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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

#291

Post by giantDinosaur »

saalweachter wrote: post #245
chmod775 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 h…

Is it not possible to domesticate other bee species? Surely a x200 increase in efficiency would be a major reason to domesticate orchard bees, right?

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

#292

Post by giantg2 »

lostlogin wrote: post #287
giantg2 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't use pollen traps, propolis traps, nor queen excludes. I'm not sure how they would effect drones. I know drones can fit through 3/8 inch. I'm not sure what size the hornets can fit through. If they are the same size as cicada killers, I would guess 3/8 is too small for them.

Drones can’t fit through my excluders. Every so often I put a frame from the brood boxes above the excluder. Old frames or ones with lots of drone cells. I have to check back in a few days to let the drones out or they die and block the excluder. Workers try to pull them though and jam them in the holes. I’m currently using some nice American made excluders and they are really nice. They are made of wire and are quit…

Cool. I do everything really cheap - foundationless, treatment-free, no excluders, etc.

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

#293

Post by rvba »

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 (…

> people drive honey bee colonies around to crops in order to pollinate them

This whole idea is very batshit insane too.

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

#295

Post by nend »

giantDinosaur wrote: post #291
saalweachter wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Is it not possible to domesticate other bee species? Surely a x200 increase in efficiency would be a major reason to domesticate orchard bees, right?

Orchard bees are domesticated and used as pollinators. They're solitary bees, which I'm guessing prevents usage for mass pollination of crops.

That being said there are lots of animals that can't be domesticated. Zebras are the classic example, being very similar to domesticated horses but are much more aggressive and unpredictable.

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

#296

Post by adamredwoods »

giantDinosaur wrote: post #291
saalweachter wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Is it not possible to domesticate other bee species? Surely a x200 increase in efficiency would be a major reason to domesticate orchard bees, right?

It is possible and was tried (with honey bees) in 1956, then they escaped: https://www.clemson.edu/extension/beekeepers/fact-sheets-pub...

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

#297

Post by adamredwoods »

sandworm101 wrote: post #270
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 (…

Bee careful when talking about wiping out invasive species. Honeybees aren't native to north america. Nor are the majority of crops that they pollinate. "Invasive", by government definition, means not just foreign but also economically dangerous. Conversely, screwworm is native but we chose to wipe that species from north american because it was economically dangerous. I haven't heard anyone talk of allowing it back.

Let's not bring back the screwworm: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/7-reasons-flesh-eating-...

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

#298

Post by Sebb767 »

wyre wrote: post #256
teawrecks wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that people think environmentalism is about preserving the environment. The planet's gonna be fine, it's humans who are gonna have a bad time.

>The planets gonna be fine I see this line a lot but everyday humans are doing irreparable damage to ecosystems. Taking millions of years to heal from events is not ‘fine’.

But what is "heal"? There's no such thing as the "right" or "fine" ecosystem. In 100 years, I'm nearly 100% certain that this planet will still exist and something will live on it.

His point was that we're killing ourself. An ecosystem and a planet will continue existing, the question is whether humans will exist on it.

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

#300

Post by mykmallett »

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 (…

Who are you arguing with?
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