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The Solution To The Dwindling Bee Problem? A Sperm Bank!
I think we’re all familiar with colony collapse disorder (CCD) here — bees be dyin’, trouble be brewin’, etc., to use the scientific terms. (But seriously, bees pollinate a ton of our food, and their unexplained, massive die-offs are ominous and straight out of The X-Files.) So it’s cool that Washington State University researchers are trying to create The One in bee form, the super-bee that can survive CCD. It’s even cooler that they’re creating a bee sperm bank to do so, because sperm is one of our favorite topics:
The researchers plan to mix the strongest Italian bee semen with the best American bees have to offer, in a sort of bizarre World Cup of reproductive juice. Researchers have two weeks to “inject [the semen] into the selected queen bee’s oviduct,” which is an incredibly romantic turn of phrase. Here’s hoping the plans for the super-bee are a success. Because CCD is a real buzzkill.
http://grist.org/list/bee-sperm-bank-developed-to-fight-colony-collapse-disorder/
The researchers plan to mix the strongest Italian bee semen with the best American bees have to offer, in a sort of bizarre World Cup of reproductive juice. Researchers have two weeks to “inject [the semen] into the selected queen bee’s oviduct,” which is an incredibly romantic turn of phrase. Here’s hoping the plans for the super-bee are a success. Because CCD is a real buzzkill.
http://grist.org/list/bee-sperm-bank-developed-to-fight-colony-collapse-disorder/
