Summary
The U.S. beekeeping industry is experiencing unprecedented losses, with hundreds of millions of bees dying over the past eight months.
Blake Shook, a leading beekeeper, called it “the worst bee loss in recorded history.”
Researchers remain uncertain about the cause, pointing to potential factors like habitat changes and weather patterns.
Beekeeping operations are struggling to survive, raising concerns about food security and the sustainability of crop production.
Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending demolition of Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger. But most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs, or whistle for titbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means - shortly before the Vogons arrived. The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double backwards somersault through a hoop, whilst whistling the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’. But, in fact, the message was this “So long and thanks for all the fish”.
Bee-keeping is about the most intensive form of agriculture that we humans have, with one species (and a couple of close relatives) providing pollination for just about every major insect-pollinated crop on the planet. It is particularly extreme in the US. We ship a large proportion of all the hives in the USA to California for the annual almond crop flowering. Then we ship them all back to where they came from. It is a perfect set up for spreading diseases and parasites. In the process of all this, we are depriving native pollinators of sustenance. So the one alternative source of pollination when the bees die has already been decimated every single year.
who needs eggs or honey if you can have rollingcoal and chaosfacism?
I now eat even more meat, so the vegans don’t win.
imdb tt0387808
mike judge is a prophet
couldn’t be all the pesticide in over use?!
couldn’t be that these bee’s are invasive and not native to the land…
couldn’t be that diversity is actually fucking essential?
Neonicotinoids also bioaccumulate and are responsible for declining numbers of insectivore birds. This results in a viscous circle leading to the use of more Neonicotinoids.
We are the extinction event
Had quite a few arguments with climate change trivialising friends/relatives. The classic “the climate is always changing” and “earth has been warmer”… The one point that seems to stop at least some in their tracks was this:
You know I studied geosciences? Do you know what we call the periods in earths history where climate was changing as fast as it currently does? We call them global catastrophes and extinction events!
Yup. The wealthy have us fighting culture wars while they strip the planet.
I have come to the same conclusion. The realization comes with lots of fear and anxiety, but also a bit of peace. The earth has gone through many mass extinction events and recovered, so hopefully it will do the same after this. It is interesting that this extinction event is caused in part by a species living on it that can see what is going on, had opportunities to prevent/mitigate it, and chose not to.
Millions of bees is not very many. That’s like one smallish operation.
I’m sure it’s actually a much bigger problem than the numbers they have.
Edit: ah I see now, the article says hundreds of millions of bees, and this post missed a couple words.
Still technically millions. Could have said dozens, as in millions of dozens I suppose as well.
A few bees, as in 20 gazillion.
this post missed a couple words.
So did the article’s title
Honestly, It’s a pretty major fuck up. It makes the headline inaccurate by 2 orders of magnitude…
Cause a million bees is what… A dozen hives? I just googled it and it’s literally my body weight in bees. Which now that I’ve said it out loud, is sort of terrifying, but you know what I mean.
my body weight in bees. Which now that I’ve said it out loud, is sort of terrifying
Not sure I understand correctly, did you imagine your body made out of bees? If so and if you like reading sci-fi you might enjoy Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Dogs of War.
If I saw his body-weight in bees walking down the sidewalk in a skin suit, I would high five him, no question.
There is probably lots of things effecting the bee population. Maybe it’s time to look for alternatives and create reservations to insure the bees survival.
Or we could put all our eggs in one basket. It’s not like all the baskets of eggs aren’t going into a truck and driven off a cliff, when talking climate change.
Wild bees or farmed bees?
It’s the European honeybee no doubt. The native species may even do better with this loss, but it doesn’t fix the pollination issue for our food.
The native species may even do better with this loss
Not if the native species are also susceptible to the same cause of death. If that’s the case, the European honeybee deaths could be an indicator, correlated with the uncounted deaths of the native species.
Doesn’t matter in my opinion when it comes to the western honeybee. They’re not native to the Americas. But they’re specifically citing beekeepers.
The Earth has moved.
Gray, aged bees were moving chaotically, struggling to reconstruct the hive how only they remember, were taught to build.
The resulting pattern of squares, triangles, decahedrones was insane, and seeing this, Roland knew, their hive won’t last long.
Is that a Dark Tower reference?
Yup. One of my favorite little moments in the series. It just stirs you wrong that the best builders of our world can’t do this anymore.
On one hand I’m allergic to bees (not deadly but definitely dangerous for me), but on the other hand I kinda want the world to continue to have life on it… It’s a real struggle who I’m rooting for here.
Kidding kidding.
Just keep using Roundup, nothing to see here, move along.
I literally saw a dead bumble bee out on the pavement yesterday… soo not good…
Believe it or not, bees aren’t supposed to be immortal. Dead bees on random pavements are just sign that bees exist around somewhere.
Not good would be not finding anyone, drad or alive.
Bees are such good pollinators that we can’t still decipher how they know how to travel so efficiently.
Oh wow, are we geting a Black Mirror Killer Bee timeline? Just wonderful 🫠
ATC cuts are taking their toll on all flying craft.
