Environmentalists announced a mass extinction of bees. This is due to overheating of the hives due to global warming, writes the magazine Functional Ecology.
“If temperatures on Earth rise as much as climatologists predict, then the bees will be on the verge of extinction because they will run into their physiological limits.” Bees will completely disappear in the warmer regions of their habitat. “This perspective is sobering and scaring us,” said ecologist from Northwestern University in Evanston, Paul J. CaraDonna.
The rapid decline in the number of domestic and wild bees was recorded on all continents except Antarctica, where they do not live. In the last 5 years alone, the population of wild bees has declined by more than 25%, and domestic (only in the USA) has halved! In the US state of Arizona, for example, the last colonies of wild bees Osmia Ribifloris, which are considered the main blueberry pollinators, are already disappearing today.
The main cause of mass death, researchers believe global warming. Due to elevated temperatures, insects can not normally hibernate, which leads to the rapid burning of fat reserves.
Parasitic mites of the genus Varroa also have a negative effect on them, which spread viruses, deform insect wings, pesticides and the mysterious “colony collapse syndrome”. This symptom is still little studied, but it is known that with its development, worker bees leave the queen and fly away from the hive forever.
Scientists have not yet figured out how to save the bees from mass extinction.