[HN Gopher] The bee that everyone wants to save
___________________________________________________________________
The bee that everyone wants to save
Author : nivethan
Score : 265 points
Date : 2026-03-25 17:35 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (naturalist.bearblog.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (naturalist.bearblog.dev)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| TL; DR Honeybees aren't native to the Americas. Bumblebees are.
| And bumblebees get outcompeted by honeybees. That's terrible,
| because bumblebees promote plant biodiversity in a way generalist
| honeybees do not. Putting a honeybee hive in your yard or on your
| balcony is fine. But it's agriculture, not conservation.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| There are lots of native bees getting wiped out by Varroa
| destructor carried viral infections. The imported hybrids used
| in agriculture are more productive, and are currently being
| bred to have the desirable trait of cleaning/nibbling the legs
| off mites.
|
| Bumblebees do just fine in most places, as they go after my
| geraniums like a fool with a hole-punch every year. We have
| several local variety, and they are an important part of the
| ecosystem.
|
| The mite & foulbrood damage means most agriculture businesses
| euthanize hives when a problem becomes obvious. Hence why they
| also over-produce queens, as people know most colonies will not
| make it right now. The beekeeper community are some of the
| kindest folk you will ever meet, and people are doing their
| best given the situation. Have a wonderful day. =3
| cachius wrote:
| What's with geraniums? I remember they look nice but don't
| smell.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Geraniums do well controlling invasive beetles, and local
| humming birds also seem pleased. Some of the smaller flower
| variety are pleasantly scented, and easy to clone. However,
| it is not a good plant choice for people with pets.
|
| Mustard (Sinapis alba) is nice if you like pleasant
| smelling little yellow flowers, low-effort resilient
| plants, and spicy food. =3
| devilbunny wrote:
| They smell like carrots when you break the fading blooms
| off, they tolerate high heat and full sun, and they are
| pretty. Flowers for gardens, not arrangements.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Oh, to be clear, I have nothing against beekeepers. As I
| said, it's fine to have a backyard apiary. But it's also
| important to know that it's having an impact on the local
| bumblebee population. Depending on where you are, that could
| be fine or it could be stressing an endangered species. (I'm
| in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We're advised to avoid
| honeybees.)
| DeathArrow wrote:
| The author is Hungarian, he isn't talking especially about the
| Americas, but he has a more general stance.
| nelsondev wrote:
| Some carpenter bees moved into my roof overhang. Last year it was
| two, this year it's closer to 10. I like them, the only problem
| is they burrow into my house and leave little piles of sawdust
| behind.
|
| There is plenty of old fencing, a stack of logs, but they like my
| house.
| adzm wrote:
| I actually just put some wood in the backyard for them so they
| can chill out there and they stopped burrowing in my house and
| porch etc. I'm still not sure why they stopped rather than just
| do both, but I kept patching up their holes so maybe we have an
| understanding somehow.
| Findecanor wrote:
| In my neighbourhood it has become popular to build "bee hotels"
| to have in the garden. They are commonly built by cutting logs
| into lengths, stacking them up and drilling multiple holes in
| one end of each log, each hole sized just enough for a wild bee
| to enter.
|
| However, the holes need to be deep enough for the bees to be
| safe from bee-eating birds. Otherwise, the log will instead
| function as a bee trap, allowing a bird to pick off one
| helpless bee after the other.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Give them another option after they vacate the nest in the
| fall. You likely have the materials that they would use but
| they are not in prime locations for carpenter bee nests so they
| choose your home with a nice morning sun exposure and pre-
| existing nests. [0]
|
| [0]https://gardenbetty.com/carpenter-bees/
|
| I have carpenter bees, mason bees, bumblebees, honeybees,
| wasps, etc including bees of every size. I also have planted my
| property in native plants and wildflowers to make sure these
| native insects have a place to hang out. I provide water for
| insects and wandering animals using washtubs with stacked rocks
| and solar powered fountains to discourage algae. I think that
| you could improve your chances of keeping the bees without them
| destroying your siding or trim if you follow the guidance about
| bee house placement.
|
| You can make a bee house block or buy one that will attract
| multiple native bees and they will use it for years. Here is
| one option with additional info about carpenter bees.[1]
|
| [1]https://www.thewallednursery.com/do-carpenter-bee-houses-
| wor...
|
| The holes in the bee house need to be about 1/2" (12-13mm) if
| you are attracting carpenter bees. For mason or orchard bees
| they should be smaller, 3/16" to 5/16" (5-7mm).
| skyberrys wrote:
| My garden is full of fleabane flowers in heaping piles. I wonder
| if that helps native pollinators or if I am providing flowers for
| honey bees instead.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Planting a variety of local wild flowers that bloom at
| different times over summer is the best assistance people can
| offer the little creatures. Best regards, =3
| skyberrys wrote:
| I actually plant local wildflowers all around the public
| paths near me, those get much better sunlight than my own
| garden. I've managed to plant so many golden poppies now that
| I frequently see strangers stopping to photograph them, I
| feel so happy when I see it. I had a great patch of lupines
| going too but some sort of aphid got loose in the thick patch
| and killed them all. I was so sad.
|
| I try to plant other types of flowers in my own garden, it's
| just that I have 1000's of fleabane and like 200 others, my
| little corner seems to be perfect for fleabane to thrive.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| My wife and I had wanted honey bees for a long time, but when we
| finally moved to a place that we could have had them, we noticed
| that we regularly saw at least 5 native bee species. We decided
| not to get a hive since they compete for resources and can spread
| disease. Given that there are neighbors that have them within
| about a mile, and that either those or feral colonies are close
| enough that we also see honey bees around, I'm not sure how much
| difference it makes, but we don't regret the decision.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| The mite has already hit most wild populations hard, and
| tending hives requires quite a bit of time to learn. Planting
| local wild flowers is often helpful, and requires just a few
| minutes. =3
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Can you "build colonies" for native species?
| chongli wrote:
| You just need to supply the native plants they prefer to
| pollinate, they'll do the rest. If you're wondering about
| whether you can harvest honey from them, I don't think so.
| Most native pollinator species don't produce honey.
|
| Bumblebees do produce a kind of honey, but it's much thinner
| and less concentrated than proper honey (which has had most
| of the water evaporated off by the wing beats of the bees).
| bombcar wrote:
| A thousand years of effort might be able to "domesticate"
| the bumblebee and make it produce something akin to usable
| amounts of honey - but unlikely to be worth it.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Someone domesticated foxes in 20 years
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox ,
| so perhaps it's possible to domesticate bumblebee in a
| few decades - but unlikely to be worth it.
| t-3 wrote:
| Bumblebees are being "domesticated" to some extent, for
| pollinating greenhouses, but they're used as labor
| animals rather than food.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Yes, though you need to know what sort of nesting sites they
| like, and what sources of food they need. Many native bees
| need certain plants to get the nutritional profile they are
| adapted for, and don't do so well on nothing but dandelions
| and typical ornamental flowers. They also need food sources
| throughout their active time.
|
| For mason and leaf cutter bees, a box sheltered from rain and
| filled with Japanese knotweed tubes (don't grow it yourself,
| it's highly invasive) works well for "I like seeing solitary
| bees around, but want minimum efforts". There are tons of
| videos you can find on the subject.
|
| Drilling various sized holes in wood blocks also often works.
| The nice thing about "solitary" bees (which are often quite
| communal), is they don't have much of a drive to defend a
| nest, and would much rather fly away than bite/poke you. I've
| walked alfalfa fields full of them, and while the loud
| buzzing was a bit disconcerting, they couldn't care less
| about me. Leafcutter bees are used for alfalfa because they
| don't mind how alfalfa flowers work mechanically. European
| Honeybees will just chew through the base of the flower to
| get the nectar, avoiding pollination.
|
| For other bees, there is highly likely to be a native bee
| enthusiast group in your local area that can give guidance on
| native flower mixes and possible setups for habitat.
|
| Here in western Oregon, the hazelnut orchards on the sandy
| soil near rivers have actually become a great nesting place
| for multiple species of beautiful green metallic "sweat"
| bees: https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gardenecologylab/2017/11/
| 13/po...
|
| They like the semi-compacted neutral to slightly alkaline
| sandy soil that's clear of weeds, hence a long term orchard
| is perfect, especially as we've moved to softer insecticide
| chemistries that generally preserve beneficial insects.
| Offhand I think I start seeing them filling the ground with
| little holes in may when I start monitoring for Filbertworm
| moths.
|
| And don't forget bumblebees. While it's a hated introduced
| weed for growers, it turns out that Sharppoint Fluvellen in
| the fescue grass fields is loved by bumblebees because it
| happily continues to flower in the late summer/fall when
| everything else has dried up or run it's course.
| ilamont wrote:
| > Japanese knotweed tubes (don't grow it yourself, it's
| highly invasive)
|
| Last year I was lamenting to a neighbor that bamboo doesn't
| survive the harsh winters where we live. He disputed that.
|
| "There's some growing down the road, next to the ditch," he
| said. "It comes back every year. It's everywhere."
|
| I was wondering what the heck he was talking about and then
| I realized it was Japanese knotweed. The segmented branches
| do look like thin bamboo, and he claimed that at one time
| it was sold at the local garden center as "bamboo."
| t-3 wrote:
| Most of the native bees/wasps/flies that are important for
| pollination are solitary, but you can still help them with
| nesting areas.
|
| Mason bees can be relatively easy: drill some small holes in
| a post and let it be. You can also get way more complicated
| with it.
|
| https://colinpurrington.com/2019/05/guide-to-diy-mason-
| bee-h...
|
| Bumblebee make nests for breeding, you can sometimes find
| nests in birdhouses or in gaps of buildings, but they
| apparently usually go for old mouse burrows. I've seen guides
| similar to the following, but covering a nest of dried grass
| with a clay pot, with a buried hose connecting the inside of
| the nest to the outside.
|
| https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/20800500/BumbleBeeRear.
| ..
|
| Planting native flowers and shrubs can also provide habitat
| for many insects.
| bregma wrote:
| There's not as much crossover as you might think. In North
| America the native pollinators are adapted to the native plants
| and can't even pollinate the introduced eurasian ones. And it
| goes the other way: honeybees can't pollinate the native
| plants, only the introduced eurasian ones.
|
| If course, if you're in Europe, honeybees _are_ the native
| pollinators. At least around the Mediterranean.
| justincormack wrote:
| We also have many wild bees in Europe.
| pfdietz wrote:
| So, what you're saying is that honeybees are facilitating the
| spread of invasive plants in North America? Seems like a
| definite negative.
| chasil wrote:
| Those ships have literally sailed, centuries ago.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange
| pfdietz wrote:
| Invasives are an ongoing and escalating problem.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Which is solid evidence that honey bees have little to do
| with the problem.
| pfdietz wrote:
| What a non sequitur.
| adolph wrote:
| See also earthworms facilitating spread of invasives:
| Invasive species of earthworms from the suborder Lumbricina
| have been expanding their range in North America. .
| . . Their introduction to North America has had
| marked effects on the nutrient cycles and soil profiles in
| temperate forests. . . . Some species of trees and other
| plants may be incapable of surviving such changes in
| available nutrients. This change in the plant
| diversity in turn affects other organisms and often leads
| to increased invasions of other exotic species as
| well as overall forest decline. They are considered
| one of the most invasive animals in the Midwestern
| United States along with feral swine.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North_
| A...
| MostlyStable wrote:
| While I haven't done an intense study of it, I very
| frequently see multiple bee species, natives and honey bees,
| on the same flowers. This includes things like raspberries,
| mint, dandelions, various fruit blossoms, as well as
| vegetables. I'm sure there is specialization in at least some
| of the natives, but some of them, the bumblebees especially
| (or maybe that's just because they are bigger and easier to
| see), seem to be pretty generalist foragers much like the
| honey bees
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| For North America, you can read much about native bees (and
| more) at Xerces.org.
|
| They have many regional habitat-planting guides. Two books
| covering native bees: Managing Alternative
| Pollinators Attracting Native Pollinators
|
| C'mon, you know you want to join a 'Society for Invertebrate
| Preservation'.
| GiraffeNecktie wrote:
| The author lost me at the end when they said to stop pulling up
| dandelions. Dandelions are not a native species (at least in
| North America) and are not a good food source for native
| pollinators.
| defrost wrote:
| Dandelions are a native species in Europe, the author is
| blogging from the southwest of Hungary.
|
| Hopefully you are now less lost.
| benrutter wrote:
| I think someone else has already pointed out that the author is
| writing from a non US perspective.
|
| But at the risk of being patronising, I wanted to say that we
| should all try to resist the " _the author lost me when_ "
| reaction. I catch myself doing this too, but I don't think it's
| useful.
|
| Reading an article isn't a competition where you win if you
| don't get your mind changed. Someone might have valid thoughts
| and opinions even if there are details of the article you
| disagree with.
|
| Especially in the current climate, I feel like we could benefit
| from being a little more charitable.
| borski wrote:
| Thank you for saying this. It's hard, but I've learned it's a
| lot better to approach new information (and thus, articles)
| with curiosity, rather than skepticism.
| Flook wrote:
| Hey, I'm the author. I'm indeed writing from Hungary, Europe,
| and here dandelions are native, and they are one of the main
| sources of early food, especially for the bumblebee queens and
| the mining bees. My lawn is littered with dandelions and there
| is so much activity on them. The other main food source at this
| moment is plum blossoms, but those are a favorite of the honey
| bees and they often aggressively chase away the native bees. So
| most of the native bees are therefore forced to keep lower to
| the ground and make use of the dandelions, daisies and violets.
| I see all my neighbors pulling out the dandelions, and thereby
| removing the only really abundant food source the native bees
| have left. That's why I said to stop pulling up dandelions.
| apricot13 wrote:
| does this apply in the UK as well? I'm a fan of dandelions
| but everyone is determined to pull them out of our lawn but
| me!
|
| but then I've also been told by a local bee keeper that the
| whole plant flowers for the bees policy isn't a good idea
| since that's how mites and other nasties can be transferred
| between hives?
| Flook wrote:
| Yes, there are about 250 native species of dandelions in
| the UK. That is how the mites are transferred. They hitch a
| ride when a bee leaves the hive, drop off at a flower and
| wait for another bee to be taken to that hive. But the
| thing is, there are about a 1000 different kinds of mites
| (that we know off) and most of them are beneficial to the
| bees, not harmful. There are 3 big groups. The ones like
| the Varroa who will feed on the bees, there is a group that
| will neither harm nor help the bees, and is only after
| stealing the food the bees bring in, and there is a group
| who will clean the hives, eating the waste and harmful
| organisms. A healthy nest of bees isn't really at risk of
| the harmful mites. It's only when they get stressed or sick
| that there is the risk of the Varroa mites to wipe out the
| colony. So it comes down to human intervention for the most
| part. When a bee-keeper sees a Varroa mite, he will treat
| the hive, and by doing so, also kills off the mites that
| keep the hive healthy and disturbing the balance. As a
| result, the bees, who are already living in an unnatural
| population density, get even more weak, since there is
| nothing left to keep the nest clean. The Varroa mites, if
| they find their way into the hive again, have now an easy
| prey and can easily wipe out an entire hive.
| malikolivier wrote:
| Such issues is what brought us to keep native honeybee species
| where I live, and not the domestic Western bees. The productivity
| may not be as high as the domestic bee, but we still get honey
| and it's very good! You would also notice the difference in
| taste. Apis mellifera honey is usually sweeter than the Asian
| honeybee, and not as prone to fermentation. A slightly fermented
| honey is also super good!
| birdfood wrote:
| I have a couple of hives of the local native tetragonula
| stingless bee in my yard. It does feel quite special to see them
| foraging and returning laden with various brightly coloured balls
| of pollen on their legs. I've managed to propagate two hives, one
| I split and gave to my children's kindy, the other started from a
| swarm which attacked one of my hives. I read that if you move the
| hive and put an empty one in its place the swarm might colonise
| it and that is exactly what happened and a friend now has that
| one. We also get a lot of blue banded bee and teddy bear bees in
| our garden. It's comparatively uncommon to see a honey bee.
| moebrowne wrote:
| > The honeybee is not endangered. It never was.
|
| There are several severe threats to honey bees which without
| human intervention would cause a significant number of hives to
| be lost.
|
| There's the varroa mite and the things it carries like deformed
| wing virus, then there is the increasingly prevalent Asian hornet
| which European honey bees are unable to deal with, and colony
| collapse disorder where the bees literally disappear for reasons
| we current don't understand, and climate change is causing
| colonies to starve over the winter.
|
| Honey bees are not going extinct tomorrow but they are not doing
| well.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Humans also face severe treats and are not doing well but are
| not going extinct tomorrow. Honeybees seems to only decline in
| North America, especially the USA, but as you said it's human
| intervention that keeps their population booming years after
| years. Perhaps a decline wouldn't be so problematic it doesn't
| go to extinction? A decline in chickens population wouldn't
| lead to extinction, to elaborate on the funny authors take:
|
| > Promoting honeybee hives to save pollinators is roughly the
| equivalent to building more chicken farms to save bird
| biodiversity
|
| The other problems you raise are important but are also a treat
| to others bee species and insects.
|
| https://earth.org/data_visualization/bees-are-not-declining-...
| b3ing wrote:
| Honeybees aren't native to North America
| bombcar wrote:
| Neither are humans, apparently.
|
| I wonder if it would be possible to experiment a bit - ban
| honeybee hives in a 10 mile square radius, or perhaps in
| that area that bans all radio transmitters. See what
| happens.
| matt_kantor wrote:
| > Neither are humans, apparently.
|
| That depends on how you draw the line. Most would
| consider buffalo[0] to be native to North America, but
| they arrived less than 200000 years ago. If you go far
| enough back, no life is native to anywhere except
| wherever abiogenesis occurred.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison
| b3ing wrote:
| Camels originated in North America, interesting enough.
| Yeah, we could go on for hours
| hammock wrote:
| Fascinating fact. Begs the question what pollinated
| agriculture (squash, tomatoes, peppers, berries etc) prior
| to the introduction of the honeybee and the equally
| fascinating answer is that there were many species but _all
| of them were SOLITARY and NON-HIVE DWELLING!_
| mig39 wrote:
| Neither are earthworms.
| cachius wrote:
| Now think of bumble and other wild bees who catch the mites
| from the blossoms but get no treatment with formic or oxalic
| acid.
| bregma wrote:
| Honeybees are livestock. They're no more endangered than
| chickens or cows. If we need more, we just breed more.
|
| In most places honeybees are raised they couldn't even survive
| in the wild. Just like cows and chickens and pigs. As with most
| livestock, without human intervention they would probably be
| wiped out.
| dv_dt wrote:
| If humans didn't manage risks to livestock on an industry
| scale they would be at risk. It requires a constant
| investment from both commercial industry and government.
| Activities like the dept of agriculture and university ag
| depts have been really so good at what they do. Its like the
| rest of civilization has forgotten what it takes and the
| costs involved if we neglect the investment. Agriculture and
| livestock is just one foundational civilization technology
| where we have forgotten the significance of
| bombcar wrote:
| What is considered livestock varies over time - chickens
| range from "free range and can survive in the wild" to "so
| fat they can't live". One guess as to which is the most
| common by numbers - one reason that if you do decide to
| have a backyard flock, go with something "more natural".
|
| More dangerous in all these is the monoculture - a hundred
| years ago we would have a wide range of crops and
| livestock; now 90% of meat chickens are probably the same
| genetically; similar with cows and bananas and corn and
| rice and pigs, etc. That sets us up for a "wipe out 90% of
| chickens" risk.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Monoculture is definitely a risk, one exacerbated by
| megacorps and overly corporatized industry - but if you
| look at the history of ag departments they have
| introduced multiple variants and variations across crops
| and animals time and time again. They also work with
| smaller growers in communities in many ways - natural
| pest controls consultations for example
| Loughla wrote:
| Just a fun fact. We're pretty close to the anniversary of
| the dust bowl. . . Which was driven by farming practices
| to raise monoculture crops.
|
| No purpose to this other than this is a very long term
| problem that, I believe, will bite us in the ass at some
| point.
| neonnoodle wrote:
| "Breeding more" bees is not as trivial as raising other
| animals, because bee reproduction depends on hive stability.
| Other animals are kept fully enclosed in captivity and can be
| artificially inseminated in some cases. Bees are semi-wild
| and have to be free to leave the hive to forage, and if they
| don't return or if the hive collapses, you can't "breed
| more."
| eszed wrote:
| Fun fact: queen bees can be artificially inseminated, and
| most commercial queens are. Beekeepers prefer naturally-
| inseminated queens, because they're stronger, but "nature"
| can't keep up with commercial demand.
|
| You're correct about "breeding more" not being trivial, but
| they do it on an industrial scale. In really broad strokes:
| in late winter, in preparation for pollination season, they
| feed their hives intensively (with sugar syrup) and add
| extra brood boxes for the queens to fill with eggs. Then
| they split the hives, leaving the old queen in one box, and
| adding new queens to the box(es) they take off. Voila!
| Double (or more) the hives.
|
| Pollination is where commercial beekeepers earn their
| living, by renting out hives of bees to farmers. Honey
| production is not necessarily an afterthought, even though
| it doesn't really turn a profit - it's worth doing because
| you'll be putting the bees on nectar flows for the summer,
| anyway, so you won't have to feed them, and extracting
| (some of) the honey covers transportation costs - but all
| the money's in pollination.
|
| I could keep going and going - queen production and hive
| splitting are _fascinating_ topics on their own - but I 'll
| stop before I risk boring people with an over-long comment.
| I have commercial beekeepers in my family, and I've worked
| (summer / vacation jobs, when I was a kid) every part of
| the process.
|
| (This is all in a USA-ag context. Beekeeping is - very! -
| different in other parts of the world.)
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| There's also the massive problem of fake honey (i.e.
| manufactured sugar syrup illegally sold as honey), which is
| much cheaper than real honey and pushing actual beekeepers out
| of the market.
| jojobas wrote:
| To add, most farming relies precisely on honeybee for
| pollination, and losing 2/3 of them would be quite devastating.
|
| Of course nobody cars about wild bees, our lives don't depend
| on them nearly as much.
| bombcar wrote:
| It may be that agricultural mechanization _requires_
| honeybees simply because they 're the ones we can farm
| themselves.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Is that really true? My layman's understanding was that
| ~10-20% of the calories in a typical American diet comes from
| crops which need pollinators: grains (which feed livestock
| too), legumes, root vegetables, leafy greens, mostly can be
| grown without them, using self pollination or wind
| pollination.
| t-3 wrote:
| Wild honeybees adapt to deal with mites. What they struggle
| with are insecticides and monoculture deserts. Domesticated
| varieties that have been selected for productivity and
| placidity are the ones that haven't quickly adapted to the
| introduction of parasites, diseases, and predators, because
| they don't have to, as the humans worry about those problems.
| danybittel wrote:
| Very well said, also many other non bees are also pollinators,
| such as butterflies, some beetles.. even ants. Any flower is a
| hotspot of life.
|
| Tangential, have a look at a Gaussian splat of a honeybee I
| recently captured: https://superspl.at/scene/3ae6a716
| arn3n wrote:
| That's amazing! How did you capture it at that resolution?
| 7952 wrote:
| That is spectacular. Can you keep the camera still and let the
| bee fly?
| Aboutplants wrote:
| My wife has planted an over abundance of native plants on our
| property, eliminating 60-70% of the turf grass. The resulting bee
| population increase has been phenomenal to watch. Also, using
| leafs dropped in the fall as mulch provides the habitat for
| lightning bugs and the population boom experienced in the years
| after we started doing this has exploded. Summer nights are
| magical again
| anthonyIPH wrote:
| Just last weekend my kids were climbing the magnolia tree on the
| side of my house and I noticed dozens of little bees flying along
| the ground underneath it. My kids were a little freaked out even
| though I reassured them that the bees almost definitely wouldn't
| sting them.
|
| I also noticed dozens of tiny half centimeter diameter holes in
| the ground under that magnolia tree which I guessed were little
| bee burrows. This sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to
| identify what type of bee these were. Long story short, there are
| way too many types of bees (30,000+ according to my research) for
| a non specialist like me to be able to pinpoint a species. But
| whatever type of bee (miner/sweat) they are going to go
| absolutely nuts when that magnolia tree blooms in the next couple
| weeks.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Highly recommend the writing of Dave Goulson[0] about bees and
| meadow ecosystems more broadly. I've read A Buzz in the Meadow
| and A Sting in the Tale and enjoyed them both.
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/323591.Dave_Goulson
| QuaArbiter wrote:
| Humble recommendation;
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002t686/my-garden-of...
|
| (Wildlife film-maker Martin Dohrn is bee obsessed. He has found
| over 60 species in his Bristol garden and sets out to film them,
| with mind-blowing results.)
| jibbit wrote:
| This was genuinely one of the best bits of TV i've ever seen
| thavalai wrote:
| In case any one else runs into a "this video is not available
| outside the UK" message, I'm able to see it here:
| https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/my-garden-thousand-bees-abou...
| smallstepforman wrote:
| As with all things commercial, my neighbour keeps 40 hives and
| extracts too much honey in the autumn, resulting in desperate
| hungry bees in the spring that get very aggressive. If he left
| them more honey (less profits), they wouldnt be as hungry or
| aggressive. The entire neighbourhood suffers due to the antics of
| a single owner. Legally, he's within the council regulations so
| there is nothing we can do ... Its impossible to sit outside from
| 9am-6pm in April and May. Once there is enough food, they calm
| down.
| j_bum wrote:
| Have you ever talked to him about this?
| mapt wrote:
| "I'm going to start spraying imidacloprid if I keep getting
| stung"
| ahhhhnoooo wrote:
| Generally, it's considered pretty unacceptable to destroy
| someone's livestock.
|
| And aggressive honeybees still rarely sting. They typically
| just charge at you (which is annoying/disruptive)
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| For livestock other than bees, it is considered
| unacceptable to starve them or have them attack your
| neighbors.
| throwaway_7274 wrote:
| does anyone else detect llm tone in this post?
| forinti wrote:
| In Brazil we have tiny native bees that don't sting. They make
| wax tunnels and the colonies grow very very slowly. I've been
| watching one for 20 years and it doesn't even seem to have
| doubled in size. They have suffered a lot with deforestation.
| ashwinnair99 wrote:
| Every few years there is one species that captures public
| attention and gets all the conservation energy. Rarely the ones
| that need it most.
| pruetj wrote:
| Appreciate the write up! I've always wanted a hive on my
| property. I've seen some carpenter bees and bumblebees at work
| around the garden and this is giving me second thoughts about
| introducing more competition for them via honeybees.
|
| I think I'll let nature take its course here and enjoy the
| natural wild life.
| datahack wrote:
| I do very much dislike that the concerns of the domesticated bee
| are brushed aside in this piece, as they are quite legitimate.
|
| It, of course, is trying to espouse that we protect the solitary
| and other wild bees, and I agree with them about that. It's very,
| very important.
|
| Nevertheless, this is a case of both not either / or being the
| right position. Why should we be advocating for one and not the
| other, or really in fact all flying insects, especially given
| their recent catastrophic declines.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-03-28 23:00 UTC)