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> The honeybee is not endangered. It never was. There are several severe threats to honey bees which without human intervention would cause a significant numbe
by moebrowne 6mo ago
> The honeybee is not endangered. It never was.
There are several severe threats to honey bees which without human intervention would cause a significant number of hives to be lost.
There's the varroa mite and the things it carries like deformed wing virus, then there is the increasingly prevalent Asian hornet which European honey bees are unable to deal with, and colony collapse disorder where the bees literally disappear for reasons we current don't understand, and climate change is causing colonies to starve over the winter.
Honey bees are not going extinct tomorrow but they are not doing well.
- aziaziazi 6mo agoHumans also face severe treats and are not doing well but are not going extinct tomorrow. Honeybees seems to only decline in North America, especially the USA, but as you said it’s human intervention that keeps their population booming years after years. Perhaps a decline wouldn’t be so problematic it doesn’t go to extinction? A decline in chickens population wouldn’t lead to extinction, to elaborate on the funny authors take: > Promoting honeybee hives to save pollinators is roughly the equivalent to building more chicken farms to save bird biodiversity The other problems you raise are important but are also a treat to others bee species and insects. https://earth.org/data_visualization/bees-are-not-declining-everywhere-a-global-perspective-on-population-trends/ https://earth.org/data_visualization/bees-are-not-declining-...
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- b3ing 6mo agoHoneybees aren’t native to North America
- bombcar 6mo agoNeither are humans, apparently. I wonder if it would be possible to experiment a bit - ban honeybee hives in a 10 mile square radius, or perhaps in that area that bans all radio transmitters. See what happens.
- matt_kantor 6mo ago> Neither are humans, apparently. That depends on how you draw the line. Most would consider buffalo[0] to be native to North America, but they arrived less than 200000 years ago. If you go far enough back, no life is native to anywhere except wherever abiogenesis occurred. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison
- b3ing 6mo agoCamels originated in North America, interesting enough. Yeah, we could go on for hours
- hammock 6mo agoFascinating fact. Begs the question what pollinated agriculture (squash, tomatoes, peppers, berries etc) prior to the introduction of the honeybee and the equally fascinating answer is that there were many species but all of them were SOLITARY and NON-HIVE DWELLING!
- mig39 6mo agoNeither are earthworms.
- cachius 6mo agoNow think of bumble and other wild bees who catch the mites from the blossoms but get no treatment with formic or oxalic acid.
- bregma 6mo agoHoneybees are livestock. They're no more endangered than chickens or cows. If we need more, we just breed more. In most places honeybees are raised they couldn't even survive in the wild. Just like cows and chickens and pigs. As with most livestock, without human intervention they would probably be wiped out.
- dv_dt 6mo agoIf humans didn't manage risks to livestock on an industry scale they would be at risk. It requires a constant investment from both commercial industry and government. Activities like the dept of agriculture and university ag depts have been really so good at what they do. Its like the rest of civilization has forgotten what it takes and the costs involved if we neglect the investment. Agriculture and livestock is just one foundational civilization technology where we have forgotten the significance of
- bombcar 6mo agoWhat is considered livestock varies over time - chickens range from "free range and can survive in the wild" to "so fat they can't live". One guess as to which is the most common by numbers - one reason that if you do decide to have a backyard flock, go with something "more natural". More dangerous in all these is the monoculture - a hundred years ago we would have a wide range of crops and livestock; now 90% of meat chickens are probably the same genetically; similar with cows and bananas and corn and rice and pigs, etc. That sets us up for a "wipe out 90% of chickens" risk.
- dv_dt 6mo agoMonoculture is definitely a risk, one exacerbated by megacorps and overly corporatized industry - but if you look at the history of ag departments they have introduced multiple variants and variations across crops and animals time and time again. They also work with smaller growers in communities in many ways - natural pest controls consultations for example
- Loughla 6mo ago
- TazeTSchnitzel 6mo agoThere's also the massive problem of fake honey (i.e. manufactured sugar syrup illegally sold as honey), which is much cheaper than real honey and pushing actual beekeepers out of the market.
- jojobas 6mo agoTo add, most farming relies precisely on honeybee for pollination, and losing 2/3 of them would be quite devastating. Of course nobody cars about wild bees, our lives don't depend on them nearly as much.
- bombcar 6mo agoIt may be that agricultural mechanization requires honeybees simply because they're the ones we can farm themselves.
- tomjakubowski 6mo agoIs that really true? My layman's understanding was that ~10-20% of the calories in a typical American diet comes from crops which need pollinators: grains (which feed livestock too), legumes, root vegetables, leafy greens, mostly can be grown without them, using self pollination or wind pollination.
- jojobas 6mo agoI mean, of those that do require insect pollination. Apples/pear family, almonds/cherries/plums, cucumbers/melons, some others in seed production (carrots). There are only few examples where non-honeybee pollinators are needed, like tomatoes in greenhouses (otherwise wind is enough).
- t-3 6mo agoWild honeybees adapt to deal with mites. What they struggle with are insecticides and monoculture deserts. Domesticated varieties that have been selected for productivity and placidity are the ones that haven't quickly adapted to the introduction of parasites, diseases, and predators, because they don't have to, as the humans worry about those problems.