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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.
Hurricanes are known to travel in land and up North though. The fact a hurricane hit Tennessee isn’t odd. It was the strength and the length it lingered over the state that made it devastating.
It’s always the lingering part. What was that one that fucked Houston not long ago? Sat on top of them forever. Hurricane Ivan was like that down here. Only a CAT-3 at landfall, but I listened to that freight train sound for over 10 fucking hours.
Anthropogenic climate change is real, whether you believe in it or not.
You know who believes in climate change? Fossil fuel companies, insurance companies, the military industrial complex, and every single politician talking about buying or taking Greenland by force. All the very same people who have spent the past half century publicly denying the existence of anthropogenic climate change. Not only do they believe in it, but they are designing their profit models around it at our expense.
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Slap her in the face for me.
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.
And the US government banned words related to climate change from any future studies. If your grant proposal includes those keywords, it’ll get denied automatically without a human even looking at it.
Refer to Ambience Adjustments in your research proposal?
Make America Green Again
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
I forget the term for non native, non invasive plants (naturalized?) but those are good too. Native is best, of course. I see a ton of carpenter bees (native bees to my area) on my red clover (non native, non invasive).
Unfortunately, naturalized plants are not good. It’s a scale, with invasive plants being extremely bad. Naturalized plants aren’t as bad. But still bad
In the end, our native insects rely on native plants (with extremely few exceptions to not be distracted by). A native plant can support hundreds or even thousands of species.
A non native / naturalized plants cannot support even a fraction of that. They can also support… Non native insects. Which in turn fuck up the ecosystem, either by displacement or direct damage.
I’m not gonna tell you to rip out naturalized plants like clover. I’m not gonna say you should destroy your garden. You should just know that native plants are superior in literally every possible way, and your NEXT plant choices should be as native as you can get :)
If you can suggest native ground cover that is low maintenance and easy to start I’d consider it. I’m not going to put plugs in my yard when I can just over seed with clover. Clover is strictly better than turf grass.
It is better than turf, but I’m not talking about grass lawns, I’m talking about plants like for a garden. It’s better to have more garden plant masses, less grass lawn.
Most people don’t need as much lawn as they have and reducing down to more what you actually use is great, but it’s totally situational.
If you wanted a NorthEast suggestion for general ground cover I’d say wild strawberry. But if it’s like … Lawn then just stick with what you’re doing.
That’s a good point. I’ve got a little 4x4 raised bed. I didn’t do anything with it last year and haven’t gotten around to anything this year. I’m in the south east. I was considering just dumping a bunch of sunflower seeds in. I’ll try to do some research though and get something better.
Edit: turns out sunflowers are more native than I thought, but might be more Midwest.
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.
Honeybees cant buzz pollinate for shit, lazy ass bee
It’s Bayer’s now. Monsanto sold it to Bayer when they started getting heat for neonicotinoids killing all the bees.
I’ll hop in here and add that your locality probably does pesticide fogging/spraying. For what it is worth, you can ask them not you spray your property. Make some local wildflower patches in your yard. Less stuff you have to mow, more food and habitat for native birds and insects. It’s a win-win.
Native plant patches can also absorb some of the harmful crap like pesticides to a degree. It does help.
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.
Idk, I heard that trans people and immigrants are murdering bees.
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 guess I am going to be that guy…
Roundup is a pesticide. It is an herbicide, but it also is a pesticide. As are insecticides, fungicides, etc. Pesticide is the catch all, herbicide is the descriptive.
I appreciate your sacrifice. It would’ve been me if not you
Say what you will about RFK, but he’s broken clock right on a couple of issues, pesticides being one of them. Sure, maybe his rationale isn’t right, but his end game may be a benefit. Unfortunately it’s at odds with Trump’s complete destruction of regulation, but he (RFK) seems to be chugging along. I think making America healthy is good; I don’t think pesticides or ultra processed foods make kids transgender.
I don’t think pesticides or ultra processed foods make kids transgender.
Of course not. That requires being infected by a trans first - they work under vampire rules which is why we need to keep trans and children away from each other! /s
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
Different pesticides?
neonicotinoids were invited in the 1980s and it’s been recently understood that it’s like a forever chemical. it will get into the dirt and go through the plants and pass on through pollen
Finedust from traffic, mircoplastics, insecticides, GMO infertile weeds… etc. Bayer as well.
Haven’t you heard? Bayer and Monsanto are one. And Dow and Dupont have fused too. Together, Bayer-Monsanto and Dow-Dupont control over 60% of all grain seed production in the world. All your wheat, corn, rice… it’s all in the hands of these 2 companies.
I was worried so I looked for the source of the information, it seems to be from 'Washington State University" from their website they say it concerns “Commercial honey bee colony”, so it might not be all bees (I don’t know enough to say what the difference is exactly), they say “60 to 70% losses” (not 80), and they also say “Over the past decade, annual losses have typically ranged between 40 and 50%.”, so it is probably worrying but not as much as the CBS article was making it seem.
This is a really good article with some charts that make clear global bee populations are not nosediving. https://earth.org/data_visualization/bees-are-not-declining-everywhere-a-global-perspective-on-population-trends/
So there’s just 6,328 other crises to worry about…
so worry but not panicking yet. gotcha, nothing will be done then.
Part of the panicking should be wild bees. They’re dying at accelerated rates.
We also know why, commercial bee keeping is part of it, as is hobbies bee keeping.
And pesticides… and monoculture farming.
I don’t know whether you were satiric or not, but it feels like it, hard to tell on a text medium. No hard feelings either way 😄
If you were “mocking my post in a satiric way”: I didn’t mean to say that nothing should be done or that it was not a reason to worry. I actually believe we should protect our ecosystems, but I think we need accurate data and this kind of posts, even if they convey the “right” message according to me, are misleading and create false information about what is going on. I truly believe we should try to avoid doing this.
This story is about domesticated honeybees, which have been declining for decades due to Colony Collapse Disorder and other stressors. Native North American bees are in their own long-term decline, with 1 in 4 species at risk of extinction. However, domesticated honeybees are tremendously important for the pollination and yield of many crops important to humans, and this population drop, thought to be the largest annual losses seen, should be considered in the context of the longer decline, and the possibility that we could hit a tipping point when pollination, and a crucial pillar of our food system, could fail.
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.
The person in the article says you can’t keep up the industry if 80% of the bees die every year.
That’s $15 billion worth of crops.
They just can’t break out of that frame, even when the topic is EVERY LIVING THING FUCKING STARVING TO DEATH.
But also
“there are now an all-time high number of honeybee colonies in the US – 3.8m, around 1m more than five years previously.”
According to the guardian
We could always eat the rich.
The inherent problem with that is how few there are. Don’t get me wrong–yes, let’s do that, too.
It’s a good starting point. I have a feeling a lot of other solutions will become possible after that step.
Everybody says this. Nobody posts recipes.
They’re hoarding all the wealth and are a rich source of vitamins and minerals
Think of the shareholders!
This is why we’re doomed.
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.
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.
Also, what about bamboo
and don’t get me started on tumbleweed
Bees are not the only native pollinators, though, plenty are extinct
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.
No, the city rolls around and if there are things sticking up out of the ground high enough outside of a flower bed they take pictures and send you a letter
Send them a letter back with the definition of a weed.
a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.
If you want them there, they aren’t weeds.
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.
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.
Imma go out on a limb here and blame late stage Capitalism and some sort of pesticide or whatever that could solve the problem if it costed 5 cents more but the solution is to save that money and let the bees die.
Imma take my chances on that.
Idk about others, but mine died due to temperatures not reaching above 27 for 14 days straight.
there’s a crazy scene in the documentary More Than Honey where they compare beekeepers with US Almond Farm pollenators. It’s all about money and it’s sickening.
I was gonna quote the documentary too. My favourite scene was when they pollinated by hand and said: who’s better at pollinating? Humans or bees? It’s definitely not humans.
