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More honey bees dying, even as antibiotic use halves
- more_corn 1y agoPesticides
- deaddodo 1y agoA problem that’s been plaguing every nation in the world and been studied by the world’s top scientists for 20+ years now. Nope, all a waste of time. We should’ve just asked “more_corn”.
- morkalork 1y agoNot even mentioned in the article, which is strange because they're definitely a culprit. Which by the way, the ever expanding culture war is starting to seep into that space. There are neonicotinoids banned in Ontario, Québec but not Alberta (of course) and people getting around them by shipping inter provincially because the bans are "woke bullshit".
- bee_rider 1y agoI think at this point we should admit that the culture war bullshit is the thing that most of the population is responding to, unfortunately. So now we have to wonder… Are pesticides turning the bees depressed and non-virile? Woke pesticides are stealing your manliness?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- meneton 1y agoA lot of Research into colony collapse is funded by agrotech.
- bawolff 1y ago> There are neonicotinoids banned in Ontario, Québec but not Alberta (of course) You say that like its purely due to AB gov's conservative bullshit. That may play a part, but it probably also has to do with how important canola is to ab economy (obviously still not a valid excuse, but maybe a better explanation)
- 9rx 1y ago> You say that like its purely due to AB gov's conservative bullshit. What suggests "conservative government bullshit"? The NDP held power in Alberta when these regulations were coming into force elsewhere. That is about as far away from conservatism as it gets in Canada. "Of course" no doubt refers to the fact that Health Canada found the culprit to be dust-off from pneumatic planters. Whereas the crops in Alberta are almost exclusively seeded with drills, which are quite different in design to a planter and don't exhibit the same dusting characteristics. In other words, they never had the same problem Ontario and Quebec had. — Not to mention that Health Canada had already updated regulations to require technical changes to planters to minimize/eliminate dust-off, so for what little planter use might be found in Alberta, Health Canada was already on top of it, leaving little reason for the province to step in. Calling it a ban in Ontario and Quebec is what is misleading. Farmers had to become licensed to use them, but they were never banned. It was mostly theatre.
- zahlman 1y ago> because the bans are "woke bullshit". I assume you have a source to demonstrate that people actually use and express this reasoning?
- frollogaston 1y agoEither my cmd+f is broken, or the study linked doesn't even mention that word.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoSaw a bee lecture recently [1]. Honeybees aren’t native to North America [2]. The native pollinators, such as bumblebees, are outcompeted by honeybee hives [3]. Those honeybees then selectively pollinate certain plants, reducing biodiversity further [4]. Honeybees, however, unlike local pollinators, can be industrially distributed to industrial agriculture. So they get a lobby. Meanwhile, well-meaning folks put a honey beehive in their backyard and inadvertently wipe out the local bumblebee and butterfly populations. [1] https://uwnps.org/event/6-26-25/ https://uwnps.org/event/6-26-25/ [2] https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/are-honey-bees-native-north-america https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/are-honey-bees-native-north-americ... [3] https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/em-9524-impact-beekeeping-native-bees-urban-settings https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/em-9524-impact-bee... [4] https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.4085 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002...
- mattgrice 1y agoIt's true but honey bees are still extremely economically important. And very useful because their hives are large and portable. The billionaire Resinick pomegranate/pistachoi/almond oligarchs put quite a bit of effort into native bees which seemed quite successful but they shut it down I think about 5 years ago. I can't find the article now. Gen X+ might remember them as owners of the 'Franklin Mint' hawkers of knickknacks you either are or soon will be throwing into a dumpster. They are BTW also largest renters of honeybee hives in the US.
- tptacek 1y agoRight, it's interesting from a technical perspective, but it's a story about battery-farmed livestock, not about North American ecology. My guess is they'll figure out how to keep growing more bees. The prices of honey bee queens have been pretty stable for the past 15 years.
- mattgrice 1y agoI think it is not a great analogy. As Jeremy Bentham wrote, “The question is not: can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?” I have relatives that do or have raised bees (as a hobby). Can bees suffer? I don't know. I kind of think a bee can experience suffering in a small degree. I'm not going to run the experiments on that because I'm not a sociopath. Also arguably the hive is the basic unit of the honeybee organism, not the bee itself. I do know for certain hogs can suffer. I'm a farm boy from Iowa. I've been around them from a young age and I hate everything about them. I hate the smell, I hate the way their meat tastes to me like they smell, I hate how if you are small enough and don't take care, they are mean enough to knock you down and eat you. I'm probably one of the few people on HN who have actually experienced in person what a hog confinement facility looks and smells and sounds like. I wouldn't wish it on my worst hog enemy. It is a vision of hell, illegal to film in Iowa, and in no way comparable to how we treat bee hives.
- imzadi 1y agoThis seems like it would be the obvious outcome? If bee keepers have been keeping bees healthy by giving them antibiotics, then stopping the antibiotics would lead to them being less healthy? Especially since the previous antibiotic use would have killed off the healthy bacteria.
- seunosewa 1y agoYes, of course. The pretence of ignorance in the article is hilarious.
- endo_bunker 1y agoSeems like they may not have realized that the fact that antibiotic use was associated with hive death could be because antibiotics are likely given primarily to unhealthy hives.
- mushroomba 1y agoModern beekeeping practices are a kind of factory-farming. Tim Rowe developed a method of beekeeping that takes advantage of evolution to improve the vitality of bees. It is described succinctly in his book, The Rose Hive Method. [1] I, unfortunately, developed a severe bee-sting allergy, and can no longer put these ideas into practice. I anticipate that commercial beekeeping cannot sustain its current practices. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18279124-the-rose-hive-method https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18279124-the-rose-hive-m...
- ct0 1y agoa deck for those beek's that are interested https://projectloveforbees.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/rose-beehive-one-size-box-hives.pdf https://projectloveforbees.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/...
- Rendello 1y agoLooking through this, beekeeping is a strange and interesting world that I know so little about. Cool!
- rdos 1y agoI'm from shitty part of Europe and I never saw a beehive that looked different than those in the presentation. I looked up 'American beehive' and they look roughly the same. So isn't this already the used standard?
- mushroomba 1y agoThe Langstroth hive employs frame boxes of differing sizes. It makes a distinction between brood boxes and honey supers. This is a bit easier on the beekeeper. They can put a metal grate in the hive, and trap the queen in the brood chamber. Then, any frames built above the brood chamber are guaranteed to have only honey. In the wild, bees build their nest somewhat like an onion, with the brood in the center, and the honey accessible on the outside rings. The Rose hive method allows the queen to lay the brood in a more natural way. The slide deck is a good summary but there is more in the book. You would probably enjoy reading the history of the Langstroth hive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langstroth_hive#Hive_body_and_hive_super https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langstroth_hive#Hive_body_and_...
- horacemorace 1y agoI know I’m not the only one alarmed by the fact that we used to have to clean bug splats off our windshields weekly during the summer and now don’t. The downstream and parallel effects must be massive.
- cluckindan 1y agoAren’t modern windshield coatings awesome?
- Hammershaft 1y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon The reduction in windshield bug splats has more to do with the decline in insect populations. EDIT: I originally said 75% decline over 30 years. Those are the results for studies in parts of Germany. We don't have solid data on global loss in insect populations.
- hinkley 1y agoThere's a degree to which aerodynamics play a role in the number of splats but the numbers are also definitely way down.
- hadlock 1y agoWe switched from a sedan with a very sloped windshield, to an SUV with a suprisingly upright windshield (one of the cartoonishly offroad mall crawlers). I've never had to scrape bugs off my windshield in my life before we bought the SUV but we go through a lot more windshield wiper fluid now than we did a couple months ago despite keeping the same driving patterns.
- hinkley 1y agoSome of that design is about keeping pedestrians from going head-first through your windshield if you hit them. With the SUV the top of the hood is above the center of mass of the hypothetical pedestrian, whereas the sedan is below, and so they have to encourage the flying human to slide over the roof instead of go teeth first into your back seat. That it helps with bugs is more of a happy coincidence.
- mahgnous 1y ago[dead]
- 7734128 1y agoPerhaps we should instead avoid antibeeotics?
- animitronix 1y agoYeah, cuz it's a pesticide problem not an antibiotic problem...
- alionski 1y agoI wish the industry and governments spent an equal amount on battling the decline of wild bees. When they say "save the bees", it's not honeybees they mean. Honeybees are cattle.
- mattgrice 1y agoI'm not saying anyone is doing 'enough' but neonicotinoid bans in EU are perhaps the most effective and 'costly' thing done so far. In Not that costs borne by poisoners
- riffraff 1y agoThe EU neonicotinoid ban seems potentially very useful but do we have data that it actually was effective?
- frm88 1y agoI mean, even if it wasn't effective for the bees - it certainly helped human health with regards to breast cancer and neurological damage in children [0]. If you scroll to the bottom of the article, you'll find links to the studies that are source to this claim. [0] https://www.pan-europe.info/blog/acetamiprid-brain-toxic-neonicotinoid-we-must-urgently-leave-behind https://www.pan-europe.info/blog/acetamiprid-brain-toxic-neo... Edit: typo
- adrr 1y agoNeonicotinoid are just analogs of nicotine but with less affinity for mammals aka less toxic(higher LDL). If you’re worried about the effects of nicotine(eg: cancer,ADHD in kids), don’t eat anything from the nightshade family like eggplants, potatoes, peppers or tomatoes. There’s more nicotine in your mashed potatoes than neonicotinoid residue on your vegetables.
- frm88 1y agoI couldn't find any source to confirm that acetamiprid is naturally in nightshade. If you know of any for this specific compound, would you please link them?
- smithkl42 1y agoAm I the only one who was surprised and kind of mystified by this sentence? "You’d assume the lessening of antibiotics might be associated with improved health outcomes, especially since antibiotics are so overused." It sounds more like something coming from Robert Kennedy, or one of those cranks who refuse to take antibiotics to treat strep throat, than from a mainstream researcher. Like, OF COURSE populations treated with antibiotics are going to do better in the period of a study like this. Under what plausible theory could you expect otherwise? That's not to say that antiobiotics are an unmitigated good! I get that they have weird and complex downstream ramifications. It's just that those aren't the ramifications you'd expect to be able to measure from a study like this.
- colechristensen 1y agoUgh no. There is a difference between treating a diagnosed condition with antibiotics and just regularly giving all livestock consistent doses as a preventative. Drugs aren't just "take it and everything will be improved regardless of the situation". Better to think of them as carefully used poison, good but only when used wisely. The 1950s vibe of sterilizing everything needs to be done.
- hinkley 1y agoLivestock aren't given low level antibiotics as a prophylactic. They're given as an alternative to growth hormones. Antibiotic consumption gives you bigger cows. That's the ugliest part of this whole thing. We aren't trying to keep animals safe, we are trying to keep the cost of hamburgers down even if it means people dying of incurable infections in hospitals.
- colechristensen 1y ago>Livestock aren't given low level antibiotics as a prophylactic. Yes they are. Sub-theraputic doses are used to increase weight gain, higher doses are also used as a prophylactic.
- skeezyboy 1y ago
- thebees 1y agoI always thought it was fascinating that Africanized honey bees ("killer bees") are the dominant honey bee in many regions of Central and South America for honey production.
- SoftTalker 1y agoThey are in Texas and some other southern states too, and spreading. As I understand it they are prolific honey producers but extremely aggressive at protecting their hives
- skeezyboy 1y agowhat is it with racist stereotypes and the south
- ceedan 1y agoI read something recently that colony collapse disorder was due to viruses transmitted by varroa mites and/or pesticides https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2025/usda-researchers-find-viruses-from-miticide-resistant-parasitic-mites-are-cause-of-recent-honey-bee-colony-collapses/ https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2025...
- throwaway422432 1y agoYes, and the mites (Varroa Destructor) found in the collapsed colonies were resistant to miticides. While widespread antibiotic use is bad for bees it's nothing compared to what the viruses transmitted by the mites do to them.
- ceedan 1y agoAgreed. I mentioned this as a reason why antibiotics are not a solution. Antibiotics do not treat viruses.
- miellaby 1y agoThis article seems like fantasy fiction: 'We thought antibiotics were to blame, but actually, it's NO2.' (next 5G?) while it's widely recognized for the last ten years that the primary culprit is neonicotinoids: very potent and pervasive chemicals that accumulate in the biotope, killing all insects indiscriminately, contrary to the misleading claims made by the agro-industry.
- WillPostForFood 1y agoVarroa mites are widely considered a greater cause of bee population decline than neonicotinoids.
- neuroelectron 1y agoSo why the distraction?
- phtrivier 1y ago> it's widely recognized for the last ten years that the primary culprit is neonicotinoids What would be your best source to back that ? (I'm not trolling - we've been having a vivid debates about that exact topic for the past few weeks in France, and one common counter-point is that the decrease in bee population is multifactorial, as opposed to having any "primary" culprit. So any source welcome :) )
- miellaby 1y agoNeonicotinoids kill all insects. They are extremely good at this. Noone contests this. CCD ("Colony Collapse Disorder") started as neonicotinoids usage raised, and so did the "windshield phenomemom" that all rural residents above 50 can tell you about. If there were no parasite, no pathogen, and no predator, then bees would not be as much affected by pesticides for sure. But parasites and pathogens existed before, while habitat loss and monoculture farming don't explain what happens in relatively preserved areas. All pesticides have an impact on insect populations obviously. I agree one should not focus on only one class of them, and work on an actual reduction of their usage and compensate farmers for profitability loss due to changes in pest management strategies. You don't need to comment this. I know It won't be done and we're all screwed.
- giantg2 1y agoBacterial issues aren't that much of a concern for beekeepers. It can be used to treat European Foulbrood, but the only other issue is American Fouldbrood and that isn't treatable. There are some interesting things being done in the biome research. Even stuff like bacteria related to mosquito dunks. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0147651317301914 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01476...
- Gnarl 1y agoRadiofrequency radiation
- moomoo11 1y agoBuy and support organic! Not sure if they don’t use pesticide but just naturally grown stuff would be nice.
- westurner 1y agoFrom "Scientists identify culprit behind biggest-ever U.S. honey bee die-off" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44434497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44434497 : > "Viruses and vectors tied to honey bee colony losses" (2025) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.28.656706v1.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.28.656706v1....
- westurner 1y agoScholarlyArticle: "Impacts of antibiotic use, air pollution and climate on managed honeybees in Canada" (2025) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01603-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01603-y : > Abstract: [...] Notably, this decrease was inversely associated with rising overwintering mortality rates, suggesting that withdrawal of antibiotics in the absence of effective alternatives may negatively impact colony health. Furthermore, multivariate analysis accounting for environmental confounders (based on 119,244 data points collected from 234 unique locations across Canada) identified nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a common air pollutant from diesel exhaust, as a strong predictor of mortality. This finding warrants urgent attention given that NO2 can degrade floral odours, rendering them undetectable to honeybees during foraging flights.