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The real reason is buried pretty far down in the article: > In 2012, the Herbert Hypothetical gave rise to a new law: Your plot of five to 20 acres now qualifi

The real reason is buried pretty far down in the article: > In 2012, the Herbert Hypothetical gave rise to a new law: Your plot of five to 20 acres now qualifies for agriculture tax breaks if you keep bees on it for five years. > Over the next few years, all 254 Texas counties adopted bee rules requiring, for example, six hives on five acres plus another hive for every 2.5 acres beyond that to qualify for the tax break. Herbert keeps a spreadsheet of the regulations and drives across the state to educate bee-curious landowners. Economics, who knew?

ThrowawayR2 3y ago
The interesting bit is more that there's still an ongoing severe problem with bee colonies dying that hasn't been solved despite the apparent increase in overall numbers: "Sadly, however, this does not mean we’ve defeated colony collapse. One major citizen-science project found that beekeepers lost almost half of their colonies in the year ending in April 2023, the second-highest loss rate on record. For now, we’re making up for it with aggressive management. The Texans told us that they were splitting their hives more often, replacing queens as often as every year and churning out bee colonies faster than the mites, fungi and diseases can take them down."
- ortusdux 3y ago
  Sounds like the usual issues you see with an aggressive focus on monoculture.
- zamalek 3y ago
  I wonder if this is helping weed out the "africanized genes" (bees that will far more easily sting), or have southern beekeepers given up in that regard?
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The way it would be weeded out is through selective queening. That's how the European honey bee has become so docile - pinching the agressive queens. So it could influence the genetics of the feral bee population, but I would guess it will be minimal.
  - poulsbohemian 3y ago
    I’m not in the region where they have Africanized bees, but following the research and stories from active keepers, it seem like it’s a combo of both keepers learning how to manage them plus shifts in genetics causing them to mellow some. From what I hear, there are small scale and hobby keepers in the southwest that are actively keeping and working them
- nrjames 3y ago
  Varroa mites are a vector for diseases and fungus and most likely the distal cause of most of the dying colonies. If they are not aggressively managed, they eventually lead to the death or absconding of almost every colony.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    A lot of it's genetics over management in my experience. I've seen treatment-free colonies go multiple years with low mite numbers and treatment free yards overwinter 75-100% of colonies. I've also seen heavily managed hives take losses anyways, or abscond after treatment. Including some that take 75-100% losses. Many times the same apiary can go from one extreme to the other in a year or two. The problem with the genetics is that it's extremely hard to maintain continuity of a colony beyond a few years because eventually they need to requeen. Those future queens are made from a variety of contributions of other gene lines due to the way the mating happens.
  - kurthr 3y ago
    Can anecdotally confirm. I've had 100% surviving hives and continuous queen lineage now for 6-7 years. Before that I did minimal mite treatments (powdered sugar washes are nuts) and had 75% of hives abscond every year requiring new queens. My "neighbors" (>2mi away) rarely have a single hive survive a single winter. My preference is to alternate "natural" thymol/oxalic treatments with Apivar. You can really see the reduction in virus laden malformed bees in a hive turnover (~6 weeks). Apivar treatment lasts a full year, but I'd rather not develop resistance (don't leave strips in the hive longer than 8 weeks!) so alternate years. The best time I've seen for treatment is right before large population booms (since there are fewer mites in brood). That usually means early winter after supers are removed, or after a queen swarm leaves in late winter/early spring. One major challenge to resistant queens is that they tend to be more aggressive and their resistance is diluted unless you requeen (resistant) every year or two due to interbreeding with local non-resistant drones.
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
      If you have the stomach for the extra work and your apiary goals can support it consider adding brood breaks to your varroa management strategy.
- giantg2 3y ago
  It's pretty common knowledge in the beekeeping world that losses are about 50% annually. Most beekeepers request every year or two as well. The past couple years I've had high losses. Mostly due to yellow jacket pressure. But I'm also treatment-free and expect some losses from colonies that are less varroa hygienic and too late in the year to requeen.
  - ThrowawayR2 3y ago
    Asking as someone not in the beekeeping world, do you get the impression that the colony loss rate is stable or increasing/decreasing?
    - giantg2 3y ago
      It's extremely variable on an individual basis. I've had years with 100% survival and then others with 0% survival (small sample of under 10 hives), with other beekeepers experiencing similar losses. There are some studies/surveys out there about survival rates (the population rate studies are less helpful). My understanding is the survival rate plummeted after the introduction of varroa but has been mostly stable around 50% survival nationally for over a decade.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    "I'm treatment-free" is a particularly smug way of saying your apiary management strategy is to continuously bomb every surrounding apiary and whatever native pollinators may be in your area with parasites. There is a reason that professionals loathe hobby beekeepers.
    - fredoliveira 3y ago
      Can you expand? Doesn't treatment free mean that their apiary is self-selecting? How does this mean cross-contaminating neighboring, treated apiaries? (I know very little about this. Just honestly asking for more info because I'm curious)
      - 3y ago
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Likely also economics, who knew?
jackfoxy 3y ago
That which you incentivize you get more of. That which you tax you get less of. Or, as Charlie Munger famously remarked, Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.
- gottorf 3y ago
  Yes! People, irrational and misinformed as they may be, respond to incentives.
  - djangogitit 3y ago
    [dead]
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  This is why it's important to have a robust base tax rate. Plenty of headroom for incentives when they're needed
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    You could also have no "true taxes" and just print money and have everyone else pay for it in inflation (tax) to give handouts to incentivize what you want. Right now we do both!
pfdietz 3y ago
Also, even further down, the large increase in almond cultivation in California.
ortusdux 3y ago
Florida has similar tax breaks for cattle grazing, and Washington has them for managed forests.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Managed forests are greenwashing. The term itself is a ridiculous illusion. It's like this bee article - it gives a process and metric by which things are improving while ignoring more general collapse that those same economic processes are generating
  - ortusdux 3y ago
    How so?
    - midnitewarrior 3y ago
      idk what the previous commenter means by it, but to me, a forest is more than a collection of trees that are planted in a grid, ready for clearcutting in a decade or so. A forest is an entire ecosystem that takes decades to build without the disruption of human intervention. Some of these "managed forests" are little more than tree farms, lacking the wildlife and diversity that comes with natural forests. Monoculture tree farming does not create a diverse ecosystem and the benefits that come from that.
      - wahnfrieden 3y ago
        Yes though it's forgiving to say that it does not create benefits instead of that it destroys those needs without making up for them
      - bombcar 3y ago
        It depends on what you're trying to do - some of those tax breaks are because the land is taxed "as if it grew corn" normally, but if people choose to grow trees you want to tax it at a lower rate, because trees are a lower profit crop. If you're trying to preserve actual forest, you want to do something more like the land trusts that have come into existence (which already exclude the land from taxes usually anyway).
wellYeahbruh 3y ago
[dead]
djangogitit 3y ago
[dead]

ThrowawayR2 3y ago

The interesting bit is more that there's still an ongoing severe problem with bee colonies dying that hasn't been solved despite the apparent increase in overall numbers: "Sadly, however, this does not mean we’ve defeated colony collapse. One major citizen-science project found that beekeepers lost almost half of their colonies in the year ending in April 2023, the second-highest loss rate on record. For now, we’re making up for it with aggressive management. The Texans told us that they were splitting their hives more often, replacing queens as often as every year and churning out bee colonies faster than the mites, fungi and diseases can take them down."

ortusdux 3y ago
Sounds like the usual issues you see with an aggressive focus on monoculture.
zamalek 3y ago
I wonder if this is helping weed out the "africanized genes" (bees that will far more easily sting), or have southern beekeepers given up in that regard?
- giantg2 3y ago
  The way it would be weeded out is through selective queening. That's how the European honey bee has become so docile - pinching the agressive queens. So it could influence the genetics of the feral bee population, but I would guess it will be minimal.
- poulsbohemian 3y ago
  I’m not in the region where they have Africanized bees, but following the research and stories from active keepers, it seem like it’s a combo of both keepers learning how to manage them plus shifts in genetics causing them to mellow some. From what I hear, there are small scale and hobby keepers in the southwest that are actively keeping and working them
nrjames 3y ago
Varroa mites are a vector for diseases and fungus and most likely the distal cause of most of the dying colonies. If they are not aggressively managed, they eventually lead to the death or absconding of almost every colony.
- giantg2 3y ago
  A lot of it's genetics over management in my experience. I've seen treatment-free colonies go multiple years with low mite numbers and treatment free yards overwinter 75-100% of colonies. I've also seen heavily managed hives take losses anyways, or abscond after treatment. Including some that take 75-100% losses. Many times the same apiary can go from one extreme to the other in a year or two. The problem with the genetics is that it's extremely hard to maintain continuity of a colony beyond a few years because eventually they need to requeen. Those future queens are made from a variety of contributions of other gene lines due to the way the mating happens.
- kurthr 3y ago
  Can anecdotally confirm. I've had 100% surviving hives and continuous queen lineage now for 6-7 years. Before that I did minimal mite treatments (powdered sugar washes are nuts) and had 75% of hives abscond every year requiring new queens. My "neighbors" (>2mi away) rarely have a single hive survive a single winter. My preference is to alternate "natural" thymol/oxalic treatments with Apivar. You can really see the reduction in virus laden malformed bees in a hive turnover (~6 weeks). Apivar treatment lasts a full year, but I'd rather not develop resistance (don't leave strips in the hive longer than 8 weeks!) so alternate years. The best time I've seen for treatment is right before large population booms (since there are fewer mites in brood). That usually means early winter after supers are removed, or after a queen swarm leaves in late winter/early spring. One major challenge to resistant queens is that they tend to be more aggressive and their resistance is diluted unless you requeen (resistant) every year or two due to interbreeding with local non-resistant drones.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    If you have the stomach for the extra work and your apiary goals can support it consider adding brood breaks to your varroa management strategy.
giantg2 3y ago
It's pretty common knowledge in the beekeeping world that losses are about 50% annually. Most beekeepers request every year or two as well. The past couple years I've had high losses. Mostly due to yellow jacket pressure. But I'm also treatment-free and expect some losses from colonies that are less varroa hygienic and too late in the year to requeen.
- ThrowawayR2 3y ago
  Asking as someone not in the beekeeping world, do you get the impression that the colony loss rate is stable or increasing/decreasing?
  - giantg2 3y ago
    It's extremely variable on an individual basis. I've had years with 100% survival and then others with 0% survival (small sample of under 10 hives), with other beekeepers experiencing similar losses. There are some studies/surveys out there about survival rates (the population rate studies are less helpful). My understanding is the survival rate plummeted after the introduction of varroa but has been mostly stable around 50% survival nationally for over a decade.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  "I'm treatment-free" is a particularly smug way of saying your apiary management strategy is to continuously bomb every surrounding apiary and whatever native pollinators may be in your area with parasites. There is a reason that professionals loathe hobby beekeepers.
  - fredoliveira 3y ago
    Can you expand? Doesn't treatment free mean that their apiary is self-selecting? How does this mean cross-contaminating neighboring, treated apiaries? (I know very little about this. Just honestly asking for more info because I'm curious)
    - 3y ago
wahnfrieden 3y ago
Likely also economics, who knew?

jackfoxy 3y ago

That which you incentivize you get more of. That which you tax you get less of. Or, as Charlie Munger famously remarked, Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.

gottorf 3y ago
Yes! People, irrational and misinformed as they may be, respond to incentives.
- djangogitit 3y ago
  [dead]
tomjakubowski 3y ago
This is why it's important to have a robust base tax rate. Plenty of headroom for incentives when they're needed
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  You could also have no "true taxes" and just print money and have everyone else pay for it in inflation (tax) to give handouts to incentivize what you want. Right now we do both!

pfdietz 3y ago

Also, even further down, the large increase in almond cultivation in California.

ortusdux 3y ago

Florida has similar tax breaks for cattle grazing, and Washington has them for managed forests.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
Managed forests are greenwashing. The term itself is a ridiculous illusion. It's like this bee article - it gives a process and metric by which things are improving while ignoring more general collapse that those same economic processes are generating
- ortusdux 3y ago
  How so?
  - midnitewarrior 3y ago
    idk what the previous commenter means by it, but to me, a forest is more than a collection of trees that are planted in a grid, ready for clearcutting in a decade or so. A forest is an entire ecosystem that takes decades to build without the disruption of human intervention. Some of these "managed forests" are little more than tree farms, lacking the wildlife and diversity that comes with natural forests. Monoculture tree farming does not create a diverse ecosystem and the benefits that come from that.
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      Yes though it's forgiving to say that it does not create benefits instead of that it destroys those needs without making up for them
    - bombcar 3y ago
      It depends on what you're trying to do - some of those tax breaks are because the land is taxed "as if it grew corn" normally, but if people choose to grow trees you want to tax it at a lower rate, because trees are a lower profit crop. If you're trying to preserve actual forest, you want to do something more like the land trusts that have come into existence (which already exclude the land from taxes usually anyway).

wellYeahbruh 3y ago

[dead]

djangogitit 3y ago

[dead]