[HN Gopher] Does America suddenly have a record number of bees?
___________________________________________________________________
Does America suddenly have a record number of bees?
Author : softwaredoug
Score : 97 points
Date : 2024-04-01 14:09 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| throwup238 wrote:
| I think the bigger question is: why has squab fallen so much in
| popularity in 15 years?
| thefourthchime wrote:
| https://archive.is/lHVwP
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The real reason is buried pretty far down in the article:
|
| > In 2012, the Herbert Hypothetical gave rise to a new law: Your
| plot of five to 20 acres now qualifies for agriculture tax breaks
| if you keep bees on it for five years.
|
| > Over the next few years, all 254 Texas counties adopted bee
| rules requiring, for example, six hives on five acres plus
| another hive for every 2.5 acres beyond that to qualify for the
| tax break. Herbert keeps a spreadsheet of the regulations and
| drives across the state to educate bee-curious landowners.
|
| Economics, who knew?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| The interesting bit is more that there's still an ongoing
| severe problem with bee colonies dying that hasn't been solved
| despite the apparent increase in overall numbers:
|
| " _Sadly, however, this does not mean we've defeated colony
| collapse. One major citizen-science project found that
| beekeepers lost almost half of their colonies in the year
| ending in April 2023, the second-highest loss rate on record.
|
| For now, we're making up for it with aggressive management. The
| Texans told us that they were splitting their hives more often,
| replacing queens as often as every year and churning out bee
| colonies faster than the mites, fungi and diseases can take
| them down._"
| ortusdux wrote:
| Sounds like the usual issues you see with an aggressive focus
| on monoculture.
| zamalek wrote:
| I wonder if this is helping weed out the "africanized genes"
| (bees that will far more easily sting), or have southern
| beekeepers given up in that regard?
| giantg2 wrote:
| The way it would be weeded out is through selective
| queening. That's how the European honey bee has become so
| docile - pinching the agressive queens. So it could
| influence the genetics of the feral bee population, but I
| would guess it will be minimal.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| I'm not in the region where they have Africanized bees, but
| following the research and stories from active keepers, it
| seem like it's a combo of both keepers learning how to
| manage them plus shifts in genetics causing them to mellow
| some. From what I hear, there are small scale and hobby
| keepers in the southwest that are actively keeping and
| working them
| nrjames wrote:
| Varroa mites are a vector for diseases and fungus and most
| likely the distal cause of most of the dying colonies. If
| they are not aggressively managed, they eventually lead to
| the death or absconding of almost every colony.
| giantg2 wrote:
| A lot of it's genetics over management in my experience.
| I've seen treatment-free colonies go multiple years with
| low mite numbers and treatment free yards overwinter
| 75-100% of colonies. I've also seen heavily managed hives
| take losses anyways, or abscond after treatment. Including
| some that take 75-100% losses. Many times the same apiary
| can go from one extreme to the other in a year or two.
|
| The problem with the genetics is that it's extremely hard
| to maintain continuity of a colony beyond a few years
| because eventually they need to requeen. Those future
| queens are made from a variety of contributions of other
| gene lines due to the way the mating happens.
| kurthr wrote:
| Can anecdotally confirm. I've had 100% surviving hives and
| continuous queen lineage now for 6-7 years. Before that I
| did minimal mite treatments (powdered sugar washes are
| nuts) and had 75% of hives abscond every year requiring new
| queens. My "neighbors" (>2mi away) rarely have a single
| hive survive a single winter.
|
| My preference is to alternate "natural" thymol/oxalic
| treatments with Apivar. You can really see the reduction in
| virus laden malformed bees in a hive turnover (~6 weeks).
| Apivar treatment lasts a full year, but I'd rather not
| develop resistance (don't leave strips in the hive longer
| than 8 weeks!) so alternate years. The best time I've seen
| for treatment is right before large population booms (since
| there are fewer mites in brood). That usually means early
| winter after supers are removed, or after a queen swarm
| leaves in late winter/early spring.
|
| One major challenge to resistant queens is that they tend
| to be more aggressive and their resistance is diluted
| unless you requeen (resistant) every year or two due to
| interbreeding with local non-resistant drones.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| If you have the stomach for the extra work and your
| apiary goals can support it consider adding brood breaks
| to your varroa management strategy.
| kurthr wrote:
| That's an excellent method! It just requires capturing
| all the queens and removing any queens and queen cells.
| Spring swarms and supersedure do something similar
| although not of a very controllable length.
|
| I'm not worried about the amount of honey.
| pedrocr wrote:
| It can be done with push in cages to trap the queen
| inside the hive. Because there's still a queen they won't
| start new cells. Because she's limited to a very small
| area the brood break is almost complete. I think a two
| week break is enough. The national honey show had a great
| video explaining this method. Apparently commercial
| beekeepers are going that route now that varroa
| treatments are becoming less effective.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's pretty common knowledge in the beekeeping world that
| losses are about 50% annually. Most beekeepers request every
| year or two as well.
|
| The past couple years I've had high losses. Mostly due to
| yellow jacket pressure. But I'm also treatment-free and
| expect some losses from colonies that are less varroa
| hygienic and too late in the year to requeen.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Asking as someone not in the beekeeping world, do you get
| the impression that the colony loss rate is stable or
| increasing/decreasing?
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's extremely variable on an individual basis. I've had
| years with 100% survival and then others with 0% survival
| (small sample of under 10 hives), with other beekeepers
| experiencing similar losses.
|
| There are some studies/surveys out there about survival
| rates (the population rate studies are less helpful). My
| understanding is the survival rate plummeted after the
| introduction of varroa but has been mostly stable around
| 50% survival nationally for over a decade.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| "I'm treatment-free" is a particularly smug way of saying
| your apiary management strategy is to continuously bomb
| every surrounding apiary and whatever native pollinators
| may be in your area with parasites. There is a reason that
| professionals loathe hobby beekeepers.
| fredoliveira wrote:
| Can you expand? Doesn't treatment free mean that their
| apiary is self-selecting? How does this mean cross-
| contaminating neighboring, treated apiaries?
|
| (I know very little about this. Just honestly asking for
| more info because I'm curious)
| Suppafly wrote:
| Not the other guy, but presumably 'treatment free' means
| that you have hives full of diseased bees or bees
| infested with mites. Those sick/infested bees then spread
| those things to wild bees and to other apiaries. Even if
| the neighbors are willing to treat, that doesn't
| necessarily mean they'll survive being constantly
| reinfected by the non-treatment hives.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Treatment-free should mean that you're using IPM methods.
| It should not be self selecting, but selection aided by
| the beekeeper heading off problems (requeening, brood
| breaks, and even treatment when absolutely necessary -
| like burning your hive if you get AFB, or treating for
| EFB). You still need to be monitoring your hives.
|
| "Even if the neighbors are willing to treat, that doesn't
| necessarily mean they'll survive being constantly
| reinfected by the non-treatment hives."
|
| This is not really how it works for most of the diseases
| and parasites. Yes, things like foulbrood would act this
| way. But the stuff that is commonly treated for are mites
| and parasites like nosema. Even if you treat for these,
| there will still be a level of it present in the hive.
| Even healthy hives have bees with one or more of the
| nosema species present in their guts to some degree.
| That's why diagnosis of nosema relies on concentrations
| counted under a hemocytometer.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| "Even if you treat for these, there will still be a level
| of it present in the hive."
|
| True, which is why all hives need to be actively managed
| to optimize survival rates, but this comment coyly fails
| to acknowledge that mite counts in surrounding hives do
| measurably spike when a neighboring hive craters.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Show me the data.
|
| If you define surrounding hives as those within 30 feet
| or so, yes due to drift they will see a spike. More
| distant hives should not.
|
| Actively managed and treatment-free are not antonyms. If
| someone thinks they are, that's a problem.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| I like that you're pretending in two places in the
| comments that sick hives don't get robbed out during
| their collapse. I posted some reading material for you
| elsewhere in the thread. Give it a once over, it looks
| like you might learn something.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "I like that you're pretending in two places in the
| comments that sick hives don't get robbed out during
| their collapse."
|
| Nice strawman. I make no such claim. Most hives that get
| robbed out are predominately done so by the hives in the
| same apiary.
|
| "Give it a once over, it looks like you might learn
| something."
|
| Based on my interaction with you, I highly doubt it has
| anything to offer.
| nothercastle wrote:
| Treatment free is euphemism for the owner deciding it was
| cheaper to accept 50% losses then to manage the hive with
| treatment. It's basically impossible to do treatment free
| unless you are on a island
| gorjusborg wrote:
| > doesn't necessarily mean they'll survive being
| constantly reinfected
|
| Also known as nature.
|
| On the other hand, the natural hives have to deal with
| resistant parasites and microbes, due to the prophylactic
| treatments not being 100% effective, creating an
| evolution chamber for the illness-causing agents.
| Suppafly wrote:
| Sure, but it's not really nature when you essentially
| have one keeper constantly raising and introducing extra
| disease and mites into the environment. It'd be like if
| you had an infectious disease and constantly went out
| into public instead of staying home to recover. Sure all
| the other people getting sick from your infection could
| be handwaved as being natural, but ultimately it's
| because you hung around them.
| giantg2 wrote:
| This is great explaination for why commercial beekeepers
| should not be migrating hives - turning epidemics into
| pandemics.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| > Sure, but it's not really nature
|
| Yeah, bee keeping isn't really nature, it's agriculture
| (humans harnessing nature). That doesn't mean we have to
| go 'hardcore' because it isn't nature. We can try to keep
| it close if we want, and I think we should bias that way,
| where feasible.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Not really, no. The population is being artificially
| propped up by managed hive splits and a continuous influx
| of stock from breeder mills. To exert real selection
| pressure requires careful husbandry at industrial scale
| in an environment isolated from introduction of unmanaged
| genetics.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The VSH bees fit that description as they are created
| from artificial insemination. Yes, it will take
| generations to make an impact due to feral colonies and
| the breeder mills not using VSH stock effectively.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "There is a reason that professionals loathe hobby
| beekeepers."
|
| Most hobby and small scale commercial beekeepers loathe
| the major beekeepers, and for good reason - trucking
| around diseases, exposing bees to fungicide and
| pesticides, creating unhealthy hive densities, etc. But I
| guess the large commercial outfits need someone to point
| the finger while the industry dies out due to cheap
| imports and the willingness of those large producers to
| subject their bees to active spraying during the
| pollination of many crops.
|
| You do realize the parasites and diseases that affect
| native bees are not generally controlled for by
| commercial beekeepers, right? Even when they are
| practicing prophylactic treatment, the treatments are not
| effective at completely eliminating the parasites nor
| their transmission. Honeybees are a transmission vector
| for many diseases and parasites regardless of if they are
| large scale producers or not.
|
| I would also hope that you realize that that just because
| someone says they're treatment-free doesn't mean thet are
| just bombing the surrounding areas with problems. IPM
| techniques can be effective at controlling pests and
| diseases. They simply aren't economical for the large
| commercial producers and they may not be as effective
| when those large producers subject their bees to the
| commonly poor conditions.
|
| If the large scale commercial practices were really
| better, we'd see it in the survival rates. But the
| numbers don't support that.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Nonsense, every word.
|
| Commercial beekeepers aggressively manage for varroa and
| other diseases, if they didn't the resulting dieoffs
| would bankrupt them. Backyard hobbyists don't have more
| skin in the game than folks who literally pay their
| mortgage off their hives, and they sure af don't have
| more experience with any aspect of hive management than
| individuals who are successfully managing hundreds if not
| thousands of hives.
|
| IPM isn't "treatment-free" beekeeping which I think we'd
| both agree is gross neglegence. IPM techniques are also
| rarely used effectively. Don't agree? Figure out what
| percentage of hobby beekeepers in your area have reached
| the level of experience/education of a journeyman
| beekeeper. If it's 20:1 I'll kiss your ass. Regardless of
| treatment strategy one management fuckup leading to a
| single hive collapse absolutely sprays the surrounding
| 2-3 mile area with diseases and parasites. Given annual
| failure rates all beekeepers are bombing their
| surroundings with problems, hobby beekeepers just do so
| for their own personal amusement regardless of which
| treatment strategy they employ, and treatment-free
| beekeepers are way WAY worse about this than any other
| segment of the industry.
|
| Lastly, I advanced no claim that commercial practices are
| particularly superior at keeping bees alive, although
| they and related government ag programs are the only
| credible sources of ongoing breeding to improve varroa
| resistance, an effort that is vastly complicated by
| having to geographically isolate breeding operations to
| try to avoid cross-breeding from unmanaged populations
| (read backyard hives).
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Commercial beekeepers aggressively manage for varroa and
| other diseases, if they didn't the resulting dieoffs
| would bankrupt them."
|
| Who is speaking nonsense now? Yes, they typically treat
| for _some_ pests and disease. Those pests and diseases
| that they generally treat for do not affect native bees.
| Even when they do treat, they don 't have full
| elimination and are still transmissible. You can see they
| they still suffer about 50% colony loss like the smaller
| producers.
|
| "and they sure af don't have more experience with any
| aspect of hive management than individuals who are
| successfully managing hundreds if not thousands of
| hives."
|
| And the people keeping hundreds and thousands of hives
| for commercial purposes don't have as much time to spend
| on full inspections. If they know so much about
| management, then they must be making intentionally poor
| decisions on how to manage when we talk about things like
| colony dirft and hive densities, transporting bees all
| over the place (accelerating any existing spread), and
| subjecting the bees to active spraying during
| pollination.
|
| "One management fuckup leading to a single hive collapse
| absolutely sprays the surrounding 2-3 mile area with
| diseases and parasites."
|
| Have any data to back that up? You do realize that many
| of the pests and diseases are routinely present in most
| hives, right? That's why you need actually concentrations
| for diagnosing things like nosema. I'd love to see an
| example of an apiary that has _zero_ varroa too...
|
| "Given annual failure rates all beekeepers are bombing
| their surroundings with problems, hobby beekeepers just
| do so for their own personal amusement regardless of
| which treatment strategy they employ."
|
| This makes zero sense. You claim that all beekeepers are
| problems. But you only have a problem with small scale
| producers because they aren't paying their mortgage with
| it. Interesting distinction which bears no matter on the
| end result. So it appears this conversation is moot.
|
| "an effort that is vastly complicated by having to
| geographically isolate breeding operations to try to
| avoid cross-breeding from unmanaged populations (read
| backyard hives)."
|
| This is complete nonsense. The breeding programs rely on
| artificial insemination. You can't control the feral bee
| populations either, so you must do it in a lab. Most of
| these government bodies and ag extensions have resources
| (and requirements) for small scale beekeepers, and even
| encourage it. Most states have mandatory licensing and
| inspections too. Most beekeeping associations openly
| welcome beekeepers of any size operations. It seems you
| just have an axe to grind.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| You need data to confirm the assertion that collapsing
| hives spread disease? Since you're so married to whatever
| chip you've got on your shoulder you apparently need a
| reminder that sick bees drifting to other hives and
| robbing out deadouts are both a thing I've appended a
| list of follow-up reading for your benefit.
|
| Martin SJ. The role of Varroa and viral pathogens in the
| collapse of honeybee colonies: a modeling approach. J
| Appl Ecol. 2001;38(5):1082-1093.
| [doi:10.1046/j.1365-2664.2001.00662.x] Rosenkranz P,
| Aumeier P, Ziegelmann B. Biology and control of Varroa
| destructor. J Invertebr Pathol. 2010;103 Suppl
| 1:S96-S119. [doi:10.1016/j.jip.2009.07.016] Graystock P,
| Blane EJ, McFrederick QS, Goulson D, Hughes WOH. Do
| managed bees drive parasite spread and emergence in wild
| bees? Int J Parasitol Parasites Wildl. 2016;5(1):64-75.
| [doi:10.1016/j.ijppaw.2015.12.001]
|
| With that out of the way not -all- breeding programs rely
| on artificial insemination, maybe you've heard of Mike
| Palmer? You know, the guy that basically singlehandedly
| mainstreamed keeping nucleus colonies as an apiary
| management strategy? Or Randy Oliver? No? Your loss I
| suppose.
|
| Go salve your feelings somewhere else, I'm done.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "You need data to confirm the assertion that collapsing
| hives spread disease?"
|
| Nope. What I need is data backing up your claim that it's
| a disease "bomb" for everything in a few mile area. I've
| seen some of those papers and other like them, but they
| do not support your hyperbolic claims. Had you claimed
| something reasonable, then they might be what you need.
|
| "With that out of the way not -all- breeding programs
| rely on artificial insemination, maybe you've heard of
| Mike Palmer? You know, the guy that basically
| singlehandedly mainstreamed keeping nucleus colonies as
| an apiary management strategy? Or Randy Oliver? No? Your
| loss I suppose."
|
| Of course I've heard of them. Both of them do promote IPM
| and genetic strategies for varroa. They might do open air
| breeding, but they also aren't strict about thier
| genetics. If you get a production queen they're not
| guaranteed to be VSH, but there's a good chance they are.
| Any beekeeper should be evaluating their stock regardless
| of claimed providence.
|
| "Go salve your feelings somewhere else, I'm done."
|
| Good, your insulting, close minded, and illogical
| discourse does not belong on HN.
| kelnos wrote:
| Just a note from a random, uninformed bystander that your
| posts are coming off as bizarrely aggressive, rude,
| combative, and dismissive (regardless of what your intent
| may be).
|
| You may be 100% right about what you're talking about (I
| don't know either way), but I'm not particularly inclined
| to take you seriously based on how you're conversing. I'm
| much more inclined to believe the person you've been
| having back-and-forth with.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| I wonder if it's possible for one farm to put up a
| literal screen, a physical barrier, to keep out
| neighboring bees. It might not have to go all the way
| around, but maybe just block most of the major flight
| paths from one to the next.
|
| Seems like it wouldn't need to block 100%, but maybe
| 80-90% would be a big help.
|
| As someone who knows zero about this, I'm just curious if
| something like this would be feasible.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Bees typically fly at tree top levels and have a typical
| range of about 2.5-3 miles. This is part of why certified
| organic honey _produced in the US_ is non-existent. The
| USDA is working on an organic certification for honey,
| but without being able to certify the food sources within
| a 2.5 mile radius (the draft mentioned this as the likely
| cutoff), it 's practically impossible in most areas.
|
| However, hive spacing can have a big impact. While some
| transmission does happen at shared flowers, the
| transmission is very likely between hives due to worker
| or drone drift. If you have 4 hives on a single pallet
| (common commercial practice) you will see a lot of bees
| returning to hives that were not their own. Increasing
| hive spacing can reduce the number of drifting bees, and
| possibly reduce transmission.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Yeah, I don't give a damn about European honeybees (which
| are imported cattle), it's the native pollinators I worry
| about. Ironically "hooray more bees!" headlines just mean
| more stress on natives due to disease (which isn't just
| mites, but imported virus complexes and possibly fungi as
| well) and sometimes even local food source depletion by
| honeybee hives.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > I don't give a damn about European honeybees
|
| Do you like to eat "American" apples?, or almonds?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Other types of bees that are more effiecent at
| pollination could be used, such as Mason bees. It would
| require a little more more work to change things over and
| there wouldn't be the benefit of honey.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Likely also economics, who knew?
| jackfoxy wrote:
| That which you incentivize you get more of. That which you tax
| you get less of.
|
| Or, as Charlie Munger famously remarked, _Show me the incentive
| and I 'll show you the outcome._
| gottorf wrote:
| Yes! People, irrational and misinformed as they may be,
| respond to incentives.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| This is why it's important to have a robust base tax rate.
| Plenty of headroom for incentives when they're needed
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You could also have no "true taxes" and just print money
| and have everyone else pay for it in inflation (tax) to
| give handouts to incentivize what you want.
|
| Right now we do both!
| pfdietz wrote:
| Also, even further down, the large increase in almond
| cultivation in California.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Florida has similar tax breaks for cattle grazing, and
| Washington has them for managed forests.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Managed forests are greenwashing. The term itself is a
| ridiculous illusion. It's like this bee article - it gives a
| process and metric by which things are improving while
| ignoring more general collapse that those same economic
| processes are generating
| ortusdux wrote:
| How so?
| midnitewarrior wrote:
| idk what the previous commenter means by it, but to me, a
| forest is more than a collection of trees that are
| planted in a grid, ready for clearcutting in a decade or
| so. A forest is an entire ecosystem that takes decades to
| build without the disruption of human intervention. Some
| of these "managed forests" are little more than tree
| farms, lacking the wildlife and diversity that comes with
| natural forests. Monoculture tree farming does not create
| a diverse ecosystem and the benefits that come from that.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Yes though it's forgiving to say that it does not create
| benefits instead of that it destroys those needs without
| making up for them
| bombcar wrote:
| It depends on what you're trying to do - some of those
| tax breaks are because the land is taxed "as if it grew
| corn" normally, but if people choose to grow trees you
| want to tax it at a lower rate, because trees are a lower
| profit crop.
|
| If you're trying to preserve actual forest, you want to
| do something more like the land trusts that have come
| into existence (which already exclude the land from taxes
| usually anyway).
| jszymborski wrote:
| I might have missed it, but this article seems to be making the
| common mistake of conflating native bee species with cultivated
| bees. I'd be interested in knowing how native bee species are
| doing, especially since my understanding is that cultivated bees
| often compete with native bee species.
| Dig1t wrote:
| >the honeybee has been the fastest-growing livestock segment in
| the country! And that doesn't count feral honeybees, which may
| outnumber their captive cousins several times over.
| jzimbel wrote:
| Feral honey bees (European honey bees living in a non-
| beekeeper-managed colony) are different from North American
| native bees: https://bugguide.net/node/view/475348
| nathanrf wrote:
| Feral != Native. There are no honeybee species native to
| North America; all honeybees, including the feral ones, are
| descended from colonies imported from Europe (e.g. the
| "Western honeybee" apis mellifera).
|
| There are a lot of non-honeybee bee species native to North
| America though, and they now face competition from feral
| domesticated honeybees. It's unclear exactly how much impact
| they have- some research does treat honeybees as a harmful
| invasive species (similar to many other human-introduced
| species).
|
| Native bee species have a harder time getting good PR because
| they don't directly work for us, even though they are
| important pollinators for some native plants.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think there at least used to be honey producing bee
| species in the southern US. I believe some are extinct now
| and others are only present in South America now.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| South America has the stingerless variety and I'm very
| jealous.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Mayan honeybees are native to the Yucatan, FWIW. They've
| also spread to Cuba.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Feral honey bees may be thriving but native bees are
| collapsing.
| bradley13 wrote:
| This is important. Swamp the land with a monoculture of
| disease-prone bees. _Of course_ this is going to have an impact
| on wild species. Probably massive, but no one seems to care.
| Rally strange.
| munificent wrote:
| The last five paragraphs are about this.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| All the research I'm hearing around North America would
| indicate the fear about competition is overblown. Honey bees,
| not being native, don't necessarily go after the same pollen
| sources as native bees. Some good research out of Alberta
| showed that native bees were for example going after native
| plants whereas the honey bees were shown to fly farther
| distances to find things like canola. In my own yard (hobby
| guy, not commercial) I have at least three types of native bees
| and I watch them cohabitate with my honey bees very similar to
| what the research in Canada demonstrated.
| aiauthoritydev2 wrote:
| Honeybees are not native to USA only bumblebees are.
| gerdesj wrote:
| I suspect the US has the usual complement of solitary as well
| as social bees. A quick search brings up plenty of results.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| You missed it. The latter half of the article is about the
| difference between captive honeybees and wild ones, and also
| how the population has only increased due to aggressive
| expansion to counter colonies dying from disease and
| yellowjackets.
|
| > Grames said the consensus holds that pollinators, like all
| insects, are in decline -- losing probably 1 to 2 percent a
| year.
| aeternum wrote:
| What if the cycle is simply due to predator/prey dynamics?
| More captive honeybees mean more well-fed yellowjackets and
| thus more predatory pressure on both captive and wild
| honeybees.
|
| https://www2.nau.edu/lrm22/lessons/predator_prey/predator_pr.
| ..
| WillAdams wrote:
| When I was a kid, it was pretty normal to get stung by a bee when
| out playing/picking dandelions/making clover chains, and just a
| walk around one's neighborhood would have more bees covering
| various flowers than one could easily count.
|
| A local school system has an annual project where school children
| gather insects --- bees dropped precipitously in number two
| decades ago, and children have since been cautioned not to
| capture any sort of stinging/biting insect (mostly out of
| liability concerns), but it seems to only apply to wasps and
| yellowjackets.
|
| There's an article on this sort of thing:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations
| com2kid wrote:
| > When I was a kid, it was pretty normal to get stung by a bee
| when out playing/picking dandelions/making clover chains, and
| just a walk around one's neighborhood would have more bees
| covering various flowers than one could easily count.
|
| I bought an online pollinator friendly garden kit. $150 later
| (and a few dead plants that didn't make it through shipping) I
| now have an absurd number of bumble bees around.
|
| Bumble bees are incredibly gentle, you can walk through entire
| fields of them and they will just ignore you. I was actually
| pretty worried about planting a pollinator garden while having
| a toddler around, but it has gone surprisingly well (meaning he
| hasn't gotten stung).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I would be curious to see if these bee hives in Texas are mostly
| actually extant or whether people are just claiming bee hives for
| the tax benefit.
| adolph wrote:
| In 1987 the nation lost 7 million children for similar reasons.
|
| _In 1986, when taxpayers had only to provide the names for
| children they were claiming as exemptions, 77 million
| dependents were listed. But then the law changed, and in
| returns filed for 1987 only 70 million exemptions were
| identified._
|
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-12-11-me-33-sto...
| flutas wrote:
| My first thought on that:
|
| How many of those missing 7m were split custody cases where
| both were claiming them. Then with the new law it's "Oh hey,
| [parent allowed to claim tax for the child] can I have their
| social for taxes? Whatdya mean you won't give it to me?"
| bombcar wrote:
| Some podcast did an "update" on Freakonomics and according
| to them the majority of the difference could be explained
| by double custody/double claims and people not getting SSNs
| in time.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 10% of all children had double custody claims? That seems
| surprisingly high to me
| bombcar wrote:
| There's an _and_ in there. SSNs weren 't automatically
| issued at birth until relatively recently.
| jjk166 wrote:
| August 1987 specifically. So everyone the rule change
| affected would have been born before. Since most people
| got SSNs only when they started working, a good chunk of
| these dependents likely didn't have SSNs at the time.
| Salgat wrote:
| Same here. A rich family sold a lot of land where our homes are
| now, but kept a little private pond with a house in the back.
| The only folks I ever see back there are either landscapers
| cutting the grass or if the owners come out for a big party; no
| one lives there. Curious if their agriculture exemption for
| bees is actually legitimate.
| palata wrote:
| I can't access the article (paywall), but I hope it makes the
| difference between wild bees and cultivated bees.
| throwawayoaky wrote:
| buttloads of honeybees everywhere around here. Hate em. Eating
| bumble and carpenter foods, boo. Leave my white sage alone.
| https://bugguide.net/node/view/7698
| malfist wrote:
| You like carpenter bees? They're a pain in the ass
| fatnoah wrote:
| I have a very large garden area near my patio with plants
| that flower from Spring through Fall. I bump into the full
| assortment of bees going for the flowers and wasps for my
| food, but the main harassers in my yard are male carpenter
| bees that dive bomb me and the occasional female coming out
| of nowhere to sting me.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Depends on the location. Many times they do not compete for
| food as the tongues of the bumble and carpenter bees are able
| to reach nectar sources the honeybees cannot. Also many of the
| native bees will work the flowers earlier in the day, giving
| them a headstart on the honeybees.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| I'm a fan of the honeybees, except they keep invading my house.
| Currently addressing a nest in our attic... Thats the 5th
| incident in 3 years in this house, 3 of which were hives being
| built in the home...
| supposemaybe wrote:
| You think those are bees, yeah?
|
| I don't mean to cause alarm, but may I direct you to Black
| Mirror's episode 'Hated in the Nation' for your answer.
|
| EDIT: Some people cannot take a joke even if it slapped them on
| the face. 4 downvotes. Get a life lol.
| Solvency wrote:
| our backyard in California is full of native plants, lavender,
| fennel, and tons of other pollinator friendly plants.
|
| There are quite literally hundreds of bees basically working in
| our backyard every single day, 365 days a year. And it takes
| almost no effort other than some basic gardening. It's
| outrageously simple to support bees. It's comically absurd how
| difficult the world wants to make it seem.
| 97s wrote:
| Exactly this. Thank you. I have a bee friendly yard in suburban
| neighborhood with HOA. I keep the front streetside nice and
| neat for the HOA, but the side yard and back yard is full of
| clover, a plot of wildflowers, blueberries, blackberries,
| apples, and a lot of flowers for birds and butterflies. The
| total amount of effort and cost for all this? Maybe a few
| hundred dollars over a few years and very minimal work. Turns
| out that the stuff bees like are basically weeds and will
| establish and come back with basically no effort at all. The
| hardest part is stopping the stupid bermuda grass from
| overtaking it.
|
| I cannot wait for my wildflower plot to shoot up. This year I
| turned over about 10m x 10m of bermuda grass and sewed a
| southeastern wildflower mix. I left the center of it grass and
| a path into it. I plan to go lay down and meditate in the
| wildflower patch while the bees zoom over head.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| I mean, yes and no. If you live in a humid climate where pests
| like roaches can breed easily, then you either have to live
| with them, or use pesticides. In which case, say goodbye to
| bees (and other beneficial insects).
| Solvency wrote:
| this is such a wild and perversely wrong take. living in a
| humid climate means you have to drench your backyard in
| pesticides? what?
| subwrmodblocker wrote:
| Because agribusiness were making up the "bee crisis" to begin
| with.
| Freebytes wrote:
| This is one of those fairly obvious situations where you can
| simply go outside and observe a collapse of insect populations.
| You may be too young to remember not being able to drive
| without windshield washer fluid due to the large number of
| insects that would be on your windshield in a single drive from
| place to place. Consider leaving your basement.
| aksss wrote:
| There's always a crisis you need to be ultra-worried about, even
| if you can't do anything to fix it yourself. One day it's too few
| honeybees, the next it's too many. It goes from being exhausting
| to being silly, the more cycles you've seen.
| daneel_w wrote:
| A record number of honey bees, maybe? But how are all the other
| equally (or more) important species of wild bees doing?
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