Abstract
Honeybees visit flowers to collect food for themselves and their colonies. When bees visit flowers, they also pollinate. Pollination is an important step that causes plants to make fruits. Many fruits that we eat, like apples and blueberries, need bees for pollination. Without bees, our food supplies would be in danger of not producing enough fruit. But human activities have reduced the abundance of flowering plants. That means bee colonies are more likely to starve every year.
Beekeepers feed honeybees human-made food. But this food is missing essential nutrients called sterols. Yeasts are genetically engineered by scientists to make all kinds of important compounds, like insulin. We engineered a common yeast using genes from plants to produce the correct sterols that bees need. When we added this modified yeast to the bees’ diet, we found that colonies could continue to produce young bees. If the sterols were not in the diet, the colonies stopped being able to do so. We hope that this innovative solution will be used by beekeepers worldwide to improve bee health.
The post How can we make better food for honeybees? appeared first on Science Journal for Kids and Teens.
