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Bees are critical to American agriculture.
Theypollinateover $15 billion worth of crops across our country each year.
But lately, habitat destruction and colony collapse disorder have wreaked havoc on these incredible creatures.
Photo: IGORVETUSHKO/Depositphotos
Buchmann’s work also suggests they should hold a special place in our ethical scheme.
Experiments, the outcomes of which are addressed in the book, illuminate the sentient secret life of bees.
Chittka observed how the released bees learned to look for the spider and to avoid it.
He also observed an almost PTSD-like symptom among the previously captured creatures.
Some would be too scared to approach even unoccupied flowers.
These happy bees then foraged more than their unrewarded peers.
By contrast, stress from poor handling lowered the levels of these happy hormones.
Bees must also keep good memories, so that they can return to the best flower patches.
This is not a trivial challenge, says Chittka.
Different flowers are blooming from one week to the next.
The current carefree situation that [invertebrate] researchers live in with no legal framework needs to be re-evaluated.
There are few regulations regarding bee welfare.
Hives have lost increasing numbers of bees in recent years, causing much to be worried about.
Bees are critical to feeding the world and to plant survival.
But the bees need care too.
The ground used to be buzzing with bees, Buchmann said of past almond groves.
Now the almonds fall on bare ground or plastic sheeting and are vacuumed up by big harvesting units.
Reforestation and wild flowers can only do so much.
The first step in safeguarding the precious bees is learning more about them and their lives.
It is a wholly new aspect of how weird and wonderful the world is around us.
