Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 185 posts

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#161

Post by droopyEyelids »

lostlogin wrote: post #153
droopyEyelids wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried oxalic acid treatment instead of apiguard/apivar? Way more effective and cheaper for me. Also there's a strong argument its more 'natural' Overall I agree with your points completely. Honeybees are not native to North America and we're doing animal husbandry and farming on what's basically an invasive species. There is no such thing as doing it "naturally"

How are you giving the Oa? I’ve done it with paper strips - they aren’t ideal over winter as they hold moisture at a damp time, but I did have quite good results.

I built a vaporizing device from a diesel engine glow plug, some scrap aluminum, and an old car battery.

Did some practice runs to time how long i needed to apply current to get to vaporization temperature

Then i do three sessions 5 days apart (to account for varroa lifecycle) starting mid september

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#162

Post by cryptonector »

lostlogin wrote: post #152
cryptonector wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've overwintered once. So far so good. No treatment. I've hives that have zero mites, and hives that have moderate mite load. We'll see what happens this coming winter.

Have you got other hives within 5km? Other hives/overstocking seem a major source of varroa.

I'd have to ask the county.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#163

Post by cryptonector »

tptacek wrote: post #114
kibwen wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honeybees aren't native to the US, but there are lots of native bee species. I see no reason to assume that every beekeeper is only in it for the honey.

They're all keeping honeybees, which are competing with the native pollinators. (You can of course buy mason bee nests or whatever, but nobody calls you a beekeeper for doing that).

The genie is out of the bottle though. If all beekeeping stopped, honeybees would still be everywhere -- perhaps in smaller numbers, perhaps not.

Are there any proposals to ban beekeeping?

It's possible that in Texas the property tax break incentive for beekeeping will be removed, because it's fairly new and because it's getting abused. But I seriously doubt that a ban on beekeeping will pass anywhere.

There are non-native plants (like almond trees) in the North Americas that are mainly pollinated by non-native bees. We couldn't realistically outlaw even just commercial beekeeping, though politically it may be possible to outlaw amateur beekeeping (would that make a dent?).

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#164

Post by cryptonector »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #161
lostlogin wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you giving the Oa? I’ve done it with paper strips - they aren’t ideal over winter as they hold moisture at a damp time, but I did have quite good results.

I built a vaporizing device from a diesel engine glow plug, some scrap aluminum, and an old car battery. Did some practice runs to time how long i needed to apply current to get to vaporization temperature Then i do three sessions 5 days apart (to account for varroa lifecycle) starting mid september

I hope you wear a respirator.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#165

Post by cryptonector »

tptacek wrote: post #148
idlewords wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We acknowledge that the land on which we pollinate is the traditional territory of the plasterer bee, the southeastern blueberry bee, and the ogallalla fruit bat. As we gather the nectar that sustains us all, we honor them and the wasp and placental mammal ancestors who have been stewards of this land for countless generations predating our arrival.

I am OK with beekeeping as long as beekeepers recite land acknowledgements to solitary bee species! I think you know my position on this already though: fuck bees. Imagine getting on a high horse about exactly how people keep a bunch of non-native bugs. That's what this is a thread about! (everybody else: if you live in a locale where honey bees are native, I'm not talking about your bees.)

> Imagine getting on a high horse about exactly how people keep a bunch of non-native bugs. That's what this is a thread about!

We're all invasive. And we've brought a ton of non-native species to all parts of the world over the millennia we've been doing this. I'm not sure what you propose we do now about that. You can't unbreak that egg. I could stop beekeeping, and it wouldn't make a difference. We could stop all commercial beekeeping and that would likely be an agricultural disaster for many crops.

Given all of that, why should one not look into how best to "keep a bunch of non-native bugs"?

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#166

Post by Sprocklem »

cryptonector wrote: post #165
tptacek wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am OK with beekeeping as long as beekeepers recite land acknowledgements to solitary bee species! I think you know my position on this already though: fuck bees. Imagine getting on a high horse about exactly how people keep a bunch of non-native bugs. That's what this is a thread about! (everybody else: if you live in a locale where honey bees are native, I'm not talking about your bees.)

> Imagine getting on a high horse about exactly how people keep a bunch of non-native bugs. That's what this is a thread about! We're all invasive. And we've brought a ton of non-native species to all parts of the world over the millennia we've been doing this. I'm not sure what you propose we do now about that. You can't unbreak that egg. I could stop beekeeping, and it wouldn't make a difference. We could stop all…

There is a balancing act here: while beekeeping does in many ways help support the population of non-native species, you are right in noting that a lot of eurasian plant species that we rely on need domestic bees – and honey bees, in particular – to produce our food. At the same time, that modern monocrop agriculture is further exacerbating the problems faced with non-native species – especially in the case of those eurasian plant species. It seems to me that honey bees must be kept in agricultural settings – and in that case, I hope that they are kept responsibly – but the urban beekeepers discussed upthread should, perhaps, put a larger part of their effort towards keeping native species.

> We're all invasive.

Humans are absolutely not an invasive species in the americas. We may have been when we first arrived – and many native species went extinct as a result – but humans have been a part of the local ecosystems for tens of thousands of years and – where I'm from in canada – have been here since the ice sheets receded and the local ecosystem began to evolve. We are far past the point of being an invasive species and have (had?) long been integrated into the ecosystems in question.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#167

Post by cryptonector »

Sprocklem wrote: post #166
cryptonector wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine getting on a high horse about exactly how people keep a bunch of non-native bugs. That's what this is a thread about! We're all invasive. And we've brought a ton of non-native species to all parts of the world over the millennia we've been doing this. I'm not sure what you propose we do now about that. You can't unbreak that egg. I could stop beekeeping, and it wouldn't make a difference. We could stop all…

There is a balancing act here: while beekeeping does in many ways help support the population of non-native species, you are right in noting that a lot of eurasian plant species that we rely on need domestic bees – and honey bees, in particular – to produce our food. At the same time, that modern monocrop agriculture is further exacerbating the problems faced with non-native species – especially in the case of those…

> At the same time, that modern monocrop agriculture is further exacerbating the problems faced with non-native species

For sure.

> but the urban beekeepers

Are they really a problem? How many hives are they keeping? I've no idea. I know it's hard to come up with numbers in that regard because most such hives are -presumably- completely not registered.

Urban and suburban beekeeping can only be considered a hobby. And a risky one at that. Bees don't like lawn mowers running near them, and neighbors don't like getting stung. I think urban beekeeping must be a non-problem.

> Humans are absolutely not an invasive species in the americas. [...]

Fair.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#168

Post by kurthr »

omniglottal wrote: post #160
kurthr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an urban beekeeper I find this argument a bit odd and not matching my experience. I'm not trying to optimize for growth rate or monocrop pollination and frankly find that the hives grow quite fast and can swarm multiple times per season (late spring early summer). However, they seem to swarm most WHEN they start being stressed by varroa! I haven't seen a clean hive go a year without developing varroa so it's endem…

Are you not concerned that your practices are breeding bees who survive only with medical treatment while empowering the genetics and miticide resistance to reinforce endemic condition of your region? It would seem some others are breeding bees successfully with zero miticide while you're building a Sardaukar force of mites, bred to tough conditions that even the healthiest of bees cannot survive without help.

Not really because of the number of generations (12 months is ~50 generations of mites and the miticide is every 2 years) between treatments and the effectiveness of the treatments. It's like breeding cockroach resistance to stomping with a foot (the kill is almost completely total and I remove the miticide before concentration drops). It would need to be really incremental and this is not. I go over 6 months without noticing any (which may mean the hive was actually clean before it was reinfected by an external reservoir).

The real breading of deadly mites is leaving your hives thronging with them and bees covered in mites spreading them to every other population of bees/pollinators in your neighborhood. It's like putting SARSCoV2 in an AIDS patient and keeping them alive on a ventilator for months spewing novel viruses with minimal isolation... and that's where we likely got the really virulent strains of COVID.

p.s. I take care of 2-3 hives with about 5mi of separation. So I don't really have many local captive hives nearby, but my queens seem to breed pretty true anyway. I'm not a pro, but I've got 10 years of experience in my local area.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#169

Post by tptacek »

cryptonector wrote: post #167
Sprocklem wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a balancing act here: while beekeeping does in many ways help support the population of non-native species, you are right in noting that a lot of eurasian plant species that we rely on need domestic bees – and honey bees, in particular – to produce our food. At the same time, that modern monocrop agriculture is further exacerbating the problems faced with non-native species – especially in the case of those…

> At the same time, that modern monocrop agriculture is further exacerbating the problems faced with non-native species For sure. > but the urban beekeepers Are they really a problem? How many hives are they keeping? I've no idea. I know it's hard to come up with numbers in that regard because most such hives are -presumably- completely not registered. Urban and suburban beekeeping can only be considered a hobby. And…

It's not really my point that beekeepers should feel bad about what they're doing, only that they should stop moralizing so much about it. Unless they're in the UK. I guess honey bees are allowed there.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#170

Post by cryptonector »

tptacek wrote: post #169
cryptonector wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the same time, that modern monocrop agriculture is further exacerbating the problems faced with non-native species For sure. > but the urban beekeepers Are they really a problem? How many hives are they keeping? I've no idea. I know it's hard to come up with numbers in that regard because most such hives are -presumably- completely not registered. Urban and suburban beekeeping can only be considered a hobby. And…

It's not really my point that beekeepers should feel bad about what they're doing, only that they should stop moralizing so much about it. Unless they're in the UK. I guess honey bees are allowed there.

I can get behind that. I don't like moralizing either.

There's still lots of practical reasons to want and recommend treatment-free beekeeping practices:

  - it's easier on the beekeeper
     - less labor
     - not working with dangerous chemicals
     - it's cheaper (no need to buy said
       dangerous chemicals)
     - less time doing things to the bees
       that the bees don't appreciate ==
       fewer stings
  - it's easier on the bees (no pesticides)
  - it breeds stronger bees and weaker mites
It might be easier on the environment too (not so strong mites might not affect native pollinators much), or maybe not (stronger honeybees might really out-compete native pollinators).

Plus if the loss rates w/ and w/o treatment are similar, why bother treating?

Similarly there are moral and practical reasons to switch from Langstroth to top-bar hives:

  - moral: kill fewer bees
  - practical: get stung less,
               no need for gloves
               nor full suits, only veils
If a beekeeper lacks empathy for the bees, they might still have empathy for themselves!
Post reply on HN