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Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

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Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#221

Post by [deleted] »

yawz wrote: post #176
_Microft wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard that certain pseudoscorpions might be of help against varroa mites? They seem to hunt them and would need to live in the beekeeping box as I understand. There is a tiny bit of information on them in german Wikipedia [0] (automatic translation [1], let me know if I can help with translation). Wikipedia says that they can be found worldwide, so maybe they will be of help. (Please note that under _no circ…

This is very interesting. Thanks for the pointer. Much appreciated.

[deleted]

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#222

Post by philtechguy »

honkycat wrote: post #156

I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. Furthermore: People use honey bees for honey (…

It's useful to note that system's thinking is such an outdated model of looking at the world. Basically modeling the world as a fancy mechanism, with mechanistic explanations about every aspects of the world. Very reductionist about organisms, nature, societies, etc.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#223

Post by lovegoblin »

fnbr wrote: post #167
luckman212 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is astounding! For anyone on mobile who wants to avoid the Pinterest garbage, here's a direct link to the image: https://www.vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/rats-10...

Possibly a dumb question, but how do I get that link from the Pinterest one?

By clicking on it.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#224

Post by Nzen »

coliveira wrote: post #194
NateEag wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is an example of typical programmer thinking that says "only a perfect solution is worth releasing". I have been guilty of that error countless times. An individual's actions will not solve a society's woes, but they don't need to. If they help a little bit where they are, they can be worth doing. Furthermore, individuals trying to help does not preclude larger-scale solutions. The people attempting indi…

I am not advocating for a "perfect solution or nothing". I advocate for solutions based on public policy, even if they're partial. But I object to individual solutions, because they're no solution at all. It doesn't matter how many people do little actions, if there are a few big actors (say multinational corporations) exploiting and polluting the environment, the result is worse than zero! It is just like taking as…

This worldview discounts the political awareness that such actions can foster. Someone who replaced their crabgrass lawn with native meadow has a daily embodiment of their value system. When such a person hears about murder hornets, is this person somehow less likely to contact his/her representatives about the issue than the person who kept a typical lawn, in your assessment ? That's the only way I can see this as a net negative, rather than neutral or trivially positive.

Or, given that the described standpoint suggests I have enough attention for either planting a meadow lawn or supporting 'big action', why are you wasting it telling us about this, instead of naming names of the big actors to write to our representatives about and avoid electing representatives that hold a favorable position toward them ?

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#226

Post by WalterBright »

In the Pacific Northwest, we have a couple other slow moving ecological train wrecks. The first is the himalayan blackberry, an invasive species that kills everything else and completely dominates where it has taken root. It grows everywhere.

A similar story for the scotch broom. And the english ivy, which is killing the trees.

All of these are everywhere and very difficult to kill.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#227

Post by BurningFrog »

vinbreau wrote: post #163
honkycat wrote: post #156

I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. Furthermore: People use honey bees for honey (…

Reminds me of an old adage I heard in high school: If you take the frogs out of the environment, you don't have the same environment minus frogs, you have an entirely new ecosystem.

True, but it's also good to remember that the new system isn't "worse" or "better" than the old one.

A lot of people seem to think that if you "destroy" an ecosystem it is a step toward a lifeless environment.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#228

Post by lostlogin »

i_cannot_hack wrote: post #195
petertodd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC workers (or at least worker larvae) can become queens under the right conditions, so it's more likely for the undesirable genes to be removed if the entire hive is euthanized. Also, in the case of that video, IIRC having the still aggressive workers in the locations available to that beekeeper wouldn't be desirable, even if later generations were calmer.

It's not about the queens, it's about the drones (male bees). The workers only start laying eggs if the hive goes without a queen for several weeks, and either way the eggs they lay are unfertilized and therefore cannot be raised into new queens. So requeening it is certain to work in that regard. However, unless you euthanize whole hive, the aggressive drones will continue to live for a while and can mate with queen…

Requeening is ideally done with a queen that is from known good stock, not by emergency requeening. I’ve just done it at home. It’s cheaper to raise your own, but you will get traits that are undesirable, aggression being one.

The drones in a hive are not all raised there, they move about hives, so killing the hive won’t get them all.

Hives that have got a laying worker are also very hard to requeen and it usually isn’t possible. One way is to shake all the bees out some distance away then hope the laying worker doesn’t make it back to the hive (she can’t fly). However those hives are hard to fix, as they usually reject the new queen.

There is a lot of differences in beekeeping region to region and country to country, so whatever I have seen and done may be very different to other places.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#229

Post by coldtea »

honkycat wrote: post #156

I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. Furthermore: People use honey bees for honey (…

>I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking".

Technical audiences usually go with the "technology, right or wrong" angle (as nationalists go with "my country, right or wrong").

It's more about identity validation and peer group thinking than critical and systems thinking. Plus they're into technology because they disproportionally like, glorify, and are attracted by tech in the first place.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#230

Post by HarryHirsch »

maxerickson wrote: post #206
honkycat wrote: post #156

I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. Furthermore: People use honey bees for honey (…

Calorie crops mostly self pollinate or similar (wheat, corn, soy, etc). Bees don't matter there. For things like apples, it's actually affordable to pay humans to do it. Which is not to say that bee's aren't better than humans in most ways, just that it doesn't come down to 'no options'. And like other people are saying, honeybees are livestock, they aren't 'nature'.

It's clear you are mixing up vanilla and most every kind of fruit tree. One is a high-value, low-volume speciality crop, the other is the exact opposite. Pollinating a cherry orchard! Dude, you go first!
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