
Building a backup bee: A novel replacement for the embattled honeybee - newman8r
https://thefern.org/2018/02/building-backup-bee/
======
ph0rque
_In an ideal world, BOBs would be raised in the fields they pollinate. In
Europe, farmers get a threefold to fourfold increase of European Osmia bees
out of their orchards every year. Jordi Bosch, who used to work for the usda
and is now at the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications in
Spain, says this happens because European orchards tend to be smaller, contain
a mix of fruit species and have a variety of weeds that bloom around them at
various times. Those factors help bees live out their full adult life span, so
they can lay many eggs. In California, large, weed-free, monocrop orchards
provide only two to three weeks of one type of bloom—insufficient for maximum
egg laying. Fungicides and pesticides can further reduce the number of progeny
that an orchard produces._

So that is the real problem...

~~~
Spivak
I don't think anyone really disagrees with your assessment. But you seem to be
implying a solution of the form 'well then stop doing that' which typically
doesn't go anywhere.

Which option do you think is more likely to happen politically?

A: Convince/coerce a huge population of people to change their growing habits
against their own personal interests. A system that by construction rewards
cheaters and would be extremely expensive to enforce.

B: Fund a concentrated series of research teams to help produce bees that can
thrive in the current environment.

~~~
ph0rque
Good point, but I don't think it's as hard as you suggest, and no personal
interest sacrifice is required.

For example, by growing clover, the orchards would not only attract bees, but
also provide fertilization to the trees (when the nitrogen stored in the
clover is released when the clover dies back a bit after each mowing).

Are there additional costs? Sure, but if viewed as an investment, those costs
pay for themselves eventually. I think there are orchards already practicing
this, but I would bet the majority aren't aware of such practices (market
education needed).

------
walterbell
From [http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pesticide-bee-bird-deaths-
ne...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pesticide-bee-bird-deaths-
neonicotinoids-1.4296357)

 _" Neonicotinoids, also known as neonics, are nicotine-based pesticides
commonly used by farmers to help keep everything from field crops to fruit
orchards free of pests ... Bees were consuming pollen contaminated with
neonics as well as flying through chemical-laden clouds of dust from farm
fields ... since Europe began barring the use of neonics, there has been
success at limiting the exposure honey bees have to the toxic chemicals,
without a significant reduction in crop yields._"

and

 _" beekeeping is a big business and without bees, billions of dollars of farm
crops would go unpollinated. "Beyond honeybees, there are all the wild bees,
all these pollinators and behind all these pollinators there are some other
invertebrates, the ones living in the soil, flying invertebrates, the ones in
the water," ... "Nobody cares about that. There is no money in these
invertebrates. However they are giving a huge service to the quality of soil,
to all the ecosystem services that we need."_

------
docdeek
I was relieved to find that this was not a particularly disturbing Black
Mirror episode coming to life.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Don't worry, that's also under research:

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2120832-robotic-bee-
cou...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2120832-robotic-bee-could-help-
pollinate-crops-as-real-bees-decline/)

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/bee-drone-pollination-
japanese...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/bee-drone-pollination-japanese-
researchers-2017-3?r=US&IR=T)

[http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-robot-
be...](http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-robot-
bees-20170209-story.html)

------
yawz
As a beekeeper I see the irony in that: monocropping (growing only almonds in
large areas) is one of the causes of biodiversity loss. Honeybees are very
lucky to have beekeepers like me to help them survive through troubled times.
In my state there are more than 500 other bee species that we don't even hear
about. Monocropping is one of their killers.

~~~
smcl
This is _exactly_ what I came in here to ask about. I was reading this article
and wondering whether one contributing factor for colony collapse is that
these vast Almond farms alone simply cannot sustain the bee population in the
areas they dominate.

~~~
saalweachter
Many wild bees are also specialists, and they will just raise a single
generation each year during the appropriate flowering season. They hatch, go
wild on their target species, and then lay a batch of eggs for next year. Many
wild bee species are correspondingly more efficient than the generalist honey
bees; a handful of orchard bees can pollinate an apple orchard faster than a
hive of honeybees.

Some of these species are pressed more by climate change; at the talk I heard
on the subject, these bees have a narrow latitude band they survive in, and as
temperatures increase they tend to push up against their northern limit than
shift north.

------
b0rsuk
Step 1: Pollute the environment, causing colony collapse disorder. Step 2:
rather than solving the actual problem, make money off it.

It's like big pharma making money selling treatment drugs instead of
developing the cure.

~~~
specialist
Disaster capitalism.

------
gumby
I've always wondered why American agriculture doesn't use more native
pollinators. After all there were native angiosperms before the Europeans
arrived.

I had assumed the problem was the native pollinators had only evolved to
pollinate native plants, hence the use of alien bees for alien plants (e.g.
almonds, apples etc). But according to this article that isn't the case.

------
bayesian_horse
Apparently the main remedy to colony collapse disorder seems to be to just
order new queens via internet.

------
superkuh
" _In 2017 Wonderful needed about 76,000 honeybee colonies to pollinate its
almonds (at two colonies per acre). But that number will diminish by 320 this
spring because Wardell will put 128,000 female BOBs into the orchards—the
largest deployment ever._ "

So 128000 BOBs equals the pollinating effectiveness of 320 honeybees? That's a
400:1 honeybee/BOB ratio. Or perhaps they're just using really high margins
because it's so experimental.

~~~
franzpeterfolz
76,000 colonies. A colonie is about 4,000 individual bees.

320 colonies at 4,000 are roughly 1,280,000 honeybees.

In fact BOBs are 10 times more effective than honeybees. They pollinate at a
time where honeybees are still asleep.

And 4,000 is considered a small colonie. They go up to 70,000 and more in the
right season.

------
shoover
_Only about a dozen of the 20,000 or so bee species worldwide are managed.
After the honeybee, Apis mellifera, only three species are widely used in the
U.S.: two cannot be woken from their winter’s sleep in time for almond bloom,
and the third is banned for open field use in California._

How does a species of bees get banned?

~~~
wavefunction
US Department of Agriculture or some corresponding department at the state
level in California.

There are likely some good reasons for the ban.

------
jonah
I just drove the I-5 highway through California's Central Valley yesterday.
There are hundreds and hundreds of almond and other orchards with thousands of
trees each along the way. They are in full bloom. Just beautiful.

Each orchard had bee hives at the ends of rows. They're so crucial to our
agricultural industry.

~~~
tptacek
They're livestock, and an invasive species. Colony collapse is an economic
issue for bee farmers, and not an especially difficult one.

~~~
ryanianian
And so are cultivated crops. Food-chain collapse is also an issue, and it _is_
an especially difficult one.

------
randomerr
With the Indinian Leg Chewers DNA starting to spread to wild population we're
seeing an increase in the over population (wild and professional hive). That's
saying a lot in Ohio since most states that border us don't have mandatory
inspections. We have to deal with a bad invasion from Varroa mites coming from
Michigan due to their lax laws.

[http://www.wtae.com/article/local-beekeeper-working-to-
save-...](http://www.wtae.com/article/local-beekeeper-working-to-save-honey-
bees/7164042?src=app)

------
zitterbewegung
Or you can just perform manual pollination
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-
pollination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-pollination) .

This has actually been done in China due to their bee population declining.

[https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5193-De...](https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5193-Decline-
of-bees-forces-China-s-apple-farmers-to-pollinate-by-hand)

~~~
jonah
"This is clearly just possible for this high-value crop, but there are not
enough humans in the world to pollinate all of our crops by hand."

We have so many crops that rely on bees. There is no way we'd ever be able to
pollenate all our crops by hand and it would become incredibly expensive if we
tried.

~~~
tptacek
From where do we get the possibility of losing our bee livestock population?
Colony collapse at its height was a double digit percentage increase in
overwintering losses. Beekeepers react by splitting hives and buying new
queens.

------
curlcntr
There was an interesting article in Science last month about looking at
pollinators holistically - butterflies, flies, 20K species of bees, even some
vertebrates - and contrasting to focus on one or a few of bee species.

Unfortunately the online link needs login
[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/392](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/392)

------
bdagnino
There's a great company from argentina (now going through IndieBio batch) that
works on applying scientific knowledge to bee pollination:
[http://www.beeflow.co/en/](http://www.beeflow.co/en/)

They are currently running a trial on almonds, but have already increased the
yield of kiwi (among others) between 10 and 90%!

------
richdougherty
Article and podcast about using bumblebees for pollinating crops:
[https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/au...](https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/201812854/using-
bumblebees-as-pollinators)

------
empath75
This hasn't gone well in the past:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee)

~~~
24gttghh
I didn't get any indication from the article that these Blue Orchard bee's are
being cross-bred, or genetically engineered. They're just being mass-bred in a
controlled manner to get the volume necessary to start supplementing Honey Bee
use.

Edit: It seems that the Afro/Euro hybrid bees are hardier and produce way more
honey than the European bees as well, so I would expect to see more of them
being used commercially.

~~~
talideon
Except the hybrid bees are notoriously aggressive, which is why they're
useless commercially. Part of the reason European bees are so useful
commercially is that they're quite docile.

------
mbloom1915
the word "building" already scares me -- black mirror digital bee horror
engage!

------
AlphaWeaver
Full article URL: [https://thefern.org/2018/02/building-backup-
bee/](https://thefern.org/2018/02/building-backup-bee/)

~~~
newman8r
I should have linked to that one, it's much more detailed - thanks

~~~
sctb
We've updated the link from
[https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/02/23/backup-
pollina...](https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/02/23/backup-pollinators-
california-almond-fruit-producers-hope-blue-orchard-bees-can-reinforce-
honeybees/).

