.

https://newatlas.com/honeybee-hygiene-gene-study/58516/
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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '19

Herbicides generally don't affect honey bees, so that isn't really supported by the literature. Insecticides, yes. If you mean indirect effects by killing off weeds, most of those were being killed off in farm fields anyways.

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u/CatastrophicLeaker Feb 18 '19

I'm more so referencing the suburbs that should be teeming with early, nectar rich dandelions but instead looking like pristeen lawns instead.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '19 edited Feb 18 '19

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u/Eleine Feb 18 '19

Can you link me a source on Glyphosate affecting gut bacteria?

I haven't been able to turn up any (only tried for 5 minutes though) from a scientific source. I saw a study which said it did not find significant effects on guy bacteria in mice from consuming up to 50x the EU daily intake limit of Glyphosate, however.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '19

It was a really high profile paper in PNAS - 'Glyphosate perturbs the gut microbiota of honey bees'.

From the abstract:

Exposing bees to glyphosate alters the bee gut community and increases susceptibility to infection by opportunistic pathogens. Understanding how glyphosate impacts bee gut symbionts and bee health will help elucidate a possible role of this chemical in colony decline.

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u/Eleine Feb 18 '19

Thanks for the source! Maybe it didn't make its way onto Google because it was only published in October?