
A Bee Mogul Confronts the Crisis in His Field - iamjeff
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/a-bee-mogul-confronts-the-crisis-in-his-field.html?contentCollection=weekendreads&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=c-column-middle-span-region&region=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region
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mmagin
Like most articles on the subject, there's hardly any mention of whether the
problem is inevitable when we try to force honeybees into the industrial
monoculture model and transport them around.

I live in a mild climate (SF bay area) and ever since having a fairly wide
variety of flowering plants around (not decorative flowers, generally), I see
honeybees all the time.

As I would understand it, a lot of why honeybees have to be brought in is that
you have these large-scale examples of monoculture where bees wouldn't be able
to find food outside of that one time of year the crop is flowering.

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jly
I am an avid bee-centric beekeeper where we utilize treatment free methods so
bees adapt to threats naturally. I can tell you that the problems with bees
(introduced honeybees in North America as well as the thousands of local
native species) are 100% man-made. Significant habitat loss, the treatment
treadmill of modern agriculture, unnatural management practices, and
pesticides all contribute. Bees adapt quickly to new threats (like Varroa) if
given a chance to adjust via natural selection without our intervention.
Unfortunately our agricultural and management practices prevent that and we
see continuing decline. We have to wake up that industrial-scale beekeeping
(and crop growing) is just not a sustainable idea.

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tlow
Imagine humans were trying to build a new ecology in a dome let's just say it
is on Mars. Sustainability would no longer be a hope, but a mandate, correct?

Given the complexity (and constantly changing aspects) of natural ecosystems,
do you think we have the capacity to build a sustainable human-crafted ecology
that produces agriculture (perhaps aquaculture) that produces enough excess to
sustain human life? If you don't mind sharing what you think this might look
like, I'm quite curious. Thank you for the insightful comment.

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harpiaharpyja
While I am not terribly knowledgeable about it I think permaculture is
probably a search term you might be looking for.

From what I have read, there have been some successful attempts to develop
ecosystems that can sustainability produce food with minimal human
intervention. Though I don't think that has been done at scale yet.

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iNerdier
My father keeps bees as a hobby and he's seen the same problems with a few
hives in a city that (presumably) doesn't spray pesticides. It's a combination
of many problems, not least the big one that is the varroa parasite that by
sucking bee haemolymph (in much the same way fleas suck blood) can introduce
disease.

One thing that sticks out though, why are almond farmers spraying pesticides
to control weeds rather than letting someone with cattle graze under the trees
and add in the bonus of free fertiliser?

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nikdaheratik
According to the article, the drought is the main reason as they couldn't
afford to flood the fields at the start of the season which would have
controlled most of the weeds otherwise. And there's no reason to believe that
cattle would only eat what you want them to or wouldn't trample some of the
younger trees.

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jelliclesfarm
Let's also not forget that queen bees are products of artificially inseminated
queen bee breeders. Because of the amount of food our expanding population
needs, we are using other living beings as objects for our survival while
forgetting that animals and plants are not originally designed by man but by
evolutionary forces.

So what we have now is really bad and incomplete and haphazard design..be it
gmo food or artificially inseminated cows/sheep/bees/pets or 'sustainable hi
density cities' or even our pharmaceutical and medical interventions which we
have come up with as solutions for food, living and health respectively. They
have regurgitated unforeseen problems and consequences for which we are
scrambling for solutions because what we have done is REDESIGN of natural
systems without understanding the original design of the initial templates
perfected by evolution.

We see quantity and celebrate it as a success. Monocropping thousands of acres
of almonds in a desert = success!

Artificially inseminated trucked in non native bees to pollinate above
mentioned over planted almond orchards that bloom for a few weeks in a desert
during a drought = we are geniuses!

But bee populations are dying because of colony collapse disorder =
BUT..BUT...WE DONT KNOW WHY!!! (Doh!)

The way we have been running this planet gets a failing grade.

Back to queen bees artificial insemination..you have to know that in nature,
around spring, the queen bee will split the colony and send out a swarm with
her daughter queen to form another colony. The new queen and her colony are
groggy from over eating ..and they are bound to her pheromones because where
the queen goes, her colony will follow.

However, more queen bees are bred and purchased these days. Queen bees that
are sold are themselves not artificially inseminated always but are almost
always products of artificially inseminated queen bees.

Why is this relevant? In nature, a queen bee gets out one fine day and goes on
a mating flight..she mates with 10-15 drone bees in mid air and after mating,
all the drones die. It's beautiful..there is a poem somewhere there..and less
gory than the praying mantis mating ritual. The semen from the various
suicidal drones are combined and when the Queen returns to her hive, she
starts making her family and she never leaves the hive again because from that
moment on, her only job is to make more bees and the rest of the hive works
for her.

In a lab, a queen bee is engulfed in CO2 and while unconscious, a mixture of
semen collected from various drones and introduced into the unconscious queen
bee.

The head and thorax of the drone bee is crushed which causes the abs to
contract...its endophallus is now partially turned inside out. Then the bee is
completely crushed to collect the semen from it's now over turned endophallus.
Different semen is mixed and the queen bee is artificially inseminated.

In the agony and ecstasy of the suicidal drone bee, after ejaculation, his
endophallus is ripped from his body and with organs damaged, he falls down.
But mission accomplished because the only purpose of the drone bee is to mate
with the queen.

When on a beautiful crisp fall day, they leave the hive, the queen bee seeks
the strongest and the best drones..10-15..so that her brood can have the best
evolutionary advantage.

Rather different from being raped in a lab with semen from dead and captive
drone bees. Herein the bad design..

we have gmo crops, chemicals to spray on the gmo crops to keep them healthy,
confused bees, gmo crop that farmers can't save seeds from..further confused
bees cause the function of pollen is pollination..but most gmo are self
pollinating anyways..can't save seeds..don't need pollination. Herbicides to
kill weeds and weeds become resistant..but they also kill forage plants and
bees themselves ..leading to CCD and hey! Now we have to artificially
inseminate bees because we have to save the bees!! Save.The.Bees!!!! That
rallying cry! What a tangled web we weave..

Regardless of whether gmo is 'safe or not' ..gmo disrupts natural systems and
eventually, natural systems will disappear and we would have to replace it all
with human design. And there is plenty of research going on..

the word research literally means that we are 'searching' for something again,
yea? It is a quest for what is hidden or unknown. It does not mean that we are
experts.

First step is to acknowledge that natural systems are perfected by evolution
and it's stability is suspect unless evolution redesigns them again. There are
too many moving and inter connected parts for us to take over and imagine that
improvements will result in a stable system.

