![]() Repeatable conditions in the laboratory: Reproduction of the social uterus in the cooled incubator Many bees who are involved in this project started their lives in one of four Memmert IPP Peltier-cooled incubators in the bee station. The BEEgroup at the University of Würzburg dedicates a significant part of its work to basic research, especially bee health research. Honey bees are no longer as robust as their wild-living relatives, are less adaptable and more susceptible to disease. So what is it that is threatening this small insect, which has been living in symbiosis with man for thousands of years? Apart from environmental toxins, used as pesticides in agriculture, the dangers lie in the impoverishment of our landscapes, in agricultural monocultures and in the risks of a one-sided breeding of these immensely important insects. Health research is an essential part of biology Our supply of vitamins, plant oils, fibre, trace elements and minerals would no longer be guaranteed in these parts, without the third most important domestic animal, after cattle and pigs. This is true for fruit and berries just as much as for oil plants such as sunflower or rapeseed (mainly pollinated by wind), and many types of vegetables. Some 80% of indigenous cultivated plants are dependent on pollination by bees for reproduction and, in particular, to produce good yields. From this list of fruit trees and flowers that form the basis of different types of honey, it can be seen how important the honey bee is for the preservation of our biosphere. ![]() Zoology’s little patient: the honey bee is illĪcacia, wild flowers, clover, lime-tree blossom, buckwheat, heather, rapeseed, fir, cherry, lemon, apple. AtmoSAFE visited him and the students of the BEEgroup in their idyllic retreat on the edge of the Würzburg University campus. Today the biology professor is renowned amongst those scientists, setting the pace in bee research around the world. From studying neurobiology, Tautz switched his main research field to these wonderful insects whose secrets still fascinate people of all ages. He must have known Jürgen Tautz well, because the present had the desired effect. His mentor, Martin Lindauer, who is, along with Nobel Prize winner and behavioural scientist Karl von Frisch, one of the most famous ambassadors of bee research, one day presented him with a beehive.
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