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The bee that everyone wants to save

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Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#41

Post by bombcar »

b3ing wrote: post #35
aziaziazi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans also face severe treats and are not doing well but are not going extinct tomorrow. Honeybees seems to only decline in North America, especially the USA, but as you said it’s human intervention that keeps their population booming years after years. Perhaps a decline wouldn’t be so problematic it doesn’t go to extinction? A decline in chickens population wouldn’t lead to extinction, to elaborate on the funny aut…

Honeybees aren’t native to North America

Neither are humans, apparently.

I wonder if it would be possible to experiment a bit - ban honeybee hives in a 10 mile square radius, or perhaps in that area that bans all radio transmitters. See what happens.

Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#42

Post by bombcar »

dv_dt wrote: post #38
bregma wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honeybees are livestock. They're no more endangered than chickens or cows. If we need more, we just breed more. In most places honeybees are raised they couldn't even survive in the wild. Just like cows and chickens and pigs. As with most livestock, without human intervention they would probably be wiped out.

If humans didn't manage risks to livestock on an industry scale they would be at risk. It requires a constant investment from both commercial industry and government. Activities like the dept of agriculture and university ag depts have been really so good at what they do. Its like the rest of civilization has forgotten what it takes and the costs involved if we neglect the investment. Agriculture and livestock is jus…

What is considered livestock varies over time - chickens range from "free range and can survive in the wild" to "so fat they can't live". One guess as to which is the most common by numbers - one reason that if you do decide to have a backyard flock, go with something "more natural".

More dangerous in all these is the monoculture - a hundred years ago we would have a wide range of crops and livestock; now 90% of meat chickens are probably the same genetically; similar with cows and bananas and corn and rice and pigs, etc. That sets us up for a "wipe out 90% of chickens" risk.

Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#43

Post by bombcar »

jojobas wrote: post #39
moebrowne wrote: post #20

> The honeybee is not endangered. It never was. There are several severe threats to honey bees which without human intervention would cause a significant number of hives to be lost. There's the varroa mite and the things it carries like deformed wing virus, then there is the increasingly prevalent Asian hornet which European honey bees are unable to deal with, and colony collapse disorder where the bees literally dis…

To add, most farming relies precisely on honeybee for pollination, and losing 2/3 of them would be quite devastating. Of course nobody cars about wild bees, our lives don't depend on them nearly as much.

It may be that agricultural mechanization requires honeybees simply because they're the ones we can farm themselves.

Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#44

Post by bombcar »

chongli wrote: post #25
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you “build colonies” for native species?

You just need to supply the native plants they prefer to pollinate, they’ll do the rest. If you’re wondering about whether you can harvest honey from them, I don’t think so. Most native pollinator species don’t produce honey. Bumblebees do produce a kind of honey, but it’s much thinner and less concentrated than proper honey (which has had most of the water evaporated off by the wing beats of the bees).

A thousand years of effort might be able to "domesticate" the bumblebee and make it produce something akin to usable amounts of honey - but unlikely to be worth it.

Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#45

Post by anthonyIPH »

Just last weekend my kids were climbing the magnolia tree on the side of my house and I noticed dozens of little bees flying along the ground underneath it. My kids were a little freaked out even though I reassured them that the bees almost definitely wouldn't sting them.

I also noticed dozens of tiny half centimeter diameter holes in the ground under that magnolia tree which I guessed were little bee burrows. This sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to identify what type of bee these were. Long story short, there are way too many types of bees (30,000+ according to my research) for a non specialist like me to be able to pinpoint a species. But whatever type of bee (miner/sweat) they are going to go absolutely nuts when that magnolia tree blooms in the next couple weeks.

Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#46

Post by justincormack »

bregma wrote: post #34
MostlyStable wrote: post #9

My wife and I had wanted honey bees for a long time, but when we finally moved to a place that we could have had them, we noticed that we regularly saw at least 5 native bee species. We decided not to get a hive since they compete for resources and can spread disease. Given that there are neighbors that have them within about a mile, and that either those or feral colonies are close enough that we also see honey bees…

There's not as much crossover as you might think. In North America the native pollinators are adapted to the native plants and can't even pollinate the introduced eurasian ones. And it goes the other way: honeybees can't pollinate the native plants, only the introduced eurasian ones. If course, if you're in Europe, honeybees are the native pollinators. At least around the Mediterranean.

We also have many wild bees in Europe.

Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#48

Post by devilbunny »

cachius wrote: post #28
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of native bees getting wiped out by Varroa destructor carried viral infections. The imported hybrids used in agriculture are more productive, and are currently being bred to have the desirable trait of cleaning/nibbling the legs off mites. Bumblebees do just fine in most places, as they go after my geraniums like a fool with a hole-punch every year. We have several local variety, and they are an import…

What's with geraniums? I remember they look nice but don’t smell.

They smell like carrots when you break the fading blooms off, they tolerate high heat and full sun, and they are pretty. Flowers for gardens, not arrangements.

Re: The bee that everyone wants to save

#50

Post by pfdietz »

bregma wrote: post #34
MostlyStable wrote: post #9

My wife and I had wanted honey bees for a long time, but when we finally moved to a place that we could have had them, we noticed that we regularly saw at least 5 native bee species. We decided not to get a hive since they compete for resources and can spread disease. Given that there are neighbors that have them within about a mile, and that either those or feral colonies are close enough that we also see honey bees…

There's not as much crossover as you might think. In North America the native pollinators are adapted to the native plants and can't even pollinate the introduced eurasian ones. And it goes the other way: honeybees can't pollinate the native plants, only the introduced eurasian ones. If course, if you're in Europe, honeybees are the native pollinators. At least around the Mediterranean.

So, what you're saying is that honeybees are facilitating the spread of invasive plants in North America? Seems like a definite negative.
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