If neonicotinoids are causing a long-term decline in bee populations, why does their introduction correspond with a global increase in beehives?
(Before we colonized this place, there were no wild honeybees: they're an introduced species).
Honeybees are livestock, not wildlife.
They can't be domesticated, and containing them after they swarm involves tricking the bees into thinking they are the ones making a decision (you can turn their hive 90 degrees after they swarm in summer and they will return in most cases, assuming they've found a new spot for a hive).
Also, mites (and foul brood) are still a pain in the ass and I can see why bees need a beekeeper to even stand a chance.
In 1989-1990 US honey Bee colonies were at about 3.5M. Neonicotinoids were introduced in the 1990's and since then the US Bee colonies declined to an all time low in 2012 (below 2.5M colonies). Since 2012 there was a small but steady uptick to just above 2.5M colonies; however, that is still down 1M and nearly 33% total since the introduction of Neonicotinoids.
In fact, the biggest decline was from 1990-1996 when the number basically dropped from 3.5M to 2.5M. My understanding is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) wasn't even acknowledged by the Government until 2006, which is odd because the decrease from 1996-2006 may have only been 2.5M to ~2.35M. Then again in 2006 our Government was championing the strength and stability of the housing market, so maybe they are just not the most proficient at interpreting numbers and data.
As to wild/ferral honey bees, they may be endangered but I assure you they do exist in the US. In fact my parents just has a wild hive removed from their property resulting in 80lbs of honey (including the comb). You can check out Willy the Bee Man, he runs the largest wild bee removal business in South Florida and his website includes some videos of the removals.
Nevertheless, your position is bee colonies have increased since the introduction of Neonicotinoids, which again may be true globally and in specific areas like Canada which you cite, but US data shows that is not true and we are at a net negative 1M (managed) colonies since their introduction.
Whether or not that is coincidence is beyond my point, as I said we know the mites have had a devastating impact on honey bees in the US, so we are left with the question why would the trend have reversed course (in the US) if entirely attributable to the mites? At least there is a theory I am aware of for the colonies reversing course despite the continued use of Neonicotinoids.
Moreover, there are studies that suggest of the 4,000 honey bee species in the US, only some were susceptible to Neonicotinoids while other species resistant, hence the major decline in the first 6 years since the introduction of Neonicotinoids and a slow taper off over the next 12 years until those susceptible species are gone leaving the resistant species which are now growing.
All things being equal, if the decline were solely attributable to mites, then what is your take on the US pattern for the initial huge decline followed by a slow decline and then the recent turn around? I know there has been some genetic modifications of both the mites and bees to address the issue, but that is more recent and wouldn't explain the big taper off in decline from 1996-2008 and it is not like they have been eradicated.
Specifically, I acknowledge the devastating impact of the mites, but believe because the patterns (I am aware of) suggest more.
I am thoroughly interested in the global data if it suggests the U.S. Honey Production Survey data is an anomaly in terms of net negative colonies after introduction Neonicotinoids.
I know approximately fuck-all about beekeeping. It should not be this easy for me to rebut arguments about neonic toxicity, but I appear to be holding my own on approximately 3 Google searches per day.
I am not a beekeeper either but for a time I did sell honey, up to 65,000 units per order and so I am familiar with USDA annual reports and USDA Honey Production Survey.
In fairness I seem to be one of the only people in the thread not challenging you about the impact of the mites; however, USDA reports has guided my limits on the losses attributed to mites. Not to provoke you but the Honey Production Survey shows colony growth from 1987 when you say the mites were introduced until 1990, thereafter the numbers began declining sharply.
>Now, look up the introduction and adoption dates for neonicotinoids.
By all accounts I see development in late 80's and adoption in early 90's, coinciding with the time period honey bee (managed) colonies saw nearly 33% decline, but essentially during the same period as mites were introduced sans those few years of growth after the introduction of the mites.
Just so you understand where I am coming from the USDA 2015 annual attributes under 20% of loses to mites, and only 5% to pesticides, but 15% to "other" and over 20% (more the mites) to unknown.
Maybe my Google skills are subpar, but I could not find a straight forward graph of honey bee colony number by year for Canada or globally, which is readily available with a US bee population by year Google Search. What I did see is Canada territories in 2008 on the low end losing 20% of colonies and 48% on the high end (but 1 year snap shot is not helpful), and this year a 3.8% growth which they said was record growth over the last decade. I eventually found a standalone statement that Canadian Government which attributed the majority of loses to mites, which supports what you are saying, whereas the USDA 2015 report attributes only 20% of loses to mites and 40% between pesticides/other/unknown.
Neonics aren't the reason varrao mites wiped out feral honeybees. The timeline for that argument just doesn't work.
The number of honeybee colonies in the US (where honeybees are livestock, not an indigenous species) is up since the announcement of CCD in 2006. Colonies are down since around 1990, when wild honeybees were wiped out by the varroa mite --- which mites remain the biggest stressor of honeybee colonies in the US.
I'm guessing that's not your assertion. But, of course, the argument you appear to be making is just as invalid.
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“Long-term population trends for the honey bee, the most important managed pollinator, are demonstrably downward.”
The varroa mite literally wiped out the feral honeybee population in the US. There are no more North American feral honeybees! Of course the long-term population trend is downward!
Bee populations have been demonstrably stressed for a very long time, and CCD and other more recent developments are yet another sign.
The need for beekeepers to aggressively split hives is a sign that things are going very badly for them, even if we manage to raise the number of colonies in the short term.
Note that there are plenty of other parts of our ecosystem that show signs of severe stress as well (e.g. amphibians, coral reefs, etc.); we may very well reach a tipping point where large swaths of various food chains catastrophically collapse.
The 2006 date cited for CCD isn't the government acknowledging CCD. It's the first published reports of CCD in commercial colonies. It's not a giant conspiracy.
It's also worth knowing that overwintering losses stabilized after 2006, and commercial populations hit record numbers afterwards.
Clearly, there are bee stressors other than "colony collapse disorder". But beepocolypse advocates use the term "CCD" as a cudgel in any discussion about stressors or population losses. No, can't do that.
I don't need perfect data. Any data will do.
It seems like data collection in the US has always been at the colony count + mortality level, which has obvious limitations, such as not looking at the colony health. I'd presume that people are looking at getting better information, but rolling that out will take a lot of time.
OTOH, there are lots of other signs that bees, other pollinators, and many other parts of our ecosystem are under enormous stress. I think we should rightfully be alarmed, not because of the bee's direct effect on us, but because it is also a relatively well-measured bellwether for the status of other natural services that other species provide.
Are you saying we don't have enough data to warrant taking any action, or are you just unhappy at how this is being presented in the media? Note that action also includes finding more data.
Any actual statistic I find, I'm sure someone can come up with a Calvinball objection to. I wouldn't mind if those objections came with their own data, but they tend to take the form of "no data is available to support this argument, ergo it should instead be supportable from first-principles reasoning". And then you find out 6 comments into the thread that the assumed first principles include things like "there are gazillions of wild honeybees in the US and they're all dying due to neonicotinoids".
Honeybee populations have not stabilized, although it is true that wintering losses have stabilized a lot in the last several years. Summer losses have been horrible in a worrying way, and we just don't understand why - this was unheard of in decades past. CCD specifically has been observed less in recent years but overall annual losses are not stabilizing and are far higher than economically acceptable. My data is from the USDA.
The overall message is that something (not all varroa) is still changing things now, and we don't quite understand it yet. Yes, the introduction of neonics also corresponds heavily to the worst of the varroa period and that should be taken into account. It doesn't mean varroa explains away every other problem.
The linked BBC article is only about non-honeybee species.
Similarly if you are making honey. If you have the right to make honey over an area that will support 100 beehives but you know that 20 of them are going to die, ten you will put in 120 beehives.
Commercial beekeepers know how to create new colonies by artificially triggering the split/swarming process. Thus, the logical response of commercial beekeepers to the colony collapse disorder is to keep extra colonies around. It makes complete sense.
Unfortunately, I doubt a similar adaptation is happening in the wild. We are losing wild pollinators and that may have all kinds of negative effects on the ecosystem.
That is, since bee populations are on the rise, neonics are not harmful to them.
You could just as easily draw the conclusion that neonics are helping bees.
Neither conclusion is valid.
Regardless, a better metric to consider re: managed hives might be annual colony losses, not total quantity of active hives. Of course beekeepers can make new hives. Thus far they are thankfully able to keep up with higher and higher losses each year (and honey and pollination prices are continuing to rise as more energy and money is put into raising bees instead of bee products).
This spike in losses is more recent than the varroa introduction. Graphing out one positive metric and pretending things haven't gone weird with honeybees in the past decade or so seems misguided.
Now how about the 'total hives' vs 'annual losses' issue? I think the metric you've chosen to indicate overall honeybee health is lacking.
There are some feral honey bees colonies.
Beekeepers tend to use annual colony losses for whatever reasons as a measure of overall apiary health. These are increasing (sometimes dramatically). For example, a commercial apiary may count 10% as normal and expected losses overwintering, while we are currently seeing upwards of 40-45% annual losses. The numbers can be replenished but this takes time and money and is the worrying unnatural trend that is being discussed. The absolute number of active hives at any given time is not necessarily a useful metric to measure declines.
Overwinter losses are probably around your number for the last several years but all-year losses are much higher. The USDA stated for 2013-2014, for example, higher summer losses than winter for the first time, for an annual total of 42.1% *
Regardless of the exact number, my point is still valid in discussing your original question.
[*] http://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2015/...