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Probably the same reason we had 40+ tornadoes, huge hailstorms, floods, and drought-enabled wildfires in six adjacent states within 48 hours. Anthropogenic climate change is real, whether you believe in it or not.
The upside is now farmers won’t have to worry about what to do with the crop surplus from trade wars, dismantled USAID, and defunded school lunch program.
Dont forget that time the hurricane hit Tennessee and it fucking flooded the mountains
Everything is totally normal
Well, one would expect mountainous areas to flood because elevation focuses water flow. I’m in Florida, flattest state in the union. We never flood except in hurricanes, and those floods don’t last like they do in other places, in and out.
Still… I expect hurricanes in Florida, not in Tennessee.
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Please stop saying sacreligious comments like this. It’s offensive to religious people.
Have you tried persecuting all the scientists yet??
They just got fired, together with anyone who might begin to fix this.
We’re pretty sure it’s the Monsanto pesticide and anyone who suggests it is hit with a litigation threat. Curiously, as we’re speed-breeding domesticated bees the wild bees are dying out faster, so as the bee population dwindles it also becomes more domesticated and less wild. I know that’s a bad thing, but I am fuzzy on the why details.
I’m a brown thumb, and plants wilt as my shadow falls on them, but if you’re a green-thumb, plant pollinators, which will help the bees.
Also plant milkweed for the monarchs.
Some beekeepers actually mentioned that they’ve been scraping the beeswax clean off their hives more frequently because its known that the beeswax collects pesticides and herbicides over time which affects the colony due to exposure.
The problem is its not just monsanto acid, there’s a ton of other issues also correlated like weather/climate, seasonal flowering, untreated parasites, bacteria, etc.
We’ve literally nuked the environment so hard that even if we fix one problem, the population will not make a full bounce back (although I would think monsanto is the biggest threat)
Biggest scam of this century was corporate produce monoliths convincing people Organic was about health and not the fact that it doesn’t use a scorched earth policy and scam one off hybrid plant seeds to grow food which has been setting us up for a widespread fammine for decades.
Some random superweed is gonna crossbreed with some rapid out of control growth plant and wipe out half of the food chain.
Plant native. Plants that are native to your ecosystem. Those are the true pollinator powerhouse plants that bees need to survive
Also, the domesticated bees are generally honeybees. And unfortunately, honeybee and wild bees don’t fulfill the same rile, so even if we replaced wild bees with honeybees 1:1, we still wouldn’t be able to polinate everything.
I know it’s likely pesticides, but have we officially ruled out bee assassins?
You mean wasps? They have been pretty quiet lately…
Ah cmon now, stop spreading conspiracy theories. They probably just couldn’t prove citizenship and were deported.
All those darn African killer bees! Stealing all the jobs!
i personally just think the bees are sentient and have depression
Isn’t pesticides just bee assassination on a mass scale? Thus, I argue, we cannot not yet rule that out.
I definitely don’t want to downplay a crisis, but I feel like I’ve been seeing headlines saying “all the bees are dying and we don’t know why” every year for nearly 20 years now.
I’m no bee expert. Just seems to me, based on the headlines, bees would’ve been extinct 10 years ago.
Some cursory searching led me to Colony Collapse Disorder which seems to have no agreed-upon cause. It appears devastating losses to honey bee colonies started being reported around 1900. But it also mentions:
In 2024, the United States Census of Agriculture reported an all-time high in commercial honey bee hives (mostly in Texas), making them the fastest-growing livestock segment in the country.[38]
Link to the source cited there: https://archive.is/nfeb2
Apparently last year saw the largest honey bee populations in US history. Though they write that huge boom in honey bee population is a threat to other native pollinators, so I guess that presents its own unique problems.
Usually, when people talk about bees dying, they mean wild bees. Unlike honey bees they aren’t cultivated by us. They also tend to be better pollinators than honey bees, adapted to local plants that honey bees can’t handle well.
The issue is OP is spreading misinformation. You‘re right, we haven‘t lost 80% of the bee population, because this was a hypothetical statement in the article saying it would have consequences if it happened.
Best comment lmao
The people need their ads (or whatever the reasoning is), show some compassion, in a few decades they’ll only be seeing the same Nuka Cola ad everywhere.
I have a decently locked down browser and adblocker. The real page loads faster for me, takes no archive resources, and other have pointed out other benefits of preserving the canonical link as well.
Also, bees usually survive cold winters, which could be a thought for last few months.
it’s the European honey bee that’s dying in unprecedented numbers
but it’s not all bees
European honey bees are the easy button for farmers but they are going to have to decide if pesticide is more important or not
this nobody knows what’s happening is bullshit provided by the likes of the Monsanto and other chemical companies
They (save for a smarter minority) are 100% gonna decide that pesticides are more important. Until they learn they aren’t, but it will be too late.
The company that makes roundup and the GMO plants that can resist it will decide for them
Roundup is an herbicide, not a pesticide.
I’m not too up to date with this story, but haven’t pesticides been used for forever now? Why would the suddenly cause a 80% drop in population?
I think bee populations are under threat from pesticides, habitat reduction, disease, climate change, nutrition, et cetera.
Of that list, pesticides are probably the easiest to solve.
It’s not the same pesticides year over year. My bet is some MBA pushed a tweak to the formula for short term gains.
resist
Honey bees are dying but you can help native bees in your area. Find out what they like and plant that shit. Also just letting weeds grow helps a lot of species.
I get leafcutter bees at my place as well as a few other solitary species
Making bee hotels for solitary bees is child’s play. Take a chunk of wood, drill holes, hang in a tree.
Technical aspects:
- Don’t use pressure treated lumber, anything else is fine.
- Look up “solitary bee hotel” for your area to see what size holes to make for the locals. In any case, it’s going to be a variety of different sizes to cover all your bases. Doesn’t have to bee (heh) perfect.
- Make the holes, especially the edges, nice and smooth. They’re not dumb enough to nest their if the hole is raggedy and might jack up their wings.
That’s mostly it. You can research easily enough in an hour or less There’s a woman on YouTube that sells bee hotels and has solid advice for making your own. Wish I remembered her name. Anyone?
Damned satisfying when you find the holes plugged with wax! You have new tenants! Stupid easy and basically free.
CAVEAT: These things are single use. Chunk 'em out every season, or better, burn them. Keeps the mites out. Make another for free.
I can’t do that! What about my nice green grass lawn? /s
My city will put a letter in my mailbox telling me to get rid of weeds and fine me $150 if I don’t. Rip
Ouch. I have been trying to plant native plants in our garden. Luckily I don’t have anything like that in my city.
How do they enforce that? HOA?
The actual city sends a fine. If you don’t clean it, they send a crew. If you don’t pay for the crew, they lien the property.
Source: got letter from the city a week ago.
In fairness, I’ve been dealing with a lot and there were some areas that looked like we were abandoned. I’ve been meaning to clean out the unwanted stuff so the flowers can grow. My lawn is mostly moss and clover and that’s not what they cared about.
Cities have a lot of soft power in that regard. Mine, just as an example, bans parking on grass. Even if you’re not in a fancy neighborhood, and have been parking on your lawn underneath the spreading oak tree for the last 50 years, they can ticket you for it (and tow) if they feel like being ornery.
I think the usual wording for grass/plants goes along the lines of property values and nuisances to bring it within legal frameworks for what they can regulate.
Weeds? I thought they were pests
Weeds aren’t really a thing. A weed is just a plant we don’t like.
weeds are to gardens like my house is to HOAs.
G
As long as you mow them it’s all good. Just having a yard with anything than just a monoculture grass is better.
honeybees are an invasive species, fun fact
unfortunately they outcompeted a lot of the native pollinators so we’re fucked without them though
humans are a more invasive species, probably the most
No “probably” about it.
Dunno man. That army ant seems pretty powerful too.
Bees live less than two months, so if only 80% of bees died in the last 8 months that would suggest a sharp recent population increase. And even if you take it as read that it means bees dying and not being replaced, 8 months is still a terrible timeframe to use because it’s literally saying “there are 80% fewer bees now, at the tail end of winter, than there were at the height of bee season”.
I’m not saying there isn’t a bee crisis, just that this factoid is very badly worded.
Without looking at data it could also mean “beginning 8 months ago we noticed a downwards trend of bees compared to the prior year(s) that culminates to an 80% decline at the time of writing.”
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The running thought is these non-native European honeybees couldn’t find forage at the right times due to climate change and these massive commercial hives died of malnutrition. That’s why introduced species and monoculture agriculture don’t work out so well.
Okay, but European honeybees in the US aren’t exactly new afaik. That would be like if all of the sudden, 80% of wild horses up and die and the answer is “well, they’re an introduced species, so it only makes sense”.
Remember that honey-producing bees are terrible pollenators compared to the specific pollenators who don’t produce honey. The honey producing bees being kept by everyone are artifically outcompeting the specific pollenators, which are what we really need to be supporting.
Okay, but how do I personally monetize non-honey making bees? Sure, the general ecology needs this, but what’s in it for me, right this instant?
Hey, it doesn’t need to be right this instant. It could instead be projected revenue next quarter.
Those bees sure have plenty of legs for plenty of bootstraps
All you can do is add to pollen I guess. Plant seeds of native plants that bees love. Indiscriminately in random places.
Maybe someone else has some better ideas.
Tear out the lawn and re-wild the yard? Wild flowers, clover, etc. Less watering and mowing, and not just bees will love it - all kinds of insects and wildlife from birds to deer.
I meant around town and such, but yeah, wild yards are cool too. Easier to maintain flowers and clover and stuff.
A bee petting zoo! Bumblebees are very cute and very fluffy. Having a petting zoo would help people get I touch with nature, and if the guests are too belligerent about it then the bees will just sting them. I think that bumblebees might also not die after stinging, and if so they’d learn how to fight humans. When the time is right you can unleash a swarm of cute fluffy bees trained in anti-human warfare. You could use them to crush any competition. If you still want more money you can become a bee-based supervillain and rob banks or something.
I was watching some of my native plants and noticed a fair amount of house flies crawling on them. So, I looked it up. It turns out that flies as a group are the second most important pollinator behind bees as a group.
LETS KEEP PUMPING CAPITALISM UP
NEW IPHONE WITH AI LETS GOOOOO
Sorry for getting all excited, it’s just we don’t have much time.
I’m not a bee, you’re not a bee, so it sounds like a them problem.
(On the internet, nobody knows you’re a bee.)
You can say whatever you want about them in text. As long as you don’t dance it, they’ll be none the wiser.
make sure you retract words like bias and gender from your articles and they will come back. they are just extremely bigoted.
