Bees on planet dying out for unknown reasons — scientist

Science & Space June 24, 8:00

Dmitry Boguslavsky says scientists thought that bees became disoriented after leaving the hive. However, even if a colony was confined to the hive with food, water, and the right temperature, all bees still died

MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. Bees on Earth are dying out, and scientists still don’t know the reasons for their demise, Dmitry Boguslavsky, apiologist, PhD in biology, and senior researcher at the Koltzov Institute of Developmental Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS.

"The bee colony collapse has already been registered in fifty countries around the world, not just Russia. It’s an inexplicable phenomenon. There are only hypotheses about why it happens: all the worker bees in the hive disappear within about a week. All that remains is the queen bee, who has no one to feed, and sometimes a handful of drones - and that’s it. Scientists thought that bees, for some reason, flew away and then were unable to return to the hive, becoming disoriented. However, even if a colony was confined to the hive, provided with food, water, and the right temperature, all the bees still died," he explained.

The extinction of bees was first scientifically described in 2006, Boguslavsky noted.

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