BOGOTA, April 5, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Far from the flowery fields that are
their natural home, honey bees imperiled by pesticides in rural Colombia are
finding sanctuary on university campuses in the bustling capital Bogota.

  Even though hives are banned from the city due to the risk the insects'
stings can pose to humans, universities enjoy an exemption for research
purposes.

  At the University of Rosario, biologist Andre Riveros very carefully feeds
a bee some sugar water, watching attentively as it stretches its straw-like
tongue, or proboscis, towards the sweet liquid.

  The university boasts a rooftop apiary in a bamboo structure some six
meters (nearly 20 feet) high, surrounded by trees and flowers.

  Here, Riveros and his team study a colony of bees in the hopes of
developing a food supplement that will offer the critical crop pollinators
protection from insecticides

  "Pesticides end up affecting some (neurological) regions that, for example,
affect learning and memory and (the bees) end up with damage very similar to
Alzheimer's," Riveros told AFP.

  "We are trying to find a solution for the problem of bee disappearances,"
he added. "We seek to shield the bees, in essence."

  The team's work focuses on the Apis mellifera, or Western Honey Bee, one of
about 20,000 known species worldwide.

  Hundreds of hives have been killed off in Colombia in recent years, and
investigations into the cause have pointed to fipronil, an insecticide banned
in Europe and restricted in the United States and China.

  Fipronil has been widely used in a profitable avocado and citrus boom in
Colombia, though the Latin American country suspended its use in some crops
for six months last year.

  - 'Fleeing the fields' -

  Elsewhere in Bogota, the EAN University boasts its own hives, perched on a
six-story building overlooking the city of eight million people.

  Beekeeper Gino Cala extracts honey from the hives as part of his work to
instruct and assist universities in the management of urban apiaries.

  But Cala told AFP Colombia's bees "are fleeing the fields" partly due to
the "indiscriminate use of agrochemicals."

  "These insects are extremely relevant and important... because they help
guarantee part of the food security of Colombia and the world," he added.

  From the EAN University grounds, Cala's bees help to pollinate plants in
surrounding areas.

  About 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world,
according to a 2016 study, depend on pollinators -- mainly bees -- which
provide free fertilization services worth billions of dollars.

  In recent years, bees in North America, Europe, Russia, South America and
elsewhere have started dying off from "colony collapse disorder," a
mysterious scourge blamed partly on pesticides but also on mites, viruses and
fungi.

  The UN warns that nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and
butterflies, risk global extinction.

  Despite the city ban, there are private beekeepers in Bogota who sell
products such as honey, pollen or beeswax.

  The fire department of Bogota says it attends to eight bee sting-related
emergencies on average every day.