Scientists have developed a breakthrough food supplement that could help save honeybees from devastating declines. By engineering yeast to produce six essential sterols found in pollen, researchers provided bees with a nutritionally complete diet that boosted reproduction up to 15-fold. Unlike commercial substitutes that lack key nutrients, this supplement mimics natural pollen’s sterol profile, giving bees the equivalent of a balanced diet.
  • Jarix@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Colonies fed with the enriched diet were more likely to continue rearing brood up to the end of the three-month period, whereas colonies on sterol-deficient diets ceased brood production after 90 days.

    Uhh m not crazy right, that’s the same thing?

    • adj16@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      I’m with you, it’s confusing. But I think what it means is this:

      The study ran for 90 days. Non-sterol bees had stopped doing bee sex by then. Sterol bees were doin it all the way up to the end of the 90 days - and then the study ended. We can therefore assume they wanted to continue having freaky beedsm sex for even longer.