Federal regulatory requirements mandate* that all public media outlets occasionally devote significant air time to the health and welfare of bees.
It's been a few years since our last apiarian hour, and so we've got to squeeze this one in before Tax Day.**
This hour, we get an update on colony collapse disorder, and we hear about a new study that finds that bigger bee colonies are actually quieter than smaller bee colonies, and we learn that honeybees might actually be bad for the environment.
Plus we ponder, what's it like to be a bee in the first place?
____
*No they don't.
**No we don't.
GUESTS:
- Natasha Frost - Writes for Atlas Obscura
- Susan Milius - Life sciences writer at ScienceNews magazine
- Michael Smith - The coauthor of a new study published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, “Larger but not louder: bigger honey bee colonies have quieter combs”
- Kimberly Stoner - Associate agricultural scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
Colin McEnroe, Betsy Kaplan, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show.