The southeastern USA honeybee is in trouble.

[DirtMechanic]

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194237181/yellow-legged-hornet-georgia

 

[oneeye]

The whole world is in trouble friend.

 

[DirtMechanic]

The whole world is in trouble friend.

Nah. Its just finding balance. What that means for me could be an issue though....

 

[pepper]

Nah. Its just finding balance. What that means for me could be an issue though....

I gave up beekeeping partly because of all the problems facing them. When I first started beekeeping it was just pests like skunks, wasps, mites and the biggest fear was them getting a disease like American foulbrood. But then came CCD, colony collapse disorder. And then once I heard about the Africanized honeybee's making their way closer here and then the Asian giant hornets I gave up after moving and didn't bother getting back into it.

I think nature will sort itself out but we are constantly bringing invasive species into places they don't belong as well as other stupidity we continue to do so sorting itself out also includes extinction of species.

The World Wildlife Fund studied more than 5,200 species for its Living Planet Report, and found that out of the nearly 32,000 populations analyzed, there was an average decline of 69% since 1970. Up to 2.5% of mammals, fish, reptiles, birds and amphibians have already gone extinct, the report says.

What you call Ballance I call destruction across the world caused by us humans lol.

 

[DirtMechanic]

I gave up beekeeping partly because of all the problems facing them. When I first started beekeeping it was just pests like skunks, wasps, mites and the biggest fear was them getting a disease like American foulbrood. But then came CCD, colony collapse disorder. And then once I heard about the Africanized honeybee's making their way closer here and then the Asian giant hornets I gave up after moving and didn't bother getting back into it.

I think nature will sort itself out but we are constantly bringing invasive species into places they don't belong as well as other stupidity we continue to do so sorting itself out also includes extinction of species.

The World Wildlife Fund studied more than 5,200 species for its Living Planet Report, and found that out of the nearly 32,000 populations analyzed, there was an average decline of 69% since 1970. Up to 2.5% of mammals, fish, reptiles, birds and amphibians have already gone extinct, the report says.

What you call Ballance I call destruction across the world caused by us humans lol.

I never said I knew what a good balance was but know just enough to know I am part of it and that disturbs my ignorant bliss.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I gave up beekeeping partly because of all the problems facing them.

I stopped when varroa turned up, too much like hard work. People kept telling me the world was going to starve without pollinators, like honey bees are the only pollinators. The vast majority of things get pollinated by flies of one sort or another, and there are still plenty of the various solitary bees and bumble bees.
The biggest threat here is the mass spraying of big business agriculture, cross the channel to France and suddenly you gey insects on the windscreen like we haven't for years.

 

[pepper]

I stopped when varroa turned up, too much like hard work. People kept telling me the world was going to starve without pollinators, like honey bees are the only pollinators. The vast majority of things get pollinated by flies of one sort or another, and there are still plenty of the various solitary bees and bumble bees.
The biggest threat here is the mass spraying of big business agriculture, cross the channel to France and suddenly you gey insects on the windscreen like we haven't for years.

When I got into beekeeping the Varroa mites that caused the disease was already full blown so I guess keeping on-top of them just seemed like part of the process. It would have been different I think if I was doing it before they came along.

I don't know if they blow it a bit out of proportion by saying the world would starve without honeybees, the amount of homeless starving people around the world has been rapidly increasing long before the problems with honeybees started. But I do know, around here in Canada crop farmers (depending on what is planted) pay a large amount of money each year to have beekeepers bring in hives during the crops flowering stage for pollination. They wouldn't do that if it wasn't completely necessary.

Spraying is a huge part of the problem. The reason farmers don't just get their own hives, saving a huge chunk of their annual income paying beekeepers to bring them in for pollination is because the bees would not survive the chemicals they crop spray. For a backyard garden, forest etc the other pollinators do fine. But for miles upon miles of crop fields it is impossible to have the numbers of other pollinators that can take care of that many plants. Where as one single honeybee hive can have around 80 000 honeybees.

 

[Meadowlark]

...The reason farmers don't just get their own hives, saving a huge chunk of their annual income paying beekeepers to bring them in for pollination is because the bees would not survive the chemicals they crop spray. ...

Seems rather foolish to pay someone to bring in beehives for crop pollination and then turn right around and kill the bees by spraying chemicals on the crops.

Kind of like pouring $ fertilizers on yards only to be required to mow more often and not to mention polluting the surrounding water.

There are far too many things like that, and I've given up trying to understand it.

Here, the beekeepers will give you all the honey you can eat just for letting them store their hives on your property. I've declined those offers in the past because my neighbor gives us all the honey we can use.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

But I do know, around here in Canada crop farmers (depending on what is planted) pay a large amount of money each year to have beekeepers bring in hives during the crops flowering stage for pollination. They wouldn't do that if it wasn't completely necessary.

It may be necessary in Canada with miles of monoculture, but don't underestimate the stupidity of people. I have known people pay for bees in their orchard here where it is completely unnecessary, beekeeper won't refuse.

 

[pepper]

Seems rather foolish to pay someone to bring in beehives for crop pollination and then turn right around and kill the bees by spraying chemicals on the crops.

Kind of like pouring $ fertilizers on yards only to be required to mow more often and not to mention polluting the surrounding water.

There are far too many things like that, and I've given up trying to understand it.

Here, the beekeepers will give you all the honey you can eat just for letting them store their hives on your property. I've declined those offers in the past because my neighbor gives us all the honey we can use.

They pay a beekeeper/beekeepers to bring the hives for a short time during flowering then they are taken away back to the beekeepers apiary. That way the crops get pollinated but the bees are gone by the time they spray.

I guess I can understand the large scale farmers spraying. As harmful as it is to the environment the sad fact is grocery stores will not purchase fruit and veggies that do not look perfect. A company that buys in bulk doesn't usually care if the produce doesn't look perfect when they use it as an ingredient for boxed food for example. But they still will not pay full price if it doesn't look perfect. So not only does a farmer have to worry about pests harming their crops if they don't spray, but also the loss of money because they have to sell cheap to food manufacturers while the farmers that do spray get much more money producing better looking food that can be sold for top dollar. Even myself, when I go to the grocery store I will pick out the best looking produce. If I seen something with a blemish caused from a pest I wouldn't buy it. But in my garden I wouldn't care, I would still eat it. It's kind of stupid when I think about it.

Beekeepers here will do the same. When I was beekeeping I started off with 2 hives in my backyard. A few years later after making nucs each year it was getting out of control lol. So I knocked on some doors and before the end of the day I found a gentleman with 300 acres of farmland and forest he grew mostly hay and clover on and didn't use spray. He was more then happy to let me keep my hives there. I offered to pay him but he wouldn't accept any. Each weekend I would go and work on the hives removing any queen cells etc and often he would be sitting by them when I got there watching them buzz around doing their thing. I thought it was way cool he seemed to share the same fascination for the little things in life that I have.
I don't really have a point to that story lol, just sharing a memory.

It may be necessary in Canada with miles of monoculture, but don't underestimate the stupidity of people. I have known people pay for bees in their orchard here where it is completely unnecessary, beekeeper won't refuse.

I never underestimate the stupidity of people, I see it every day when I look at the news lol.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I don't really have a point to that story lol, just sharing a memory

Some moments stay.
Looking at a capped brood frame and seeing a young bee eat his way out on a bright sunny day, must have been strange for him.
Waking early on a summer morning and going for a walk, stopping under a field maple in flower, 6am and the whole tree was buzzing with bees from my hives just up the road.