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U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#41

Post by tedunangst »

Beltiras wrote: post #39
nostromo wrote: post #24

So was that the solution all along? Just breed more bees to replace the ones that die? If that's the case, it seems like a mountain was made out of a mole hill in the media. I read multiple times that I may never eat a pollinated fruit or vegetable again.

No, the article is just putting forth very misleading and cherry-picked data. It's a little bit amazing that he actually mentions splitting and higher hive count close to each other without realizing that this will not increase the pollinator count by twofold. A real beefarmer has a comment on the article that everyone should read, it's illuminating. """ Mr Ingraham---do not assume you can read a few papers on CCD an…

I'm not sure that comments from "beekeeper in Los Angeles" sprinkled with phrases like "corporate apologist" are especially authoritative either.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#42

Post by rational-future »

floatrock wrote: post #31

There's a little bit of dodging going around in this article... What's really going on is we still have a high amount of churn in the funnel, we're just spending more to hide it. > "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." So the absolute num…

>> addressing the underlying cause of the leak

There are problem causes that are very hard to address. E.g. alcohol consumption causing a lot of traffic accidents.

Or massive corporations, with huge lobbying budgets, releasing toxins in the environment. Toxins that cause no obvious harm, but kill a lot of bees or cause cancer in some humans after 20 years of exposure.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#43

Post by toomuchtodo »

tptacek wrote: post #38
floatrock wrote: post #31

There's a little bit of dodging going around in this article... What's really going on is we still have a high amount of churn in the funnel, we're just spending more to hide it. > "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." So the absolute num…

You're referring to neonicotinoids. Let's stipulate that neonicotinoids are in fact the root cause of CCD, which is defined as the increase in overwintering colony losses. Honey bees are a livestock animal, tied directly to agriculture. Neonicotinoids are popular in part because they're a narrow spectrum pesticide targeted at insect biology, and have fewer ill effects on other mammals than other pesticides. Here's th…

> Here's the question: if neonicotinoids are a net win for agriculture, and CCD can be mitigated by more aggressive colony generation strategies, why would we need to address neonicotinoids at all? The market seems to have already done that.

I'm concerned that we haven't proven yet that we can properly mitigate CCD long term with aggressive colony generation strategies, at least not long term. We need more data.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#44

Post by jsprogrammer »

floatrock wrote: post #31

There's a little bit of dodging going around in this article... What's really going on is we still have a high amount of churn in the funnel, we're just spending more to hide it. > "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." So the absolute num…

Did you correct for possible increased honey consumption since 2006?

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#45

Post by tedunangst »

floatrock wrote: post #31

There's a little bit of dodging going around in this article... What's really going on is we still have a high amount of churn in the funnel, we're just spending more to hide it. > "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." So the absolute num…

Consider perhaps a speed boat. You find that by lowering the freeboard (height above waterline) you can go faster. But this means more water splashes in, necessating a bigger bilge pump. People like their speedboats to go fast, they're probably ok with this trade off.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#46

Post by anon1385 »

tptacek wrote: post #38
floatrock wrote: post #31

There's a little bit of dodging going around in this article... What's really going on is we still have a high amount of churn in the funnel, we're just spending more to hide it. > "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." So the absolute num…

You're referring to neonicotinoids. Let's stipulate that neonicotinoids are in fact the root cause of CCD, which is defined as the increase in overwintering colony losses. Honey bees are a livestock animal, tied directly to agriculture. Neonicotinoids are popular in part because they're a narrow spectrum pesticide targeted at insect biology, and have fewer ill effects on other mammals than other pesticides. Here's th…

Because honeybees are just one of many pollinating insects whose numbers are falling dramatically. They just happen to get talked about a lot in the press because there are people with a direct economic interest in them.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#47

Post by StavrosK »

c-slice wrote: post #6
pingou wrote: post #3

According to the article, the number of colonies is bigger than before because bee keepers simply buy more bees as replacement, but it doesn't explain where they come from. Also: "put half the bees into a new beehive, order them a new queen online (retail price: $25 or so), and voila: two healthy hives." Does that mean you have 100% more colonies but the same number of bees? I suppose not, but I think it would be int…

A small number of bees when placed with a queen will quickly produce a full size hive. Bee hives have a size limit, so dividing them into two smaller hives produces rapid population growth. A queen bee can lay 1000 eggs a day.

This is the most outlandish attempt at a proof of the Banach-Tarski theorem I've heard so far.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#48

Post by abakker »

From Wikipedia:

The pollination of California's almonds is the largest annual managed pollination event in the world, with close to one million hives (nearly half of all beehives in the USA) being trucked in February to the almond groves. Much of the pollination is managed by pollination brokers, who contract with migratory beekeepers from at least 49 states for the event. This business has been heavily affected by colony collapse disorder, causing nationwide shortages of honey bees and increasing the price of insect pollination...

Does anyone feel that transporting livestock from this many places to a single place where they can all commingle is a needlessly risky strategy? Assuming that CCD is caused by pesticides, this seems to guarantee exposure to a large number of bees that might otherwise live in pesticide-free areas. Additionally, if CCD has a fungal/parasitic component, then this would be an ideal way to infect as many hives as possible, in as short a time as possible.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#49

Post by galago »

tptacek wrote: post #38
floatrock wrote: post #31

There's a little bit of dodging going around in this article... What's really going on is we still have a high amount of churn in the funnel, we're just spending more to hide it. > "The 2014 numbers, which came out earlier this year, show that the number of managed colonies -- that is, commercial honey-producing bee colonies managed by human beekeepers -- is now the highest it's been in 20 years." So the absolute num…

You're referring to neonicotinoids. Let's stipulate that neonicotinoids are in fact the root cause of CCD, which is defined as the increase in overwintering colony losses. Honey bees are a livestock animal, tied directly to agriculture. Neonicotinoids are popular in part because they're a narrow spectrum pesticide targeted at insect biology, and have fewer ill effects on other mammals than other pesticides. Here's th…

Is the answer partly that its a classic Pigouvian property rights issue? The pesticide users are not compensating the bee users for the damage to their property. There may be some overlap in the forms of agriculture, but I'm guessing its not 100%.

Re: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

#50

Post by nonameface »

tptacek wrote: post #35
nonameface wrote: post #30

Buying more and more bees is a very expensive solution. Perhaps I'm just a poor beekeeper (maybe true?) but I would have to sell my honey at untenable prices if I was looking to make money on my beekeeping. For example, I've spent $1600 on bees and equipment, I've harvested 3 gallons of honey. I would have to sell that honey at $44/Pound to break even. Now hopefully over the long term this goes down a lot as the upfr…

If reconstituting new hives from annually purchased queens was economically non-viable, pollination prices --- which is where the money in honey bee husbandry seems to come from --- would show that. But while prices have risen, it doesn't look like they've done so at a historically unprecedented rate. Irrigation is a much bigger economic threat to pollinated crops than pollination.

Yes, this is true -- in large agriculture, pollination is where the money is in beekeeping. I know pollination contracts stipulate "frames of bees" to be considered a hive (for example you might need 20 "frames of bees" to get paid for that hive) but I also think you're getting weaker hives out there for pollination. So while the price isn't going up, the size of the product is going down.

Same concept as the cereal boxes. They look the same from the outside, but they put less cereal in it and charge you the same price instead of raising the price.

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