Researchers at Oxford and collaborators engineered yeast to produce six essential sterols found in pollen, creating a nutritionally complete bee supplement that boosted colony reproduction up to 15-fold and could help reverse honeybee population decline.
Can this synthetic sterol-enriched diet be successfully scaled and adopted in real-world beekeeping to not only improve colony survival but also reduce competition with wild pollinators and strengthen global food security?
Researchers at Oxford and collaborators engineered yeast to produce six essential sterols found in pollen, creating a nutritionally complete bee supplement that boosted colony reproduction up to 15-fold and could help reverse honeybee population decline.
Can this synthetic sterol-enriched diet be successfully scaled and adopted in real-world beekeeping to not only improve colony survival but also reduce competition with wild pollinators and strengthen global food security?
Yeast usually scales really well, I have high hopes.