71–80 of 101 posts
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Just to see if I'm still batting a perfect game here, do you describe yourself as "Libertarian"?
That's your reply to a well thoughtout counter argument?
As a fruit lover, I always choose old fruits, the damaged ones, because I can't bear waste. Most people don't have this behavior, they want shiny, clean, solid fruits, the ones obtained with pesticides. It's often the opposite of tasty, but people are stupid
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The article refers to wild bees, not managed. Regardless, a better metric to consider re: managed hives might be annual colony losses, not total quantity of active hives. Of course beekeepers can make new hives. Thus far they are thankfully able to keep up with higher and higher losses each year (and honey and pollination prices are continuing to rise as more energy and money is put into raising bees instead of bee p…
I don't know about the UK, but there are (essentially) no feral honeybees in the US, and there haven't been in something like 30 years, not because of pesticides, but because of the varroa mite.
Now how about the 'total hives' vs 'annual losses' issue? I think the metric you've chosen to indicate overall honeybee health is lacking.
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https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43191.pdf Page 10 “Long-term population trends for the honey bee, the most important managed pollinator, are demonstrably downward.”
Cite the whole context of that quote! They're referring to trends since the 1940s . The varroa mite literally wiped out the feral honeybee population in the US. There are no more North American feral honeybees! Of course the long-term population trend is downward!
Bee populations have been demonstrably stressed for a very long time, and CCD and other more recent developments are yet another sign.
The need for beekeepers to aggressively split hives is a sign that things are going very badly for them, even if we manage to raise the number of colonies in the short term.
Note that there are plenty of other parts of our ecosystem that show signs of severe stress as well (e.g. amphibians, coral reefs, etc.); we may very well reach a tipping point where large swaths of various food chains catastrophically collapse.
If neonicotinoids are causing a long-term decline in bee populations, why does their introduction correspond with a global increase in beehives?
Where are you getting your global numbers? Because the USDA Honey Production Survey data tells a different tale. In 1989-1990 US honey Bee colonies were at about 3.5M. Neonicotinoids were introduced in the 1990's and since then the US Bee colonies declined to an all time low in 2012 (below 2.5M colonies). Since 2012 there was a small but steady uptick to just above 2.5M colonies; however, that is still down 1M and ne…
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Cite the whole context of that quote! They're referring to trends since the 1940s . The varroa mite literally wiped out the feral honeybee population in the US. There are no more North American feral honeybees! Of course the long-term population trend is downward!
I'm not an academic researcher so I don't have the raw data that you want, but I think it's worth not missing the forest for the trees. Bee populations have been demonstrably stressed for a very long time, and CCD and other more recent developments are yet another sign. The need for beekeepers to aggressively split hives is a sign that things are going very badly for them, even if we manage to raise the number of col…
The 2006 date cited for CCD isn't the government acknowledging CCD. It's the first published reports of CCD in commercial colonies. It's not a giant conspiracy.
It's also worth knowing that overwintering losses stabilized after 2006, and commercial populations hit record numbers afterwards.
Clearly, there are bee stressors other than "colony collapse disorder". But beepocolypse advocates use the term "CCD" as a cudgel in any discussion about stressors or population losses. No, can't do that.
I don't need perfect data. Any data will do.
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There are no feral honeybees in the US. They were wiped out, not by neonics, but by the varroa mite, 30 years ago. (Before we colonized this place, there were no wild honeybees: they're an introduced species). Honeybees are livestock, not wildlife.
As an amateur beekeeper, I can tell you that honeybees _are_ wild, in a sense. A captured swarm is just a wild colony with the queen trapped in an excluder box in your hive. They can't be domesticated, and containing them after they swarm involves tricking the bees into thinking they are the ones making a decision (you can turn their hive 90 degrees after they swarm in summer and they will return in most cases, assum…
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Your argument implies some type of biological monoculture, i.e., all crops will behave the same as canola. On what basis do you make this assertion?
No, I cited canola because it's the crop most widely treated with clothianidin --- virtually all North American canola is treated with neonicotinoids of some sort. Also, your argument would be a bit stronger if canola wasn't the crop referred to in the study the BBC post is talking about.
It's a known issue that colonies cannot survive long term on substitutes. Why this is isn't clearly known yet but the assumption is that they are missing some dietary analogue to vitamin C.
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No, I cited canola because it's the crop most widely treated with clothianidin --- virtually all North American canola is treated with neonicotinoids of some sort. Also, your argument would be a bit stronger if canola wasn't the crop referred to in the study the BBC post is talking about.
Bees need some diversity in their diets. They consume nectar and pollen true, but that doesn't go far enough. If I offered you a diet of only Sugar cubes, Soya protein extract and Olive Oil you'd quickly die. Why? That diet has Carbs, Protein and Fat. That's everything a person needs! It's a known issue that colonies cannot survive long term on substitutes. Why this is isn't clearly known yet but the assumption is th…
In fact: the idea that bee colonies would be stressed by a diet solely of oil rape nectar (note: no commercial bee colonies have such a diet, because they're moved around to take advantage of growing seasons elsewhere) favors my argument: it's another way in which bees working canola crops should do far worse, given neonic exposure, than they actually do.
If neonicotinoids are causing a long-term decline in bee populations, why does their introduction correspond with a global increase in beehives?
If this is true, then it's likely just due to more beekeeping activity - commercial and hobby - due to the awareness of this issue and rapidly growing agricultural demands. Beekeepers tend to use annual colony losses for whatever reasons as a measure of overall apiary health. These are increasing (sometimes dramatically). For example, a commercial apiary may count 10% as normal and expected losses overwintering, whil…