JAKARTA – Results she studies A pair of University of Maryland entomologists point out that honey bee lifespans today are 50 percent shorter than they were in the 1970s or 50 years ago.
Experts speculate that the big influence is genetic change. The research began when entomologists Anthony Nearman and Dennis van Engelsdorp were conducting research to see how sugar in water affects the lifespan of captive bees.
They later noted that the average lifespan of bees in their study was half that reported in similar studies from the 1970s.
Then, they replicated all of the protocols from the previous study. The bee pupae were harvested from the hive before emergence and then kept in the same enclosure conditions as the adults, but their modern bees lived an average of 17.7 days compared with 34.3 days reported in previous studies.
“When I plotted lifespan over time, I realized, wow, there’s actually a huge time effect going on,” Nearman said, as quoted by New Atlas, Tuesday (11/15/2022).
“Standard protocols for keeping honey bees in the lab weren’t really formalized until the 2000s, so you’d expect lifespans to be longer or the same, because we’re getting better at that, right? Instead, we have seen the death toll double.”
Research findings suggest that bee lifespans have decreased in recent decades. This new research is the first to eliminate all of these variables and suggests there may be a decrease in honey bee lifespan regardless of environmental factors.
“We isolate bees from colony life just before they emerge as adults, so anything that shortens their lifespan occurs before that point,” Nearman said.
