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.

Honeybees are a vital part of food production and contribute to pollinating 70% of leading global crops.

“This technological breakthrough provides all the nutrients bees need to survive, meaning we can continue to feed them even when there’s not enough pollen,” senior author Professor Geraldine Wright at the University of Oxford told BBC News.

“It really is a huge accomplishment,” she says.

Honeybees globally are facing severe declines, due to nutrient deficiencies, viral diseases, climate change and other factors. In the US, annual colony losses have ranged between 40-50% in the last decade and are expected to increase.

Beekeepers in the UK have faced serious challenges too.

Nick Mensikov, chair of the Cardiff, Vale and Valleys Beekeepers Association, told BBC News that he lost 75% of his colonies last winter and that this has been seen across South Wales.

“Although the hives have all been full of food, the bees have just dwindled. Most of the bees survived through January, February, and then they just vanished,” he says.

Honeybees feed on pollen and nectar from flowers that contain the nutrients, including lipids called sterols that are necessary for their development.

They make honey in hives, which becomes their food source over winter when flowers have stopped producing pollen.

When beekeepers take out honey to sell, or, increasingly, when there isn’t enough pollen available, they give the insects supplementary food.

But that food is made up of protein flour, sugar and water, and has always lacked the nutrients bees require. It is like humans eating a diet without carbohydrates, amino acids, or other vital nutrients.

Sterol has always proved very difficult to manufacture, but Prof Wright has led a group of scientists for 15 years to identify which exact sterols bees need and how engineer them.

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.

She uses kitchen equipment you could find at home to make the raw ingredients, and rolls out glossy, white tubes of food.

“We put ingredients into what’s like a cookie dough, with different proteins, fats, different amounts of carbohydrate, and the micronutrients that bees need. It’s to try to work out what they like best and what’s best for them,” she says.

She pushes the tubes inside the boxes and bees nibble at the mixture.

It’s in this lab that, using gene editing, Prof 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.

“I still have it on the wall of my office,” she explains.

The “superfood” was fed to bees in the lab’s hives for three months.

The results showed that colonies fed the food had up to 15 times more baby bees that made it to adulthood.

“When the bees have a complete nutrition they should be healthier and less susceptible to disease,” Prof Wright says.

Prof Wright says the food would be particularly useful during summers like this one when flowering plants appear to have stopped producing early.

“It’s really important in years when the summer came early and bees will not have sufficient pollen and nectar to make it through the winter,” she says.

“The more months that they go without pollen, the more nutritional stress that they will face, which means that the beekeepers will have greater losses of those bees over winter,” she explains.

Larger-scale trials are now needed to assess the long-term impacts of the food on honeybee health, but the supplement could be available to beekeepers and farmers within two years.

The study was led by University of Oxford, working with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, University of Greenwich, and the Technical University of Denmark.

The research is published in the journal Nature.

A former computer worker who shot a policeman in the leg with a crossbow after officers were called to a neighbour dispute has been jailed for nine years.

Jason King, 55, of School Close, Downley, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, admitted wounding after firing at PC Curtis Foster and stabbing a neighbour’s partner in the stomach on 10 May 2024.

The officer, who was hit by a bolt in the leg, made a full recovery and returned to duty. The stab victim also recovered.

At a crown court hearing in Amersham, Judge Jonathan Cooper said King posed a “significant” risk.

The court heard that after the incident, King, who has a history of mental health difficulties, had tried to “hide” in a wood but was followed and shot by an officer.

Judge Cooper was told that King had bought the crossbow online for less than £20.

The judge said evidence showed King had “armed himself” in the “event of need” and concluded that he posed a “significant” risk.

Judge Cooper said PC Foster and two other officers should be commended for bravery.

He told King he was “clearly beside yourself” with anger during the incident.

“You came out of your house to try and shoot at police officers,” the judge told King.

“You approached PC Foster and, from a crouching position, raised your crossbow and fired.

“From a distance of roughly two car lengths away, you shot him in the leg as he turned to run.”

PC Foster watched the sentencing hearing via an online link.

He told the judge, in a written victim impact statement, that the attack had affected him in “so many ways”.

“Previously, I guess I was quite blasé about work,” he said.

“I kind of thought risk is risk and that is what you deal with.

“Now I feel more cautious.”

PC Foster said he had suffered anxiety and had thought about how he might never have seen his “parents or anyone else” again.

He said physically his wound had healed but left a scar.

Barrister Graham Smith, prosecuting, told the judge that King had previous convictions – including a conviction for possessing a “bladed article” in a public place and for punching and threatening a neighbour.

He said King had hunted and stalked police during the incident – a witness used the word “tracking”.

Barrister Mark Kimsey, for King, said his client had a history of anxiety and depression, and cannabis use may have been an “aggravating factor”.

He said evidence showed that King thought he could “talk” to a neighbour’s dog and was “special in relation to having contact with an Egyptian goddess”.

Mr Kimsey said King wanted to apologise, felt “embarrassed and ashamed”, and “didn’t understand why he lost the plot”.

He said what King did was “totally out of character”.

He said King, who had worked “in computers”, had been on remand in custody since May 2024 and “doing extremely well”.