(ORDO NEWS) — Today, the populations of many species of bees are in decline, and British researchers have proposed another way to save these insects: turn some of the bricks in the walls of houses into “mini-beehives”.
Bees are incredibly important to natural ecosystems as well as agriculture and beekeeping.
For thousands of years they have been pollinating plants valuable to humans and producing wax, bee bread and honey used in medicine, cooking and the chemical industry.
Today, however, the number of many species of bees is steadily declining. There are several reasons for this, from global climate change to chemicals used by humans, such as fertilizers and pesticides.
Attempts to keep untouched areas of wildlife where these insects could live are ineffective, because the growing population of the Earth requires more and more space for building houses.
But what if our houses themselves were made habitable for bees?
At least that’s the idea that a British research team came up with, designing a “bee brick” with cavities large enough for a single bee to use as a hive .
Such bees are the most common pollinators, being much more common than social honey bees .
In total, about 250 single species of bees live on the territory of Great Britain alone, which do not unite in swarms to raise offspring.
At the same time, every twentieth of them arranges their nests in natural cavities – under stones, in hollows of trees, and so on, so that “bee bricks” will become quite suitable nests for them.
Such a brick is made from porcelain production waste, does not require maintenance and is comparable in strength to ordinary brick, it can be safely used in the construction of new buildings or the repair of old buildings.
Since solitary bees do not protect their nests (after the female lays an egg and prepares a nutrient mixture for the larva, she hermetically clogs the comb, no longer interested in the existence of offspring), the presence of “bee bricks” will not pose a threat to the inhabitants of the house, but will help to preserve biodiversity of pollinating insects and give bees a chance to survive in an ever-changing human-driven world.
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