{"id":281480,"date":"2020-10-30T16:29:16","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T20:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yfiledev.uit.yorku.ca\/?p=281480"},"modified":"2025-04-03T11:14:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T15:14:14","slug":"york-researchers-find-canadians-lack-knowledge-about-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/yfile\/2020\/10\/30\/york-researchers-find-canadians-lack-knowledge-about-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"York researchers find Canadians lack knowledge about bees"},"content":{"rendered":"

How well do you know your bees? York University researchers have found bee knowledge in Canada lacking with about half of those surveyed thinking honey bees are wild and native to Canada.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not. They were brought over from Europe and are managed by beekeepers like other farm animals, such as dairy cattle for example, but researchers did find it is the bee species best known to the Canadians.<\/p>\n

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A honey bee collecting pollen<\/p><\/div>\n

The researchers analyzed material from an Oraclepoll of 2,000 people across the country on general bee facts and conservation conducted by Friends of the Earth. Some participants thought queen bees and drone bees were a species of bee. They are castes within a species, rather than a species.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason for analyzing the survey results in detail is we really wanted to understand the Canadian public\u2019s overall general knowledge of bees, their perceptions of bees and the threats they face,\u201d says lead researcher\u00a0Nyssa van Vierssen Trip<\/strong>, a grad student in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The findings could have a trickle-down effect on conservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important because to increase legal protections for bees, we need to understand how the public sees them. If there is support for bee conservation among the public, then it would be easier for politicians to take action,\u201d says Assistant Professor\u00a0Sheila Colla<\/strong><\/a>, whose lab the research was done in.<\/p>\n