The pest I’ll never forget: the maggots that rained down like hail 20 October 2026 at 02:00

The pest I’ll never forget: the maggots that rained down like hail

20 October 2026 at 02:00

The record-breaking heat in London, in summer 2022, resulted in an appalling problem in my neighbourhood – which one man took on, armed only with a jet wash

It was that terrifying summer in 2022 when London reached 40C. I was staying in a friend’s flat while she was away for a year, a former housing association property where the living room ceiling permanently had a hole in it. Each day, the air felt thicker and the leaves looked more limp. Dust clung to every surface. With no wind, the stench of the bins lingered.

I’d nicknamed the guy next door “Techno Guy” because his life’s great pleasure appeared to be sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked red convertible, stereo on full volume, revving the engine but going nowhere. Maybe it was to preserve his car battery, maybe it was to get away from his wife. His music genre of choice, Shazam told me, was Romanian techno (though he was also fond of the Cher megamix). He smoked constantly, each drag like a first breath. The sound of him hawking up phlegm in the morning became a kind of alarm clock.

‘Crucial opportunity to act’ as study finds most of Europe’s wild bee species in decline 19 October 2026 at 15:00

‘Crucial opportunity to act’ as study finds most of Europe’s wild bee species in decline

The Guardian

By: Ajit Niranjan Europe environment correspondent

19 October 2026 at 15:00

As Cop17 kicks off, records since 1921 show more bee species declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alps

Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.

Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.

The Overlapping Plagues Quietly Devastating American Forests 19 October 2026 at 11:55

The Overlapping Plagues Quietly Devastating American Forests

NYT: Science

19 October 2026 at 11:55

Trees are suffering one devastating epidemic after another, unleashed by insects and bacteria that enter the country because of global trade.

Honeybees are barging aside wild pollinators in hunt for pollen and nectar, study finds 17 October 2026 at 05:00

Honeybees are barging aside wild pollinators in hunt for pollen and nectar, study finds

The Guardian

By: Rebecca Ratcliffe

17 October 2026 at 05:00

As a surge in beekeepers has led to increased numbers of honeybees, researchers record them pushing bumblebees and other rival species away from flowers

Honeybees are outcompeting wild pollinators for resources by aggressively bumping into them and chasing them away from flowers, research has shown.

The study, by researchers from Anglia Ruskin University, found that areas where there were higher concentrations of honeybees had fewer wild pollinators, such as bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies.

From black soldier flies to mealworms: farming insects for food, fodder and fertiliser in Uganda 14 October 2026 at 06:00

From black soldier flies to mealworms: farming insects for food, fodder and fertiliser in Uganda

The Guardian

By: Umberto Diecinove

14 October 2026 at 06:00

Cultivating the nutritious bugs means families can raise livestock and enrich their own food, while lowering pressures on the land

A few minutes’ walk from his home in the Kyaka II refugee settlement, Kanane Bikanyale feeds black soldier fly larvae to chickens in a coop above a fishpond. The larvae disappear in a scrum of chickens. Nearby, more larvae grow in modified jerrycans, while adult flies are kept in netted boxes.

Bikanyale kept chickens before he fled to Uganda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But the cost of conventional feed and shortages of ingredients made them increasingly difficult to raise – a widespread pressure for millions of smallholder farmers whose margins are tight.

Kanane Bikanyale tends to his black soldier fly larvae in a rearing unit in the Kyaka II refugee camp in Uganda

Is the modern economic system broken? These urban beekeepers think so – and this is their solution 14 October 2026 at 05:00

Is the modern economic system broken? These urban beekeepers think so – and this is their solution

The Guardian

By: Zoe Williams

14 October 2026 at 05:00

At Bybi in Copenhagen, a dedicated group of staff and volunteers have built a community for all centred on the production of honey – much of which is given away for nothing. Could it be replicated elsewhere?

The bees at Bybi, a collective of beekeepers in Copenhagen, live on the roof. Their home is a complex of Victorian buildings, right in the centre of the city, that looks like an idealised vision of the modern social enterprise, ennobled by the architecture of the past. It’s a place of cottage industry in concert with nature, where the marginalised are brought in from the fringes and corporations stand waiting to help, where jobs happen but a lot of the work is done by volunteers, and where – this bit is important – a lot of time is spent discussing ideas.

Oliver Maxwell, Bybi’s 48-year-old founder, encourages me to examine the buildings more closely. They were once a prison, a workhouse and a hospital; their functions today – a homeless shelter, a young offender institution and, until recently, a job centre – are not so different. Denmark’s Victorian transformation, from “agricultural backwater to industrialised agriculture”, was reflected in how they treated people, Maxwell says.

Pollinating insects flock to plants gardeners might think of as ‘weeds’ 14 October 2026 at 03:00

Pollinating insects flock to plants gardeners might think of as ‘weeds’

The Guardian

By: Patrick Barkham

14 October 2026 at 03:00

Citizen scientists on UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme recorded insect visits to flowers during 10-minute surveys

Ubiquitous urban plants often derided as “weeds” are the most attractive to pollinating insects.

The autumn blooms of common ivy, rich in pollen and nectar, are the most visited by insects including bees and butterflies, according to an eight-year study.

The Underappreciated Benefits of Leaving Fallen Leaves Alone 10 October 2026 at 10:20

The Underappreciated Benefits of Leaving Fallen Leaves Alone

NYT: Science

By: Alan Burdick

10 October 2026 at 10:20

To homeowners, fallen leaves look like work. To nature, they’re an investment, with tremendous value on the secondary market as invertebrate real estate.

Beautiful butterflies get more attention from the public – and from scientists 7 October 2026 at 01:00

Beautiful butterflies get more attention from the public – and from scientists

The Guardian

By: Kate Ravilious

7 October 2026 at 01:00

Research has shown that colourful and patterned species are the subject of more studies, and receive more conservation funding

Large and beautiful butterflies attract far more attention than species that are smaller and dull. Now a new study has shown that this bias towards beauty results in the boring butterflies being overlooked in conservation programmes.

To understand the link between beauty and conservation, researchers surveyed more than 21,000 people from more than 100 countries, asking them to look at photos of European butterflies and rate their beauty on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their first impression. The results, which are published in Current Biology, reveal that larger more colourful and patterned butterflies, like the yellow swallowtail, were consistently rated more attractive than the smaller, less conspicuous brownish species, such as the alpine grayling. That bias also extended into scientific research, with more studies on attractive species, and more funding and resource going into conservation of showier species.

Country diary: A gleaming beetle that could be bad news for my garden favourites | Susie White 7 October 2026 at 00:30

Country diary: A gleaming beetle that could be bad news for my garden favourites | Susie White

The Guardian

By: Susie White

7 October 2026 at 00:30

Allendale, Northumberland: On a hot autumn day, I see rosemary beetles here for the first time. This could be a problem for many thriving plants

This year there have been several firsts in my garden: old lady, vestal and blood-vein moths attracted to the light trap; hummingbird hawk-moths, normally occasional, feeding summer-long from verbena and buddleia; and it’s a painted lady year – a once-a-decade event, these high-flying insects migrating from Africa through successive generations. Southerly winds and heatwaves have added to the species visiting my North Pennine garden.

Now, in a herb bed, I spot something less welcome. Among the resinous leaves of rosemary is a gleaming beetle, its elytra striped in purple and green, scintillating like lustreware. It’s not something I’ve seen before, but I immediately know what it means. Rosemary beetle, Chrysolina americana, is a Mediterranean species with no natural predators in the UK. It is shimmering and beautiful – but can reduce plants of the Lamiaceae family to bare sticks and cause them to die back. This includes my favourites: lavender, sage, thyme – and rosemary.

The pest I’ll never forget: the cockroaches I still dream about 6 October 2026 at 02:00

The pest I’ll never forget: the cockroaches I still dream about

The Guardian

By: Anna Moore

6 October 2026 at 02:00

My student house in Manchester had several thousand other occupants. Despite pest controllers regularly dousing the property, the glossy, greasy, relentless insects marched onwards, endlessly reproducing

‘You do know about the cockroaches?” I’ve forgotten most things people said to me in the 80s, but never that. It was said by one of the occupants of the student house in Longsight, Manchester, that I had signed up to live in the following year. When the landlord had shown me and my future housemates the property, the tenants had been out. He told us they were third years doing their finals and must not be disturbed under any circumstances. (What can I say? We were gullible back then.) Days before summer term ended though, I’d knocked on the door to show a friend where I’d be living. Instead, I learned that the house was infested.

The weird thing is, we moved in anyway. In truth, although I understood this was very bad news, I didn’t quite realise what a cockroach was. There was no internet, so I would have had to go to a library to know what I know now: their march, their canter, their crunch if you step on one. Their soft, sweet, sour smell (uric acid which they store in their fat, apparently). Sometimes, in the back of a shop, or a restaurant loo, I catch that scent and I know what it is.