Still happening, it’s just now maintaining bee colonies and taking them on the road to pollinate is now an industry.
Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
71–80 of 184 posts
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#72This article buries its lede, which is about how honey bees get all the attention but are at less risk than wild bees: > And that brings us to the actual problem. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is only one of about 20 thousand different bee species. The non-honey bees are usually referred to as wild bees, and each location has its native species. According to an estimate from researchers at Cornell University in 2006…
I think the colloquial term for (edit; the most commonly well-known) many wild bees in English is "bumblebees". They're often burrowing species that don't have honey producing hives (They do stuff like make little caves in moss, dirt, and underbrush), and are often crucial pollinators of certain species of plants which are specifically attractive to certain wild bees (Orchids are a good example here) but which domest…
Same here on our tiny farm. I don't need any more hobbies, but I often entertain keeping bees. But I also have a bias towards native plants and native insects. So I cultivate lots of flowering plants, and leave areas wild, but have never done anything with honeybees.
I kinda wish there was a native Northeastern American bee that had some of the utility of honeybees for sugar and/or wax production.
TIL that bumblebees actually have a history of domestication but that international movement of bees led to serious health issues and transmission of pests that decimated both wild and domestic populations: https://www.sare.org/publications/managing-alternative-polli...
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Long live High Fructose Corn Syrup!
It's no worse than sugar. Both are unnecessary for humans and can be extracted as needed from fats and proteins by the human body.
Agreed, but we didn’t used to shove sugar in literally everything. Corn syrup mixes well into solution, it’s pretty damn stable, cheap, easy to store and measure, won’t clump… and yea people used to like x product fine, but really prefer it sweeter.
It’s not that corn syrup is bad, it’s too good which is bad.
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#74(1) Stop using neonicotinoid pesticides. There are plenty of alternatives for protecting food crops from insect infestations, such as neem oil applied as a foliar spray or a soil soak in response to infestations. Neonictoninoides are based on the tobacco nicotine molecule structure, but are typically chlorinated and modified to make them more persistent and toxic to insects relative to animals. There's a good argumen…
Is neem realistic for large scale farms? We use it in our personal garden, but you need to continually re-apply every 4-5 days with really good coverage for a period of time for it to be effective. It has been hit or miss for us. If neem doesn't work then its oh well, plant something else, but we aren't selling a crop.
It seems to have worked without many problems in France, they had a ban in 2018:
https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/France-bans-uses-...
but there has been a recent exception made for the sugar beet crop:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-sees-no-easy-fix...
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what's driving it but I've been observing sharp changes in insect populations that visit our balcony which has been completely taken over by some kind of huge black wasp/hornet monsters. These bastards seem to hunt baby grasshoppers all day long and butcher all kinds of other wasps and bees, too. I used to find piles of chopped bodies but until competition got the message and show no more. I even found a…
That sounds really alarming to have to be around (no pun intended). What part of the world is this in, I was hearing something about the pacific northwest experiencing invasive Japanese giant 'killer' hornets at some point in the past couple of years, I thought the course of action in that case was calling the wildlife authorities to try and stem the spread?
Densely populated city in Bulgaria. I tried searching for the thing but aside from "$some_kind_of_asian_wasp taking over easter Europe", I've got nothing. I don't think it was the same species.
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Demonization of neonics is misplaced. You can spray at night when bees aren't active. You can spray when your plants aren't in bloom and attracting bees. Oh well, the 2 minutes hate have emerged against neonics and farmers pivot like they ways do.
> Demonization This is a dramatic overstatement. You’re disagreeing about neonics , I’m sorry if that’s hard not to take personally but it seems like something than could be discussed without the vitriol.
I don't understand how you can parse my sentence and think that the object being demonized is either me or farmers. Yes, neonics are being demonized.
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#77People will always click on apocalypse stories, so the market will keep supplying them.
Succint and accurate. Massive rebound of the coral growth? No one wants to report that: https://twitter.com/alexepstein/status/1440696877079433220
Alex Epstein? The one that is a self-professed Fossil Fuels advocate and is starting a lobbying group with Thiel's backing? https://twitter.com/alexepstein/status/1516091577227255810
Anyway, I went to his source material he and it said
"The last couple of years have revealed that recovery is underway across much of the GBR, a promising sign illustrating that the GBR still has the capacity and necessary ecological functions to recover from disturbances.
The Central and Southern GBR had periods of recovery within the last decade which have been curtailed by disturbances, arresting recovery, and causing further coral declines. Sustained recovery of the GBR back to historical high coral cover requires the next few years to be disturbance free to allow corals to continue to grow and increase their populations.
While there have been hard coral cover increases across all three regions over recent years, the Northern and Southern GBR are still below the highest recorded coral cover in the 1980s, and preliminary analyses have documented shifts in the dominant corals on some reefs.
2021 has been a low disturbance year, while the period from 2014 to 2020 was an intense period of widespread disturbances. There were numerous severe tropical cyclones and three mass coral bleaching events in five years. The fourth wave of crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks began around 2010 between Lizard Island and Cairns, and by 2020 had progressed south to reefs offshore from Townsville."
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really true, bumble bees are the furry fat ones, but there are lots of other types of wild bees.
Yeah you're correct, I'm just making clear the example of wild bees that most people know. There's a ton of really interesting species that don't even really look like bees (Different coloration like iridescent and black) for sure.
It's a very useful example. I didn't know that bumblebees were separate from honeybees or that they didn't produce honey
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Demonization of neonics is misplaced. You can spray at night when bees aren't active. You can spray when your plants aren't in bloom and attracting bees. Oh well, the 2 minutes hate have emerged against neonics and farmers pivot like they ways do.
If we're talking about trying to stem the destruction of wild species here (The problem really isn't about domesticated honeybees), then you should definitely consider the fact that spraying at night won't help those wild bees which are nocturnal [1], nor does your point of view on these address the fact that these pesticides have a degree of environmental persistence. [2] This isn't demonization, it's just straight…
You're mistaken. only big ag can pivot. The smaller your are, the harder it is to keep up with all the regulation. Notice also the phenomenon of regulatory capture.
Re: Whatever happened to the bee apocalypse?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren’t there still some wild dogs, cats, horses, sheep, goats, and everything else humans have domesticated? Or are you being very specific about what went extinct, or maybe predicting future extinctions (in which case I’m curious more about what you mean?) Edit: sorry if the question came off as rude and that’s why it was downvoted, I was sincerely curious what you meant.
The aurochs[1] has sadly been hunted to extinction. The last one was killed in Poland during the 17th century. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs
If there weren't hunters around to hunt them to extinction, they would have depleted natural resources and starved and been a lethal danger to people on future roads and highways. Hunters are entitled to our eternal gratitude for providing these services.