DAEJEON, Feb. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Higher concentrations of ultrafine dust levels affect not only humans, but also bees, obstructing their efforts to find flowers.
The National Institute of Forest Science, in tandem with a research team from Seoul National University, conducted a study on bees and their time of flight before and after the outbreak of yellow dust, which showed that a 1 microgram per cubic meter (㎍/㎥) increase in the concentration level of ultrafine dust increases a bee’s flight span by 32 minutes.
In the study, a bee’s average flight span in a non-yellow dust environment was 45 minutes. When ultrafine dust levels rose by 1 ㎍/㎥, the flight span extended to 77 minutes.
Even when the yellow dust had passed, bees failed to fully recover, flying around 70 percent longer than during the pre-yellow dust period.
The study has become the world’s first scientific evidence that there is a strong correlation between the increase in the concentration level of ultrafine dust, regardless of yellow dust, and the flight span of bees, the institute explained.
Image Credit: National Institute of Forest Science / Public Domain / photonews@koreabizwire.com
