Nearly half of US honeybee colonies died last year. Struggling beekeepers stabilize population
Nearly half of US honeybee colonies died last year. Struggling beekeepers stabilize population
Note: honeybees are not a native species in the US
Is this true? I never knew this. Is there another primary insect in the US that's a pollinator?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf2-86o5S1o here's a video about it.
The US has countless pollinators.
it is also not easy to replace them in agriculture. Many wild bees (like mason bees) are incredible better pollinators than honey bees, but most of them are solitary (making them grow in large numbers almost impossible) or pollinate only specific types of plants.
Other bees - who they can outcompete and kill
Honeybees moved into my backyard recently. I guess they somehow attract a lot of different wildlife in some mysterious way, because we now have cardinals, blue jays, possums, chipmunks, and marble lizards living back there too.
For context, I live in Ridgewood Queens, so this feels absolutely insane. Loving every second of it but god damn
I've found that it's bringing the bugs back in general that causes this wave. Perhaps you or someone near you has planted some new stuff, or let some stuff grow wild. Like someone stopped mowing, and suddenly the bugs have a place to live and explode.
A friend of mine moved to Texas and became a beekeeper. Doing what they can!
Taking the hard path!
The USA can take this large losses, they have relative few hives and can easily import bees if needed.
IIRC there are 2 million hives in the USA with 100 Million managed hives world wide. A lot of the 2 million hives in the USA are managed by big commercial beekeepers (1000+ hives) and I doubt a lot of them take the survey. While I've heard about higher winter losses from commercial beekeepers I doubt they are this high.
I work with/for a european commercial beekeeper and we had low winter losses 3%. While the hobby beekepers had a record high loss according to the national survey 30%.
Isn't the high death rate an indicator of problems with the general insect population? While bees are important pollinators, so are wasps, flys, butterflys and many more, that cannot rely on active measures to recover.
Not the bee news I was hoping to see on Beehaw ☹️
Lemmon Grass attracts bees! Use this information as you will.
Native flowers attract bees and offer pollen + nectar for them :)
Don't forget that honeybees aren't the only bees nor the only pollinators. Ask your local university or beekeepers / native plants association about what you can do to help out in your area!
Flowers attract bees. The best sources of food for bees are wildflowers native to your area. Bees especially like blue and purple flowers because they see this color range particularly well.
Honey bees have no business being in the USA in the first place. They are an invasive species. They cannot pollinate our local plants, and they displace our native pollinators. They are harmful to our ecology in North America. The only reason they are here is to be exploited as agricultural animals, but you've been manipulated into fearing that your entire food system is predicated on an insect that in reality produces nothing but sugar syrup.
My impression is the problem is primarily pesticide use is too ubiquitous. Help normalize pesticide free environments and you help bees.
In the case of bees, Neonicotinoids are a particular problem.
Edit: Another article
Starting bee gardens and planting bee-friendly seeds wherever you can (provided they are not invasive to your area!)
But lots of seed companies offer "bee blends", westcoastseeds offers seeds for this purpose. - Im sure similar wildflower mixes are available in different regions and countries.
I know this doesn't eliminate pesticide use but every pesticide free patch of flowers helps
One concrete thing to do is to work with your governing body to promote diverse crop rotations. Ask them to end subsidies for single-crop farms, especially crops that don't serve as a food source for bees or have been made toxic by pesticides (frequently found on massive corn farming operations).
Just would like to note that honeybees are not native to the US, we have tons of native pollinators
Still sucks though
Despite big annual losses the situation is a far cry from 2007 when many bee experts expected an end to managed pollination said U.S. Department Agriculture research entomologist Jay Evans, who wasn’t part of the survey.
“There are threats certainly in the environment and honeybees have persisted,” Evans said. “I don’t think honeybees will go extinct but I think they will always have these sort of challenges.”
And then consider the part of the US non-honeybees that died without any beekeepers to stabilize their population.
A good portion of that half that died are the fuckers I stumbled upon in the woods that ended up stinging me.
I used to have several hives in Texas until moving out East. The heat and droughts were brutal for them. We were constantly trying to split healthy hives to increase success for our queens.
This coming spring I’ll try to add two hives to our backyard as the city allows for up to 3 hives per residence. I’m hoping the more temperate climate and docile queens will help our area.
How much work per month do you find them?
I'd love bees on our property but I don't have the time to do lots of maintenance.
On that note I wonder if I can pay a keeper to colocate a colony on my property....
@darknavi@vlemmy.net Surprisingly, there is not that much maintenance on beehives. They are incredibly efficient and sufficient on their own. When I add my two hive boxes next spring, I’ll be present enough at home to periodically check hive activity and do minor hive body inspections.
The most active you’ll be in the care of the hives is during winter (your climate may vary). In colder months when flowers don’t bloom, we cook sugar water to have for hive feeders so they are well fed. Outside of that, let nature take its course. It’s very rewarding and fun to provide a means for you and your neighbors to have pollinators and local honey.
There are plenty of “starter kits” or “garden kits” that allow for ease of entry into beekeeping.