U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by nitrogen » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 7:10 AM UTC

schiffern wrote: post #133

tptacek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will not stipulate that "the onus is on an the producers and beneficiaries of all the toxic mess of industry, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their profit isn't coming at a permanent cost to the full realization of planetary health and sustenance" , because I don't even know what that means. The Precautionary Principle works well in some places and not in others. In this case: you're pretending that the po…

>If you use less neonicotinoid pesticide, you will use more land If you think that the only possible way to grow food is monoculture fields sprayed with poison and fertilizer (aka the "green revolution"), then you'd be right. But is that really true? Is that the only possible way to grow food? I ask because forests seem to grow lots of food (an unmanaged forest generates many times more biomass per hectare than a far…

Any agricultural system that won't support near total automation of the harvesting of staples will not be sustainable for a planet with over 7 billion people. A food forest sounds great, but there's no way to drive a combine over it and feed a hundred thousand people with the labor of one.

(an unmanaged forest generates many times more biomass per hectare than a farm field)

Biomass is not the same thing as food. Are food forests actually capable of growing more calories (or fewer calories with enough compensating micronutrients) per unit area over an extended time compared to industrialized fields?

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

#172

Post by vlehto » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 8:06 AM UTC

pauloday wrote: post #32

maratd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CCD has probably "pruned" the bee population in a good way A reduction in the population is never a good thing. Is this some sort of neo-eugenics viewpoint? Pruning the population will not create some sort of super-bee. That's not how it works. It will enhance whatever qualities are being selected for, but it will reduce the genetic diversity in the population, making it vulnerable to a hole raft of new diseases an…

Well I wouldn't say population reduction is never a good thing, but it's probably pretty obvious when it's needed.

But the way it should be reduced would be by limiting "family size" not "family number". This allows for higher genetic diversity among the population. Which is always a good thing for long term survival or future genetic engineering experiments.

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

#173

Post by mohawk » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 9:07 AM UTC

torgoguys wrote: post #102

mohawk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a few papers referenced on wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid#Decline_in_bee_p...

Thanks for the link. Yes, neonicotinoids are bad for bees, but so are lots of other things. Other than one special symptomatic consistency (aside from death), there still doesn't appear to be an especially good reason to peg most of the blame on them yet. Doesn't mean they aren't to blame in a large measure, but it doesn't appear there is any reason to think that YET. It's one of those annoying "more study is needed"…

Well-documented neurotoxicity and bioaccumulation seem good reasons to me. Of course there will always be colony collapses without neonicotinoids too. How about we stop using them until we fully understand their effects?

EU has banned their use for two years:

http://ec.europa.eu/food/archive/animal/liveanimals/bees/neo...

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/beehealth.htm?wtrl...

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

#174

Post by dejv » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 10:02 AM UTC

dejv wrote: post #169

Keyframe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know next to nothing about this, but I have a question. Couldn't you make more hives yourself? What prevents you to 'cultivate' (or whatever it's called) queens and let them mate?

Yes, bees create new hives by themselves. Every year there are couple of swarming that include young queen leaving the hive to build new colony. In traditional beekeeping, the owner will catch the swarm, put it to new home and you've got another hive, which you either sell or use for more produce. The problem is that a lot of hives die during winter (because of various form of illness and conditions) and the populati…

Wrong information, sorry: during swarming the old queen leaving the hive and left the new queen her old hive.

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

#175

Post by tehchromic » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 10:24 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #171

schiffern wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you use less neonicotinoid pesticide, you will use more land If you think that the only possible way to grow food is monoculture fields sprayed with poison and fertilizer (aka the "green revolution"), then you'd be right. But is that really true? Is that the only possible way to grow food? I ask because forests seem to grow lots of food (an unmanaged forest generates many times more biomass per hectare than a far…

Any agricultural system that won't support near total automation of the harvesting of staples will not be sustainable for a planet with over 7 billion people. A food forest sounds great, but there's no way to drive a combine over it and feed a hundred thousand people with the labor of one. (an unmanaged forest generates many times more biomass per hectare than a farm field) Biomass is not the same thing as food. Are…

Ah but it isn't true. What is true is that industrial agriculture is the product of pecuniary exploit, not economy of scale, and definitely not the quest for the greater good.

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

#176

Post by tehchromic » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 10:27 AM UTC

chrishynes wrote: post #163

tehchromic wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is duplicitous! :} If you and I are responsible for a man who is exposed to doses of radiation everyday and I stand up and say, you know, we shouldn't have this guy exposed to radiation because it could be lethal, and you say, hoooold on, there's no such thing as lethal radiation, just lethal doses of radiation ... then I gotta wonder who you are working for! Because both our points are that you gotta kn…

But you destroy your own point. Everyone on earth is exposed to "doses of radiation" every single second. It's just a small enough amount of radiation as to be benign.

Not at all! It's a leading cause of death and we certainly do what we can to minimize our exposure.

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

#177

Post by Houshalter » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 12:49 PM UTC

slavik81 wrote: post #90

wang_li wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no wild honey bees. They got wiped out in the 1990s by varroa mites.

There are other species of wild bees besides honey bees. Are they not affected by this?

It's unlikely. Wild bees are not affected by the same diseases and parasites, have much more genetic diversity, and are adapted for this climate. Honeybees are not native, they have less genetic diversity from domestication and importation, and they are transported around the country by beekeepers every year (spreading their diseases and parasites around.)

Nor do they have to deal with their produce being taken by humans.

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

#178

Post by Keyframe » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 12:59 PM UTC

dejv wrote: post #174

dejv wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, bees create new hives by themselves. Every year there are couple of swarming that include young queen leaving the hive to build new colony. In traditional beekeeping, the owner will catch the swarm, put it to new home and you've got another hive, which you either sell or use for more produce. The problem is that a lot of hives die during winter (because of various form of illness and conditions) and the populati…

Wrong information, sorry: during swarming the old queen leaving the hive and left the new queen her old hive.

Beekeeping is such an interesting hobby. Shame I hate (scared of hah) buzzing insects and stings!

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

#179

Post by Houshalter » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 1:08 PM UTC

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…

CCD hasn't been traced to insecticides though. It's a contributing factor. But there are multiple causes. Parasites and diseases are big factors too.

Honeybees are not native. They have low genetic diversity from domestication. They are transported around the country by beekeepers every year, spreading their diseases and parasites. And they have their produce taken by humans.

Even if you removed all insecticides, they might improve a bit, but I doubt they would be doing well. And if they did get wiped out, so what? They aren't native, and there are wild bees that would replace them.

I keep seeing comments and articles implying that all bees are going extinct and that this will be cataclysmic. It's just a ridiculous misunderstanding of what is happening.

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

#180

Post by Houshalter » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

schiffern wrote: post #133

tptacek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will not stipulate that "the onus is on an the producers and beneficiaries of all the toxic mess of industry, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their profit isn't coming at a permanent cost to the full realization of planetary health and sustenance" , because I don't even know what that means. The Precautionary Principle works well in some places and not in others. In this case: you're pretending that the po…

>If you use less neonicotinoid pesticide, you will use more land If you think that the only possible way to grow food is monoculture fields sprayed with poison and fertilizer (aka the "green revolution"), then you'd be right. But is that really true? Is that the only possible way to grow food? I ask because forests seem to grow lots of food (an unmanaged forest generates many times more biomass per hectare than a far…

Just because the forest has more mass does not mean it produces more food. Trees produce tons of mass in an evolutionary war to be taller than all the other trees and get more sunlight. None of it is edible though.

All of them are in a highly competitive war for resources. Plants produced poisons to kill other plants. They try to spread their seeds faster. They try to grow taller and faster and steal sunlight. They grow bigger roots to steal water.

No plant wants to be eaten, and so many produce poisons and thorns other deterrents. Few of them keep all their calories in one place, and require highly specialized digestive systems which humans don't have.

The exception is fruit plants of course, but they only produce the minimal amount of food necessary. The fruit you buy in a store has been extensively bred by humans to be so large - and this domestication has a massive energy cost that makes them uncompetitive in the wild.

Anyway the point is that the wild is not optimized for humans at all. It's an incredibly inefficient way to produce food. The plants are spending most of their resources fighting each other, and insects, and everything else. The winner of this game is whatever plants reproduce the most, not the ones humans want. Permaculture is really cool, but you are never going to get anywhere near as many calories per unit of land.