Slashdot Mirror
More Than 40% of US Honeybee Colonies Died In a 12-Month Period Ending In April
walterbyrd writes: The Agriculture Department released its annual honeybee survey Wednesday and it doesn't look good. More than 40% of U.S. honeybee colonies died in a 12-month period ending in April. While the precise cause of the honeybee crisis is unknown, scientists generally blame a combination of factors, including poor diets and stress. Some bees die from infestations of the Varroa mite, a bloodsucking parasite that weakens bees and introduces diseases to the hive. Environmental groups also point to a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would stop approving new outdoor uses for those types of chemicals until more studies on bee health are conducted.
Same problem in Europe.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thank you Monsanto, DuPont, etc etc...
Because environmental groups, of course, are just a bunch of nutjobs and couldn't possibly include scientists...
Get ready for the "humanity will survive because reason xyz" posts, possibly something about pollinating crops with low-paying jobs or even freakin' drones or something.
[Robbie comes back from school in a bad mood]
Robbie: [to the Grapdelites] Thanks for everything. I got an F. [throws his notebook close to the Grapdelites]
Grapdelite 2: Oh, careful!
Robbie: Oh, sorry. I didn't see you.
Grapdelite 1: He seems distressed.
Grapdelite 2: I hope it's nothing we done.
Robbie: "Why dinosaurs ruled the Earth?" And I wrote a whole essay about what you guys said about how we're too wise to eat all the grapes. Look what the teacher wrote. [shows the Grapdelites his paper]
Grapdelite 1: "There'll always be more grapes. That's what 'more' means."
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Over a 200 year period, 100% of the humans on the planet die ... of course, more are born to replace them so the population actually grows ... making that number that looked super duper scary ... pretty much normal.
So ... 40% in and of itself doesn't mean anything to me if Bees only live 2-3 years anyway.
How many new colonies were formed and how was the total population effected in the end.
The title and summary give no indication that something is wrong, only the indication that someone wants a sensationalist headline.
Facts please ... you know, news for nerds.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It would seem that bee deaths due to pesticide interaction should be relatively steady or steadily increasing if pesticide use is also steady, and that the spikes in bee deaths would more likely be from the other factors mentioned in the article.
Neonicotinoid manufacturers say that the pesticides are much safer than others they have supplanted, and that in any case, they are safe when used according to instructions.
Of course they did.
The Environmental Protection Agency said last month that it was unlikely to approve any new uses of the pesticides until more tests on the risks to bees and other pollinators have been completed.
So? It won't prevent anyone from using it for new uses.
What this tells me that I need to go long - real long - on agricultural futures.
Simply saying "40% of the colonies died" doesn't mean anything if it's *normal* for 30%-50% of these colonies to die in the spring.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The fact that urban bees are thiving [treehugger.com] in cities such as Paris and London, despite all the pollution in those environments, is inteesting.
Where the carpet bombing of these pesticides is not done.
Interesting indeed.
Didn't someone publish a report stating that the bees were getting addicted to the nicotine?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Slashdot must be getting kickbacks from the NYT because all the story links go to their paywall now. But a nerd would go right to the source because the NYT is a fat fucking waste of time any more. They're the next CNN or Faux News, they just sensationalize other people's news. Too bad this ain't News for Nerds any more.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Take a bee colony and stick them in a deep freeze and see how many survive. In case anyone missed it, the U.S. and Europe experienced record cold this winter. How fucking stupid do you have to be to not put 2 and 2 together?
Europe had an exceptionally warm and mild winter this year.
The winter finished them off, but last summer the hive seemed healthy, the warm nights the bees were bearding. Then one day they did not anymore. A few days later hundreds of dead bees outside the hive all with their proboscises extended. I know this is just my one example, I would not be surprised if on a larger scale it has to do with dozens of other factors. It's just sad to see my hive done in by pesticides.
Take a bee colony and stick them in a deep freeze and see how many survive. In case anyone missed it, the U.S. and Europe experienced record cold this winter. How fucking stupid do you have to be to not put 2 and 2 together?
Europe had an exceptionally warm and mild winter this year.
This. Where I live in Germany, we had pretty much no snow at all the whole winter. "Winter" just did not show up for work this time.
So maybe greedy almond growers are the real problem. I can't imagine anything more stressful than doing this.
"..80 percent of the world's almonds come from California's central valley, an 800,000 acre area of almond orchards that are 100 percent dependent on bees pollinating the trees. Surprisingly, almonds are the number one agricultural product in California.
Once a year, in late winter, 1.5 million bee hives from around the country are delivered to these orchards where the bees' pollination efforts take place over the course of just a few days. It's the largest mass-pollination effort in the world."
Seems the obvious answer is to genetically modify some bees to be extra hardy, and toxin resistant. The possible side effects might include increased intelligence, gargantuan size, and a taste for human flesh, but we have to save the bees somehow.
I for one welcome our new super bee overlords!
Not al of the US had record cold this winter either. Yes, the North East portions had a lot of cold and snow, but in the Pacific NW there was an exceptionally mild aka warm) winter with very little snow. Snowpack in the mountains is 25% of where they normally are this time of year. Lowest snowpack on record according to this article: http://www.wunderground.com/ne...
You must hate living them. Bees pollinate crops. They are vitally important.
Post to Submission that originally linked to paywall
2009
Scientists Isolate and Treat Parasite Causing Decline in Honey Bee Population
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
2010
Mystery of the Dying Bees Solved
"As it turns out, the fungus N. ceranae that was thought to be killing off bee colonies had a partner in crime — a DNA-based virus that worked in tandem with N. ceranae to compromise nutrition uptake" Note: (N. ceranae = Parasite)
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
2012
Studies Link Pesticides To Bee Colony Collapse Disorder
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
2015
It's the pesticides!
And the worst part of winter seems to have started in April, at least that is when I first saw snow on the local hills this year (there was some in December). Keeping on topic, the wild bees were out in February when there were no local flowers out yet and later when the Huckleberries were flowering I saw no bees. Usually they're buzzing with various types of bee. Still cold and wet here and still no bees. No agriculture close by either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
If you look at Colorado, they had temperatures in the 70s in February. They, along with Alaska, were warmer during the month than almost anywhere in the mid Atlantic to northeastern U.S.:
Link
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I guess apiary-minded sheikhs better plan their visits to blonde entomologists with care...
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
Article: More than 40% of U.S. honeybee colonies Correct: more than 40% of European honeybee colonies in the U.S. The European honeybee is an imported invasive species that has been wiping out our native varieties. The European honeybee's only advantage is that we raise them commercially while we've little experience raising native bees (other than the Leaf Cutter bee for pollinating alfalfa). The native varieties pollinate every bit as well. Among the advantages of our native bees, other than adaptation to our environment, is that most either can't or don't sting. So let this pest die off.
Honest question, I really don't know. Are we still trucking hives all around the country? IMHO that should have been one of the first things to stop when this crisis started. It seems like the opportunity for pathogens to spread multiplies when you truck colonies 500 miles.
I can see this being a vicious circle: Not enough local bees. Truck some in. Trucked-in bees whack local population. Hey, things are worse. Now let's truck in MORE bees...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
In a Colony Collapse (almost) all the bees die in a very short period. 40% of colonies dying off in one year is well above the norm.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
This might sound silly but why not give the bees a vacation from making honey for humans? They keep making it we keep taking it no wonder they are stresses and maybe overworked..slave bees so to speak. Same for the fish i can live with out eating honey and fish for say 2 years.
Jack of all trades,master of none
We've seen strange swarm behavior here in Southern California the past two years. Anecdotes follow:
Last year, we had a swarm that probably lost its Queen (or didn't have one to begin with). They maintained a big ball in the tree for nearly four months, gradually all dying off. They made no honeycomb, just a few weird strands of propolis. In the past, when swarms failed to form a new hive, they didn't continue to go and harvest pollen and function like a hive, but all died off much more rapidly.
This year, we had a swarm ball up in a tree mid-afternoon. They hadn't found a hive by the next morning. By the next evening, they were all falling to the ground and writhing as if poisoned or something. By the second day, there were just heaps of dead bees all around the garden.
I don't claim to be any expert (although my Dad kept several hives when I was a kid). Still, I haven't seen this before. I don't know the cause of either phenomenon.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
While pesticides, disease and other stresses are certainly "causing" the collapses, more genetic diversity should have solved most of it.
Honeybee breeding has typically been less rigorous than other livestock. Combined with the genetic bottlenecks they've been through with their domestication and spread around the globe, problems were bound to arise eventually.
If enough genetic diversity was present, all of the individual possible problems (even pesticides) causing colony collapse should have been sorted out relatively quickly (especially given that queens mate with multiple males).
I.e., no longer a monoculture, but you also grow long-blooming, multiple varieties of wildflowers underneath your almond trees?
Would that vastly increase the cost of raising almonds (increased water + hassle), or actually decrease it because you'd maintain a good pollinator population and populations of beneficial insects?
Best,
--PeterM
I just watched some PBS show that led to some conclusion that they did identify what was causing the populations to die.
TFA says otherwise.
And I just lost a colony two months ago--it was weird and I sent some in for analysis. Just a pile of bees at the base of my fruit tree...just looked sad.