Protecting Bees During Highway Construction
- 12 years ago
Protecting Bees While Building Infrastructure - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.
Researchers at Washington State University are studying the flight patterns of alkali bees in order to help them safely cross over a planned highway. Sponsored by the Washington State Department of Transportation, the study will try to determine if an effective barrier can be built to keep bees out of traffic and out of harms way. The bees are a concern because they are an agricultural necessity for the alfalfa farmers in the area, which is home to some 17 million alkali bees. Efforts to build a mesh fence that will force the bees to fly over the highway traffic rather than through it have been promising. Head of the research team Douglas Walsh said, "This project will decrease the impacts of WSDOT highway construction on both farmers and their important bee resource.”
Washington isn’t the only place trying to retain or revitalize their bee population. The short-haired bee was extinct in Britain in 2000, but about fifty bees have been relocated from Sweden and will hopefully be able repopulate the area. The United Nations has estimated that 90 percent of the world's food comes from about 100 different crops, over 70 of which are pollinated by bees.
Researchers at Washington State University are studying the flight patterns of alkali bees in order to help them safely cross over a planned highway. Sponsored by the Washington State Department of Transportation, the study will try to determine if an effective barrier can be built to keep bees out of traffic and out of harms way. The bees are a concern because they are an agricultural necessity for the alfalfa farmers in the area, which is home to some 17 million alkali bees. Efforts to build a mesh fence that will force the bees to fly over the highway traffic rather than through it have been promising. Head of the research team Douglas Walsh said, "This project will decrease the impacts of WSDOT highway construction on both farmers and their important bee resource.”
Washington isn’t the only place trying to retain or revitalize their bee population. The short-haired bee was extinct in Britain in 2000, but about fifty bees have been relocated from Sweden and will hopefully be able repopulate the area. The United Nations has estimated that 90 percent of the world's food comes from about 100 different crops, over 70 of which are pollinated by bees.