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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

#241

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

api wrote: post #199
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. At risk of sounding like a prediction, we can confidently say the outcome is something awful. The ecosystem isn't built like a fault-tolerant network where one node goes out, but the network more or less still works. There is no redundancy. There are no enterprise-grade availability requirements.

It is very fault tolerant over evolutionary and geologic time scales. The question is what the very short term effects might be and how it may impact us. As George Carlin said, we need to stop framing these issues as “saving the Earth.” The Earth will be fine. This is about saving ourselves. Same goes for climate change. The Earth has been very warm in the past, even ice free. The Earth will be fine. The question is…

Bingo, this is exactly what I was going to say. The Earth sure is fault-tolerant, we just might not enjoy what PIDs get the kill signal to repair the system.

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

#242

Post by tzs »

honkycat wrote: post #165
vinbreau wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The classic example is the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone: https://sites.tufts.edu/tuftsgetsgreen/2018/02/27/wolves-cha...

Wolves in Yellowstone are a "keystone species" [1].

A year ago, there was a fascinating episode of "Nature" on PBS about keystone species. It's available for free online streaming here [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_species

[2] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/the-serengeti-rules-41dfru/2...

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

#243

Post by immmmmm »

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 cannot agree more. If i could upvote twice i would.

We are loosing biodiversity at a rate comparable to the last mass extinctions, we are loosing our "life support systems" as climate/biodiv. experts say, yet no one is concerned.

This is beyond the worst i ever expected in my worst nightmares. And this is happening now.

And no one says a world. No one even dare spending 5 minute reading the material. No one cares.

If we go extinct (with 95% of the other species first) it will be well deserved.

By the way, the science says that the dynamics are NOT in our favour: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife...

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

#244

Post by animal_spirits »

xg15 wrote: post #231
philtechguy wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is it outdated? Do you have any souces for that? What do you propose instead?

I think its a good start to learn about chaotic systems instead. For most systems, minute parameter changes can have dramatic effects on the predictability of the system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf8jwEGRo

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

#245

Post by saalweachter »

chmod775 wrote: post #217
masklinn wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. FWIW honeybees are not part of the native US…

>FWIW honeybees are not part of the native US ecosystem Well, neither are most of the crops the Europeans started growing in America. They brought everything from apple species to wheat. Not all of these are self-pollinating, so they had to bring bees too.

It's worth noting there are wild pollinators, some more efficient than others. Orchard bees are like 200x more efficient than honeybees on an individual basis when pollinating apple trees, for instance.

The main advantage of honeybees is that they are domesticated, and we can take them where we want. If your orchard has a healthy population of orchard bees, great, and there are ways to promote orchard bees, but the honeybees can actually be brought in on demand.

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

#247

Post by yawz »

marmaduke wrote: post #207
yawz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have access to gardens, you can plant bee-friendly flowering plants according to your region's climate. You can learn about the wild bees in your region and understand what natural resources they thrive on. Some of them are so specialized that they can easily be threatened by the loss of habitat. Some of the bee "houses" can become great activities for children. For example kids can build Mason Bee houses and…

> plant bee-friendly flowering plants according to your region's climate. I have a bit of garden but in the middle of a residential district of a city. Do I have any chance to attract bees or is > starting your own hive the only way?

As the others pointed out, they'll come. Urban beekeeping has become popular in recent years.

> the only way?

Not sure if I understand. I've also heard of schemes where you can sponsor a hive, but I've never tried it.

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

#248

Post by syrrim »

coldtea wrote: post #229
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 becau…

So if technology was used to eliminate murder hornets, maybe hn would be more in favour of the practice?

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

#249

Post by coliveira »

nurettin wrote: post #234
coliveira wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you assume that non-capitalism is the same as communism? Capitalist ideology and communism are extremes, in my opinion there is a healthy balance between them.

Because communist apologetics usually come from people who are communits, not people who think there is a healthy balance. Which is already in law. The US, just like every other healthy functioning country in the world, is socialist. They just suck at it horrendously in certain fields. The capitalist ideal is talked about, but mostly because of the innovation aspect, not the worker exploitation aspect. In fact, and e…

Not really, these days this position is more frequent in people who want a healthy balance and see policies purely motivated by free-market ideology. For example, it is very clear that the Trump administration is shock full of free-market ideologues, in issues ranging from health care to education and the environment.

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

#250

Post by giantg2 »

yawz wrote: post #174
eneeigriega wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about bees but I just recently started following an Instagram account (@texasbeeworks) that earlier this year posted a video[1] of a bee with a Varroa Mite. The video's caption: "Alright, here is what I want everyone to know about ‘murder hornets’. Only one nest of Asian Giant Hornets has been found in North America and it was quickly eradicated. Right now, the nation’s top entomologists are watchin…

Varroa is and has been my #1 problem for a while. I hate it. But I can't agree with this statement: "If these hornets become a serious problem for honeybees, we will find a solution to keep bees safe." It can easy be too late. Look at what's happening in Europe. They simply can't stop the hornets. Of course it's more dramatic to show these huge insects. They are impressive and scary. Mites are small and look insignif…

We can't find a way to stop them + huge insects = unsolved problem

This seems contradictory to me as a beek. 5/16 holes as a mouse guard should also keep huge insects out of the hive. It also should be easy to create pheromone traps if it is true that the hornet's seek out the scent of other dead hornets.

On a side note, I see mites as a genetics issue. I would rather see commercial outfits using selection rather than treating with chemicals and shipping packages with weak genetics all over the US. Spearding weak genes is kind of the opposite of Darwin...

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