David Attenborough post about bees and sugar was fake, reveal BBC

If you read up about a nifty trick posted by TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough online recently about feeding tired bees a sugary water solution from a spoon, you’re certainly not alone.

The advice spread rapidly across the Internet, was shared millions of times and was even reported on by a number of high profile blogs and media outlets.

But the advice wasn’t from Sir David Attenborough, and it isn’t really good advice at all, say bee experts. In fact, the instructions about leaving bees a spoonful of sugar and water could, in some cases, potentially have a counterproductive effect.

It all started on Facebook by post from a fake David Attenborough account. That post claimed that without bees, humans could only survive for 4 more years. The post went on to say “If you find a tired bee in your home, a simple solution of sugar and water will help revive an exhausted bee.”

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The BBC confirmed the post wasn’t from Sir David Attenborough, who doesn’t even have an official Facebook account in his name. In fact, experts are warning that the advice could even lead to a detrimental effect on bees.

So what do the experts recommend?

– While many experts say that a tired or struggling bee may benefit in the short term from a water sugar solution, leaving the solution out for a prolonged period or persistently following this advice is likely to discourage pollination.

– The issue of feeding bees sugar water is one that divides the beekeeping community, but most experts agree that if bees are fed sugar water, it should be from experienced beekeepers only.

– Bees feed on nectar, but if they have easy access to sugar and water, they may see this as an easy food source which discourages the bees from pollinating flowers, which is the reason why bees play such an important role in our delicate ecological system in the first place.

– If you want to help bees, plant more evergreen flowers in your garden that bees can feed from at any time in the year.

– Following the advice in the message may lead to people being stung.

– As an addendum, never feed bees honey. The honey you get from the supermarket is nutritionally inferior to the honey produced by bees and can lead to the spread of disease.

The BBC has since confirmed that they have forced Facebook to remove the fake David Attenborough post, though many reports and blog posts still remain reporting the Attenborough post as genuine.