Scientists have developed a honeybee “superfood” that could protect the animals against the threats of climate change and habitat loss.

Bee colonies that ate the supplement during trials had up to 15 times more baby bees that grew to adulthood.

In the lab at Oxford, PhD student Jennifer Chennells showed us small clear boxes of honeybees in an incubator that she feeds with different foods she has made.

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It’s in this lab that, using gene editing, Prof [Geraldine] Wright’s team successfully made a yeast that can produce the six sterols that bees need.

“It’s a huge breakthrough. When my student was able to engineer the yeast to create the sterols, she sent me a picture of the chromatogram that was a result of the work,” she says, referring to a chart of the substance structure.

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