A new survey says America's honeybee hives just staggered through the second highest death rate on record, with beekeepers losing nearly half of their managed colonies. But using costly measures to create new colonies, beekeepers are somehow keeping afloat. Thursday’s University of Maryland and Auburn University survey says that even though 48% of colonies were lost in the year that ended April 1, the number of United States honeybee colonies remained relatively stable. Honeybees are crucial to the food supply, pollinating more than 100 of the crops we eat, including nuts, vegetables and fruits. Scientists blame parasites, pesticides, starvation and climate change for large die-offs.
    • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
      3·
      2 years ago

      Just would like to note that honeybees are not native to the US, we have tons of native pollinators

      Still sucks though

    • EnchiladaHole@kbin.social
      2·
      2 years ago

      My impression is the problem is primarily pesticide use is too ubiquitous. Help normalize pesticide free environments and you help bees.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
          1·
          2 years ago

          Another data point to fight against the deluge of “but it is not 150% established and shouldn’t we also look at <distraction>” “science” peddled by the pesticide industry:

          Cuba has zero problems with its bees. Literally zero. They gave up on pesticides first out of necessity (fall of the USSR), then leaned into it, pesticides are generally outlawed and only see very rare use on state-run rice fields, a tiny fraction of their total agriculture.

          The result is a very healthy bee population and flourishing honey exports. All of it passes EU organic certification with flying colours and tropical honey tastes real good so it’s not cheap stuff, either. Expect at least 30 Euro/kg as opposed to domestic rapeseed honey at 10 Euro/kg, or forest honey (generally the most expensive German stuff) at 16. EDIT: Actually the most expensive I could find was heather honey, 21 Euros. Never had it nor seen it in a supermarket.

      • Storksforlegs@beehaw.org
        1·
        2 years ago

        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

        • interolivary@beehaw.org
          2·
          2 years ago

          It’s understandable that that’s a sensitive issue for you, but the advice honestly is pretty accurate

            • Gil (he/they)@beehaw.org
              2·
              2 years ago

              I personally disagree with the sentiment that going child-free is the solution to ecological catastrophe. Any individual’s decision to have children, or not, hardly compares to the systemic issues within agriculture and natural resource management which are causing it.

              I thought beehaw was supposed to be the “nice” instance. You and others have done a wonderful job proving that otherwise today.

              Well, the original comment in this thread which upset you came from your own instance. From where I’m sitting, that comment has been pretty much the only not-really-nice interaction you’ve had all day on here. Don’t really see where this strawman is coming from.

        • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgMEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          …what? this is such an absurd non-sequitur. how do you arrive at this from “don’t have kids”. what is with kbin posters and takes like this man

          • Colombo@kbin.social
            0·
            2 years ago

            This is “don’t have kids” taken to its logical conclusion. Nothing absurd about this.

            Pains me that more people are unable to follow the chain of thoughts and reach this conclusion.

            Let me entertain a hypothetical solution. Would you suggest to Palestinians to “not have kids” to solve the ethnic conflict in that area?

            what is with kbin posters and takes like this man

            If anything, this is a non-sequitur.

            But maybe there is a grain of truth in there. People who were horrified that the lemmy dev and main mod of lemmy.ml was a proponent of hard left stayed away of lemmy (both SW and instances) and went to kbin instead. And since “don’t have kids” is mostly popular on the more extreme left… you get self-selected opinions.

            (honestly, I had no clue that I was not beehaw, just saw a braindead post and replied)

            • ffmike@beehaw.org
              3·
              2 years ago

              Telling one person that they can help out by not having kids is rather different from, as the dictionary says

              the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group

              Even suggesting to a whole group of people not to have kids is not the same as killing them.

              So no, it’s not a logical conclusion. It’s illogical rhetoric. But you do you, I guess.

              • Colombo@kbin.social
                0·
                2 years ago

                Telling one person that they can help out by not having kids is rather different from, as the dictionary says

                Your definition seems to be quite limited. Many acknowledged genocides would not be treated as such. According to Wikipedia, the UN Genocide Convention is much broader:

                Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people[a] in whole or in part. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.[1][2]

                Spreading an ideology according to which one shouldn’t have kids, thus preventing births, would fall into this definition.

                Even suggesting to a whole group of people not to have kids is not the same as killing them.

                You are correct, it is not the same as killing them, but no one was arguing that. Again, limiting genocide to the deliberate killing of individuals would be quite a lenient definition, and various laws that targeted various ethnic minorities would not be considered genocides, despite them being considered as ones and having the same exact effect. Consider forced sterilization. You don’t have to forcibly kill anyone, yet probably everyone here would agree that it is a genocide.

                • ffmike@beehaw.org
                  3·
                  2 years ago

                  You appear to be unable or unwilling to distinguish between “preventing births” and “voluntarily choosing not to have children.”

                  Not sure why you’re quite so interested in escalating the rhetoric here (forced sterilization? in a thread that started with individual action to save honeybees? really?) but in view of the first rule of Beehaw (“Be(e) nice”) I’m not interested in joining you.

                • Lionir [he/him]@beehaw.org
                  1·
                  2 years ago

                  Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people[a] in whole or in part. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.[1][2]

                  Spreading an ideology according to which one shouldn’t have kids, thus preventing births, would fall into this definition.

                  Even with this extended definition, your argument fails the most important criteria for genocide wtih the UN definition which is:

                  intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

                  And it also fails to mention that the argument being made is voluntary and so it wouldn’t fall under the act of :

                  preventing births

                  • Colombo@kbin.social
                    01·
                    2 years ago

                    Even with this extended definition, your argument fails the most important criteria for genocide with the UN definition which is:

                    The intent is always hard to prove. But I am glad that you agree that the only difference would be the intent ;)

                    Yet, if you read about some cases, you might see that the intent was not always proven or obvious, and some cases are considered genocide even without intent. For instance, take Holodomor, which is being more and more recognized as a genocide, even though unintentional. But I am happy to talk about other cases.

    • cd24@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      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).

      • OOFshoot@beehaw.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        We really do need to just straight-up ban pesticides, antibiotics, and synthetic fertilizers in agriculture.

        If there was a way for legislate that all farms needed to be mixed use, I’d go for immediately.