
Record Number of Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter - pseudolus
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/06/19/733761393/more-bad-buzz-for-bees-record-numbers-of-honey-bee-colonies-died-last-winter
======
lettergram
Having started bee keeping myself, I think there is a lot at play here...

1\. Mites - resistant to poisons that kill mites, but not bees are spreading.
This can kill hives.

2\. Temperatures - are changing, where I am at 33% colony loss is relatively
common due to winters (and the bees not having enough honey to survive or it
gets too cold). This has been the case forever though, at least in my region

3\. Africanization - of honeybees has reduced their ability to withstand the
cold.

4\. Travel - Many of the commercial hives in the US travel vast distances to
pollenate fields. The California almonds are a huge example. This very much
stresses the hive.

5\. Poisons - we know if you’re near a field doing crop dusting it can kill
the hive. Combine with point #4 and this creates issues today.

One thing to mention, is that setting up a new hive is relatively easy. You
take a new (or about to be) queen, some workers and separate them. They’ll
form a new hive. This can be done once a year (or more) on a healthy hive in
the spring. Meaning... we can double the bee population yearly. They recover
very well, if we know what to do to minimize hives death.

~~~
mohaine
Also remember that the honeybee is not native to North America and is
technically an invasive species here. This along with domestication means
lower genetic diversity making the honey bee population more susceptible to
any single issue than our native wild bees.

~~~
exfed
This is actually a huge problem for the US honey industry right now. As bee
kills become more of an issue, re-queening becomes more necessary, which puts
even more pressure on breeding programs, which likely only exacerbates the
genetic diversity problem.

> Also remember that the honeybee is not native to North America and is
> technically an invasive species here.

Yes, but they are also the only species (so far) that is commercially managed,
and therefore easily counted and tracked. If Apis Mellifera is suffering, we
can pretty safely assume that other, native species are also suffering.

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pseudolus
We need to head off a future in which bee populations are so substantially
reduced that we end up in a situation, such as exists in parts of China, where
hand pollination is the only option [0].

[0] [https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-plants-blossom-without-
bees/av-...](https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-plants-blossom-without-
bees/av-43465235)

~~~
tptacek
Honey bees aren't native pollinators in North America. They're livestock.

~~~
bregma
Most of the flowers the honeybees pollinate are also not native. Native bees
can not pollinate these introduced species, and honeybees can't pollinate
native species. They can, however, transfer varroa and nosemea and AFB and
other diseases between native and introduced pollinator species. Some of these
diseases come as spores in the bulk imports of Asian industrial honey.

You'd think we learned lessons from the black plague in Europe. Seems we did,
just the wrong ones.

------
calypso
My uncle just started a small bee colony on his property. This will help his
garden, the surrounding gardens, and the area as a whole. My work also has a
few hives on each of our buildings rooftops.

So some people care but a larger majority do not. As humans we, especially in
the west, don't care about a problem until it's too late. who cares about the
bees when we have the latest iPhone Xr+ Max ultra

~~~
cableshaft
I've had urges to start one, but we only have a normal-sized back yard and two
dogs, and I don't think that would mix too well. I already know one of them
will try to eat bees when given the chance and I don't want them to get stung.

Is there a way to help without actually starting your own bee colony?

~~~
riffraff
grow plants pollinators like

[https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/plant-a-bee-
garden/](https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/plant-a-bee-garden/)

~~~
ahje
Leave the dandelions in the lawn for the pollinators. They attract tons of
bees, bumblebees and butterflies.

~~~
cableshaft
I guess I did good by getting sick for a month right when spring was starting
and between that and the rain I didn't bother mowing for awhile and the
dandelions took over the front lawn :)

~~~
riffraff
they are also very tasty (you can eat many parts of them), and they will grow
again if you leave the root in the ground :)

~~~
ahje
Bonus: Dandelion wine

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toyg
Anecdata, but this year in my corner of England bees have been pretty subdued.

My house suffers from solitary mason bees abusing my lack of care for
brickwork to enter my bathroom, where they typically then die by the dozen
every week in spring/summer (the glass window misleads them towards a
nonexistent way out). This year I don’t find anything like the “daily cadaver
on windowsill” that I’m used to.

I also don’t see them around the garden as much as before. Definitely not my
fault though, my lack of care for the garden is legendary.

I know bees have had a bit of a resurgence in England as a whole, though, so
maybe it’s just my area.

~~~
Aromasin
Also anecdata, but we've had some success having replanted the garden with a
variety of plants that produce more nectar than those we had previously.
Although I don't think a hive has started anywhere, we've had plenty of
solitary bees this year which we don't regularly see.

If anyone else would like to outfit their garden with some more bee friendly
plants, we've had great luck with the following:-

1.Himalayan balsam 2.Yellow water iris 3.Gladioli 4.Common comfrey
5.Blackberry 6.Hedge bindweed 7.Honeysuckle 8.Sweet pea 9.Foxglove
10.Rhododendron 11.Lavender

(As per recommendations from the British countryside survey)

~~~
pedrow
We've got a cotoneaster, which attracts so many bees you can hear the buzzing
from inside the house (see [http://www.conwybeekeepers.org.uk/new-
beekeepers/planting-a-...](http://www.conwybeekeepers.org.uk/new-
beekeepers/planting-a-bee-garden/)). Cotoneaster is very easy to grow.

------
peteradio
Honeybees != Native Bees, In US we should be worried about Native Bees. If
care of Honeybees spills over into care of Native Bees then that is great. If
we instead work to supplant the native populations then we are not being very
smart.

Honeybees/honey are an agricultural product.

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strictnein
> U.S. beekeepers lost nearly 40% of their honeybee colonies last winter — the
> greatest reported winter hive loss since the partnership started its surveys
> 13 years ago. The total annual loss was slightly above average.

So, was this really bad news? Or is just slightly bad? 40% is the most of 13
data points, but what's the average? 39%? 20%? It's completely absent from
this article.

~~~
tomjakubowski
You're comparing the total annual loss rate, which was apparently "slightly
above average", to the loss rate just over the winter, which was 40%.

This article about the 2017 honeybee season mentions the difference. That
winter, 31% of honeybees were lost, compared to ~28% the previous winter.
[https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/annual-honey-bee-
colony-l...](https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/annual-honey-bee-colony-
losses-remain-above-40-percent)

------
bb101
We have a few hives in a field behind our house. We have noticed all the
neighbouring fruit trees doing very well this year -- clutches of plums and
apples weighing down the branches.

~~~
arethuza
We have a funny looking bush in our garden that doesn't even have very large
flowers on it - but bees (both honey bees and bumble bees) just _love_ it -
its always thick with them over the summer even though we have loads of other
flowers in our garden.

What I particularly love is the _sound_ of a number of bees - fantastically
relaxing.

~~~
duxup
I have a lilac bush that depending on the time of year you're bound to bump
into (and bee bumped into) by the local bumble bees who are floating around
it.

Bumble bees seem like they're perpetually out of control.

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robotbikes
We humans have a hard time dealing comprehensively with these multi-factor
problems that have a synergistic destructive impact and tend to only take
action if we think there is a simple solution. How can we coordinate large
scale responses to help solve a problem like colony collapse disorder when
there is no singular cause to blame ?

~~~
jillesvangurp
Do like the French and simply issue a blanket ban on some of the pesticides
involved: [https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/ban-on-neonicotinoid-
insectic...](https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/ban-on-neonicotinoid-insecticides-
france-is-leading-the-way-in-europe)

Some solutions are that simple. Stop doing the things that we know are bad. We
had functioning agriculture before people started using this. Part of the
problem is assuming these things are hard to solve. They are not but it does
require measures that are inevitably going to hurt some companies with
powerful lobbies. I don't see how this can be avoided though. There's probably
a few more things that need to be banned. But this seems like a good start.

~~~
tptacek
What exactly will that do about the Varroa mites?

~~~
Angostura
Since it is apparently multi-factoral it will remove one of the factors.
Hopefully the bees will be able to cope better with the remaining factors.

~~~
tptacek
Varroa mites eradicated feral honey bees in North America long before the new
pesticides were introduced.

------
duxup
I keep thinking I want to start a small bee colony. The local university
started a bee lab a few years ago:

[https://www.beelab.umn.edu](https://www.beelab.umn.edu)

~~~
coldpie
Hello fellow Minnesota person. Now is a great time to do this. The state has
actually started a program to fund homeowners making their yards more bee-
friendly[1]. While the article doesn't have a ton of information about how to
apply, I'm sure you can find some with a little digging, or maybe get in touch
with someone from the U page you linked.

[1] [http://m.startribune.com/program-pays-minnesota-
homeowners-t...](http://m.startribune.com/program-pays-minnesota-homeowners-
to-let-their-lawn-go-to-the-bees/510593382/)

------
kwindla
Bloomberg's "Business of Bees" podcast is great:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts/business_of_bees](https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts/business_of_bees)

They cover some of the issues relating to honeybee colony collapse.

------
treycopeland
I'm a second year beekeeper and my two hives survived a cold Kentucky winter.

------
ptah
what is the natural predator of the mites

~~~
Aromasin
I've seen other specific types of mites used to control them. 'Phytoseiulus
persimilism' is a type of mite used to control 'two-spotted spider mites',
which can feast on crops. The question is whether there's a species that would
feast on the mites infesting beehives.

------
xoa
This post made me wonder to what extent cost/money could be reduced for people
who are interesting purely in pollination of their own property or area and
don't particularly care about actually harvesting any honey ever. It seemed
like without being disturbed or having any of their honey taken, perhaps the
convenience factor could be raised a bit which might let more people just have
bees around as part of general landscaping. I've got a good few dozen semi-
rural acres, there are bee friendly flowers, no pesticide usage, and for a low
enough effort/investment I and I think plenty of others would be happy to
contribute to the environment if it'd help.

But so far I haven't found a lot of solutions aimed specifically at this area,
so I'd love to hear from anyone who has done this. It seems there are some old
hive styles called skeps that are illegal for honey usage (since the hive is
destroyed for harvesting) but would be fine if you don't plan to ever disturb
them, but a straw basket doesn't look very durable over more then a year or
two either nor do I think it'd work over a northern winter? It sounds like
mites and diseases are always a risk factor which makes sense, but what comes
after? If a hive setup was cheap enough it could simply be tossed (and
burned/composted if it was all appropriate materials), but what is the
sterilization procedure for something heavier duty? Some sort of toolless to
disassemble metal general frame&body with wood/straw/whatever disposable
insides seems like it'd be reliable: in the event of colony death since the
natural bee interface bits could be replaced with fresh and the overall main
box/framework could be put in a dishwasher or flat out baked in an oven for
total sterilization. I don't know if anything like that exists, or if it makes
more sense to go another direction and just use a bleach solution or whatever.

The other big suggestion I found for pollination-only, and the one that seems
the most promising, is to forget about honeybees entirely and consider mason
bees instead [1]. While it seems they won't survive a winter and need to be
taken inside and refrigerated instead [2], they look extremely low effort and
use very simple "hives" (they're solitary, so just blocks or tubes appear to
be fine). I'd never heard of them until researching just now though, so
perhaps they should get mentioned more in articles like this.

I think a significant slice of the public at least in principle could be
enlisted to help out if given a clear path to do so, but are intimidated by
the thought about the work that goes into maintaining real honey hives for
honey. Those serve a real place and I know a lot of bee hobbyists enjoy it
immensely, but pure-pollination efforts might be an area to explore or invest
more in public outreach on? There is the inevitable question of "what can I
do", and while some stuff is obvious harm-reduction territory (if you use
pesticides, stop) proactive best practices seem less well known.

\----

1: [https://smalltownhomestead.com/keeping-bees-for-
pollination-...](https://smalltownhomestead.com/keeping-bees-for-pollination-
without-honey/)

2: [https://raintreenursery.com/plantcare/2013/11/preparing-
your...](https://raintreenursery.com/plantcare/2013/11/preparing-your-mason-
bees-for-winter/)

