The bee orchid's flower is shaped, colored, and scented to impersonate a female bee closely enough to fool males into trying to mate with it. Here's how the deception actually works, and why it doesn't always have to.
Flower color, shape, and scent aren't random — they're tuned to match one specific type of pollinator. Here's how bee, bird, and moth flowers each evolved their own distinct playbook.
A parasitic fly called Apocephalus borealis lays eggs inside honey bees, driving infected bees to leave the hive at night and die near lights. Here's what's actually known about the phenomenon nicknamed "zombie bees."
A virulent sacbrood virus strain has caused over 90% mortality in Korea's native Apis cerana since 2008, reshaping the country's beekeeping industry.
Brighton & Hove's planning policy has required bee bricks in new buildings since 2020, giving Britain's 250 solitary bee species nesting habitat modern construction removed.
Robotic pollination already works commercially for greenhouse tomatoes, but it's nowhere near replacing what bees do across open-field crops at scale.
The Mawalis of the Sundarbans harvest wild honey from giant honey bee combs in mangrove forest shared with Bengal tigers — a documented, genuinely dangerous tradition.
Vanilla orchids co-evolved with a specific Melipona stingless bee native to Mexico, which is why nearly every vanilla pod grown elsewhere is pollinated entirely by hand.
Project Apis m., founded in 2006 by beekeepers and almond growers, has invested over $13 million in practical bee research, including its Seeds for Bees forage program.