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Bees Are Now Considered the Most Important Living Thing on Earth
- tengbretson 6y agoI don't remember voting on this.
- amelius 6y agoAfter humans, I suppose?
- 11235813213455 6y agoWell, humans are quite an invasive species, we're not lacking in them
- jankotek 6y ago》Bees are the only living thing on earth that doesn’t carry any type of pathogen, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi. That is simply not true. Bees have many parasites, fungi, diseases ...
- flatiron 6y agoIt’s such a weird wrong sentence to throw in the article. I’m just confused how they got that incorrect tidbit and how no editor didn’t go “hmm I wonder if that is right”
- giantg2 6y agoI'm a beekeeper and agree. Even healthy bees can carry pathogens. For example, nosema is only an issue once you get past a specific count when analyzing a deadout using a hemocytometer and microscope.
- 40four 6y agoAgreed, this article is terrible, and simply repeats a lot of inaccurate tropes about bees environmentalist groups like to parot.
- sixhobbits 6y agoNote that this is a pretty 'shallow' article, and links to one that is even more sparse in details. A quick search turns up dozens of very similar clickbait articles claiming the same thing around July last year. It seems that if this 'declaration' happened at all, it was around 11 years ago[0] [0] https://www.poynter.org/tfcn/2019/bees-voted-most-important-species/ https://www.poynter.org/tfcn/2019/bees-voted-most-important-...
- postingpals 6y agoAs a wannabe beekeeper myself i can tell you honey bees aren't without their problems. Farming of honey bees has put other wild bee species into decline, and they make up a significant portion of pollinators of flowers bees don't go for. I don't think it's a huge deal and i'd rather more of them than no bees at all, but it's worth looking into because ecological diversity and natural ecosystems are very important.
- 11235813213455 6y agoAgreed, I've often read that wild bees, and wasps and most other insects in general are really important, more than honey bees. To support them, we simply need to stop cutting trees and plants. We should plant public fruit trees everywhere possible, instead of concrete ground. We should support permacultures instead of mono-cultures (they impoverish the ground, plowing or burnings are just earthworms massacres) and other kind of farming. Yet, the recent emergence of vertical vegetable farms seems interesting. just as personal note: I kinda stopped eating honey, mostly because it's good but it's highly concentrated goodness, and as I tend to eat one thing at a time, I could end up eating too much. Eating fruits, leafy vegs is more natural for me, mostly raw, you hit satiety more naturally and get plenty fibers.
- dukeofdoom 6y agoIt follows that cities should allow backyard bee keeping. To make it safer to people allergic to bees, someone should invent a hive on a pole that can be raised or lowered like a flag.
- peteradio 6y agoThat is like saying someone should get a goldfish because salmon are going extinct. Backyard bee keeping is not helping the global native bee population (this is the one that matters in the long run).
- 11235813213455 6y agoYes, exactly, we should just plant trees, fruits trees, plants (and eat them! so many people ignore their fruits in their gardens, or worse, cut them), vegetables, that's all needed, and insects will be back contributing
- prattatx 6y agoNot sure I agree with this. Most fruit trees need 2 of them and wind or bees/insects. If we spray insecticide or anti-fungal on the fruit tree, which many people do, then we reduce the bees, and get no fruit. The insecticide seems to be the unnatural addition that impacts the ecosystem. I would argue for reduced use of insecticide.
- 11235813213455 6y agoOf course not using insecticides! that was implicit, how could they come back else. You're right to mention it, I kinda forgot people used them, it sounds so useless and terrible
- prattatx 6y agoWe have kept Italian and Russian honey bees in our suburban backyard. Both came out of their hive, flew up 20 feet and left the yard, and even the neighborhood we think, most of the day. Stable base, near a source of water, and in the sun worked best for them not swarming on us. A lawn mower bumping into a stand meant 20 mins of angry bees, then back to business. Moving the hive on a pole would make me nervous for 20 minutes. What killed two hives outright (we think) are lawn services going after mosquitoes in the neighborhood. Didn’t kill them but weakened the hive. They were subsequently taken over by fire ants and small hive beetles, each time after a split. Bee keeping is so easy and fun and can be done through the mail. I agree with you, duke, if we could solve for allergies, beekeeping could easily be as commonplace as growing tomatoes.
- sova 6y agoPaul Stamets gave a great presentation on how giving bees access to the appropriate fungi helps their autoimmune system (cytochrome P450) eject toxins and prevent/reverse colony collapse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZPkCozuqM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZPkCozuqM8
- giantg2 6y agoI'm a beekeeper and amatuer mycologist. It's very interesting how different hobbies can interconnect like this.
- science4sail 6y agoThis headline feels like an extreme exaggeration. > They declared that bees are the most important living being on the planet, and for good reason. Why not cyanobacteria? You can have bacteria without bees, but you can't have bees without oxygen. > The Science Times reports that 70% of the world’s agriculture is dependent on pollination that happens exclusively by bees. Bees may do many different things but pollinating plants, allowing them to reproduce is by far their most important. Without pollination, those plants would disappear quickly. Wheat, rice, maize, cassava, and potatoes don't depend on bees for reproduction. These plants account for a majority of humanity's caloric intake. > Bees are the only living thing on earth that doesn’t carry any type of pathogen, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_wing_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_wing_virus
- JohnHaugeland 6y agoThere are so many false claims in here No, the bee population isn't down 90%
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dorkwood 6y agoIt sounds like they mean "the most important living being that benefits humans, other than humans themselves".
- xipho 6y agoObviously a bit of hyperbole. The honey bee (dozens(?) of subspecies around the world) is indeed important, you can tell because the largest entomological society in the world (Entomological Society of America) more or less treats them as their own section in their annual conferences, on par with sections for all insects like "Insect Evolution and Systematics". "Most important living thing" though, that assertion is not terribly meaningful/useful in a biological sense. Bees are certainly one of the most important species for many NSF grant targeting PIs at the moment,"bees"referring to hundreds of different species. These grants often emphasize the importance of "native" species. There is $ in pollination studies, bee genomics, natural history collection digitization etc.
- potiuper 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#Invertebrates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#...