Record Number of Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter | Hacker News Reader

Record Number of Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter

npr.org

205 pointspseudolus81 comments

Having started bee keeping myself, I think there is a lot at play here...

1. Mites - resistant to poisons that kill mites, but not bees are spreading. This can kill hives.

2. Temperatures - are changing, where I am at 33% colony loss is relatively common due to winters (and the bees not having enough honey to survive or it gets too cold). This has been the case forever though, at least in my region

3. Africanization - of honeybees has reduced their ability to withstand the cold.

4. Travel - Many of the commercial hives in the US travel vast distances to pollenate fields. The California almonds are a huge example. This very much stresses the hive.

5. Poisons - we know if you’re near a field doing crop dusting it can kill the hive. Combine with point #4 and this creates issues today.

One thing to mention, is that setting up a new hive is relatively easy. You take a new (or about to be) queen, some workers and separate them. They’ll form a new hive. This can be done once a year (or more) on a healthy hive in the spring. Meaning... we can double the bee population yearly. They recover very well, if we know what to do to minimize hives death.

1. Yet the industry still refuses to stop forcing honeybees to have abnormally long and large growth, which is the main factor in death by varroa.

2. Not really. None of the temperatures we're recording anywhere around the country are special. We've had extreme variations in seasonal temperatures forever.

3. Commercial bees aren't africanized.

4. And just like with #1, the industry refuses to make any changes to accomodate the fact that bees are bees. They want to continue to treat them as machinery and then complain that they keep "mysteriously" dying.

5. I have to be fair to the beekeeping industry here in that they really have no say in this. Industrial agriculture is a disaster.

> Africanization - of honeybees has reduced their ability to withstand the cold

Could this not reverse the Africanization?

Eventually, however if the rate at which the bees die is greater than the rate at which adaptations evolve within the species, they'll go extinct regardless.

Also remember that the honeybee is not native to North America and is technically an invasive species here. This along with domestication means lower genetic diversity making the honey bee population more susceptible to any single issue than our native wild bees.

This is actually a huge problem for the US honey industry right now. As bee kills become more of an issue, re-queening becomes more necessary, which puts even more pressure on breeding programs, which likely only exacerbates the genetic diversity problem.

> Also remember that the honeybee is not native to North America and is technically an invasive species here.

Yes, but they are also the only species (so far) that is commercially managed, and therefore easily counted and tracked. If Apis Mellifera is suffering, we can pretty safely assume that other, native species are also suffering.

5. seems like the only thing that is easy to change

We can control moving the bees around too. This would improve everything across the board.

Transportation are where mites are easiest to transmit. Travel is also easier to come into contact with poisons. The honey stock is also reduced, which make the bees less likely to survive winter.

it doesn't sound like it is easy to achieve, pesticide usage can be easily cut though with simple regulation

This simple regulation has been implemented in Europe. Have you seen the comments on that? ;)

Sadly with monoculture crops you can't just leave a hive in one place as there is only one type of flower available. During the off seasons these regions become food deserts for the bees.

So for diverse locations a bee hive can stay put, but set a hive down in an area dominated by corn or almond orchards only and you're going to stress the hive.

I heard from some keepers that they reduced the amount of honey they take and replace with sugared water, since that isn't an adequate replacement and they say it improved the amount of loss in winter quite significantly. Maybe taking all their honey plays a part?

Would be a shame since it is very tasty...

I was just at a beekeeping association meeting on Monday night and listened to a very experienced beekeeper talk about his wintering practice. He boils 1 quart of water, adds 10 pounds of sugar, and then lets it cool off a bit. From there he pours the syrup onto paper plates to form giant "sugar cookies" that get placed in the hive. Each hive is different, but the extra food helps ensure the bees survive if they run out of their stored honey.

Seems like it's a best of both worlds type of arrangement for him. He gets honey and the bees survive.

From what I understand about the idea of leaving more honey for the bees vs. providing only sugar as a food source and taking all the honey is the lack of nutrition as well as other effects eating pure cane sugar has on the hive. Eating only sugar is believed to weaken the hive and make it more susceptible to other pressures on the hive

Good list, but..

> Africanization - of honeybees has reduced their ability to withstand the cold.

has probably been saving a lot of North American bees (certainly in the wild).

Am. scutellata behavioral differences are vastly more beneficial than a typical European honeybee when it comes to survival everywhere in the Americas except the north. These bees forage sooner, store more pollen, build smaller colonies, swarm more frequently, and more strongly defend themselves against Varroa. In other words, they are survivors against still the number one threat to managed honeybees.

Yeah I watched a documentary on africanization and they saved that bit about varoa resistance toward the end. Nature is making a pretty big pot of lemonade there.

Weren't the scientists that accidentally released african bees in south america trying to study hybridization benefits? Ironically they are getting their wish.

Completely agree. I think one main goal of introducing an African/European hybrid was to improve the productivity in tropical and sub-tropical climates (Central/South America) and arid climates (parts of northern Mexico and southern US) where the introduced European bees were less well-adapted.

It's now well-documented that African bees are considerably more defensive, making beekeeping challenging, although not impossible. While this is less desirable for humans, it turns out to be a very valuable set of behaviors for bees in the right environment.

A beekeeping friend of mine here in Puerto Rico recently shared an article noting that Puerto Rican feral honeybees, which are basically killer bees that have relaxed somewhat and lost their aggression, are more resistant to hive death than bees on the mainland.

Although if I understand correctly, feral bees are already more resilient, probably due to the lack of travel.

Silly question but, looking at

> the bees not having enough honey to survive

can you give bees honey they didn't make?

Yes. They'd also take corn syrup or whatever other sweet liquid you give them, which may or may not be as good for them as honey. But when you're trying to make the most out of some tight profit margins, perhaps that isn't done.

"One thing to mention, is that setting up a new hive is relatively easy. You take a new (or about to be) queen, some workers and separate them. They’ll form a new hive. This can be done once a year (or more) on a healthy hive in the spring. Meaning... we can double the bee population yearly. They recover very well, if we know what to do to minimize hives death."

This seems like an easy way out of the problem. Is this being actively pursued?

Yes. Honeybees were domesticated thousands of years ago and have been with us ever since. They're not threadtened any more than, say, dairy cows or winter wheat.

We need to head off a future in which bee populations are so substantially reduced that we end up in a situation, such as exists in parts of China, where hand pollination is the only option [0].

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-plants-blossom-without-bees/av-...

Honey bees aren't native pollinators in North America. They're livestock.

That's a true and important fact that's often ignored in discussion of this topic, but it doesn't mean we couldn't end up in a situation where introducing significantly more expensive forms of pollination is necessary to maintain modern crop yields. Such yields aren't natural either.

Honey bees were brought here by humans, but there are also thousands of species of bees native to North America. The health of many of those species is unknown. Whatever factors are causing honey bees to die could be causing trouble for some native bee species too.

Most of the flowers the honeybees pollinate are also not native. Native bees can not pollinate these introduced species, and honeybees can't pollinate native species. They can, however, transfer varroa and nosemea and AFB and other diseases between native and introduced pollinator species. Some of these diseases come as spores in the bulk imports of Asian industrial honey.

You'd think we learned lessons from the black plague in Europe. Seems we did, just the wrong ones.

My uncle just started a small bee colony on his property. This will help his garden, the surrounding gardens, and the area as a whole. My work also has a few hives on each of our buildings rooftops.

So some people care but a larger majority do not. As humans we, especially in the west, don't care about a problem until it's too late. who cares about the bees when we have the latest iPhone Xr+ Max ultra

Worse, some people wear their lack of caring as a badge of pride. See 'rolling coal'.

Apathy is the greatest evil.

Active malice is worse.

My point is that it isn't. Apathy allows malice to exist unchecked. Apathy is the enabler.

One most people don't care about.

I've had urges to start one, but we only have a normal-sized back yard and two dogs, and I don't think that would mix too well. I already know one of them will try to eat bees when given the chance and I don't want them to get stung.

Is there a way to help without actually starting your own bee colony?

grow plants pollinators like

https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/plant-a-bee-garden/

Leave the dandelions in the lawn for the pollinators. They attract tons of bees, bumblebees and butterflies.

I guess I did good by getting sick for a month right when spring was starting and between that and the rain I didn't bother mowing for awhile and the dandelions took over the front lawn :)

they are also very tasty (you can eat many parts of them), and they will grow again if you leave the root in the ground :)

Bonus: Dandelion wine

If you live in a place that already has a good number of bees around: have pollinating plants, trees, bushes in your yard, possibly a (small) stream of water; know how to spot a swarm and have a bee-friend that you can call to collect the swarms.

Depending on where you live, seeding your lawn with white clover is a low-cost and low-maintenance way to provide food for local bees.

Grow locally native pollinator plants if you can, or any flowering plant.

We have a few hives and honestly it's just fun watching those guys work. Every single bee has a very small role, but in unison the operation that these dudes run is absolutely amazing. And spotting the queen is fun every time.

It's also amazing how different "races" of bees act completely different. We have a few hives with very calm bees, they never sting - I can operate on these hives with no protection. We also have hives with very aggressive bees who start stinging on even the slightest disturbance. They also differ in the way they collect nectar - the calm bees are a bit lazier and take their time, building up their honeycombs over time, whereas the aggressive ones send out a massive fleet of bees to collect absolutely everything there is out there early in spring. The aggressive ones also like to attack the calmer ones and steal their honey. Assholes.

Lots of people care. It is only that big multinationals like Bayer also care: They want to fill the world with pesticides, because it is in their own economic interest.

Those multinationals have concentration of power and influence. The power of the people is way bigger, but it is distributed.

In Europe neonicotinoids were restricted or forbidden. It is a never ending fight.

The war will never end until we manage to create food cheap enough without insects competing for it. This will be hydroponics, electrically creating ATP Adenosine triphosphate or whatever, but until that time comes they will try to exterminate bugs. The already have in a big way.

Please stop generalizing humans and the west like that, you know that's not true because you yourself are aware of it and can be a counter-example.

Simply insert the words 'the majority of' and you're good to go.

It's one thing to get annoyed by waste and consumerism, but "actively maintaining a beehive" seems like a high bar for caring.

“Get annoyed by waste and consumerism” seems like a low bar for caring. The problems will not go away unless the people take mass action.

Anecdata, but this year in my corner of England bees have been pretty subdued.

My house suffers from solitary mason bees abusing my lack of care for brickwork to enter my bathroom, where they typically then die by the dozen every week in spring/summer (the glass window misleads them towards a nonexistent way out). This year I don’t find anything like the “daily cadaver on windowsill” that I’m used to.

I also don’t see them around the garden as much as before. Definitely not my fault though, my lack of care for the garden is legendary.

I know bees have had a bit of a resurgence in England as a whole, though, so maybe it’s just my area.

Also anecdata, but we've had some success having replanted the garden with a variety of plants that produce more nectar than those we had previously. Although I don't think a hive has started anywhere, we've had plenty of solitary bees this year which we don't regularly see.

If anyone else would like to outfit their garden with some more bee friendly plants, we've had great luck with the following:-

1.Himalayan balsam 2.Yellow water iris 3.Gladioli 4.Common comfrey 5.Blackberry 6.Hedge bindweed 7.Honeysuckle 8.Sweet pea 9.Foxglove 10.Rhododendron 11.Lavender

(As per recommendations from the British countryside survey)

We've got a cotoneaster, which attracts so many bees you can hear the buzzing from inside the house (see http://www.conwybeekeepers.org.uk/new-beekeepers/planting-a-...). Cotoneaster is very easy to grow.

Where we are in Fife seems to have a thriving bee population - I wonder if its because there is no arable farming in the immediate vicinity (its all cows and sheep) - its probably over 10km in the direction of the prevailing wind before you get to anywhere that is intensively farmed.

Honeybees != Native Bees, In US we should be worried about Native Bees. If care of Honeybees spills over into care of Native Bees then that is great. If we instead work to supplant the native populations then we are not being very smart.

Honeybees/honey are an agricultural product.

> U.S. beekeepers lost nearly 40% of their honeybee colonies last winter — the greatest reported winter hive loss since the partnership started its surveys 13 years ago. The total annual loss was slightly above average.

So, was this really bad news? Or is just slightly bad? 40% is the most of 13 data points, but what's the average? 39%? 20%? It's completely absent from this article.

38%

You're comparing the total annual loss rate, which was apparently "slightly above average", to the loss rate just over the winter, which was 40%.

This article about the 2017 honeybee season mentions the difference. That winter, 31% of honeybees were lost, compared to ~28% the previous winter. https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/annual-honey-bee-colony-l...

We have a few hives in a field behind our house. We have noticed all the neighbouring fruit trees doing very well this year -- clutches of plums and apples weighing down the branches.

We have a funny looking bush in our garden that doesn't even have very large flowers on it - but bees (both honey bees and bumble bees) just love it - its always thick with them over the summer even though we have loads of other flowers in our garden.

What I particularly love is the sound of a number of bees - fantastically relaxing.

We have a similar one -- a Cotoneaster. Turns out bees love it in May.

I have a lilac bush that depending on the time of year you're bound to bump into (and bee bumped into) by the local bumble bees who are floating around it.

Bumble bees seem like they're perpetually out of control.

These fruits (from the Rosaceae family) are mostly self-incompatible, and depend a lot on bees.

We've had fruit trees and grown vegetables in our garden for getting on 10 years and started beekeeping 3 years ago. We've had huge amounts of produce ever since (UK).

We humans have a hard time dealing comprehensively with these multi-factor problems that have a synergistic destructive impact and tend to only take action if we think there is a simple solution. How can we coordinate large scale responses to help solve a problem like colony collapse disorder when there is no singular cause to blame ?

Do like the French and simply issue a blanket ban on some of the pesticides involved: https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/ban-on-neonicotinoid-insectic...

Some solutions are that simple. Stop doing the things that we know are bad. We had functioning agriculture before people started using this. Part of the problem is assuming these things are hard to solve. They are not but it does require measures that are inevitably going to hurt some companies with powerful lobbies. I don't see how this can be avoided though. There's probably a few more things that need to be banned. But this seems like a good start.

Exactly, we need to stop waiting until we have 1000% clarity on which ones are truly responsible. Ban them all and see if they recover in 5 years.

they should be banned by default until it is proven by the inventors that they cause no harm

What exactly will that do about the Varroa mites?

Since it is apparently multi-factoral it will remove one of the factors. Hopefully the bees will be able to cope better with the remaining factors.

Varroa mites eradicated feral honey bees in North America long before the new pesticides were introduced.

Neonicotinoids hinder bee's resistance to Varroa mites [1]. I believe industry exploited this by testing neonicotinoids in regions without the mites, so the adverse effect would be hidden, but I can't find a source right now.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190422112818.h...

The Varroa epidemic was widely publicized (and, again, apparently eradicated feral honey bees) in the 1980s, before the widespread use of neonicotinoids.

That does not imply neonicotinoids don't reduce varroa resistance.

For example, some bee types may be more resistant to varroa than others, so they were not eradicated in the first epidemics, but now that their resistance is lowered by neonicotinoids, they are being affected as well.

This is getting pretty close to special pleading. No matter what fact pattern we establish, I concede that there will be some narrative you can generate that will put the weight of the honey bee die-off on neonicotinoids. It's just unlikely to be a true narrative.

> No matter what fact pattern we establish

A hypothesis that matches observed data is not 'special pleading'. And even without said hypothesis, the observed 'fact pattern', as determined, among others, by this paper published in Nature [1], is that neonicotinoids are harmful.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44207-1

I keep thinking I want to start a small bee colony. The local university started a bee lab a few years ago:

https://www.beelab.umn.edu

Hello fellow Minnesota person. Now is a great time to do this. The state has actually started a program to fund homeowners making their yards more bee-friendly[1]. While the article doesn't have a ton of information about how to apply, I'm sure you can find some with a little digging, or maybe get in touch with someone from the U page you linked.

[1] http://m.startribune.com/program-pays-minnesota-homeowners-t...

Bloomberg's "Business of Bees" podcast is great: https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts/business_of_bees

They cover some of the issues relating to honeybee colony collapse.

I'm a second year beekeeper and my two hives survived a cold Kentucky winter.

what is the natural predator of the mites

I've seen other specific types of mites used to control them. 'Phytoseiulus persimilism' is a type of mite used to control 'two-spotted spider mites', which can feast on crops. The question is whether there's a species that would feast on the mites infesting beehives.

This post made me wonder to what extent cost/money could be reduced for people who are interesting purely in pollination of their own property or area and don't particularly care about actually harvesting any honey ever. It seemed like without being disturbed or having any of their honey taken, perhaps the convenience factor could be raised a bit which might let more people just have bees around as part of general landscaping. I've got a good few dozen semi-rural acres, there are bee friendly flowers, no pesticide usage, and for a low enough effort/investment I and I think plenty of others would be happy to contribute to the environment if it'd help.

But so far I haven't found a lot of solutions aimed specifically at this area, so I'd love to hear from anyone who has done this. It seems there are some old hive styles called skeps that are illegal for honey usage (since the hive is destroyed for harvesting) but would be fine if you don't plan to ever disturb them, but a straw basket doesn't look very durable over more then a year or two either nor do I think it'd work over a northern winter? It sounds like mites and diseases are always a risk factor which makes sense, but what comes after? If a hive setup was cheap enough it could simply be tossed (and burned/composted if it was all appropriate materials), but what is the sterilization procedure for something heavier duty? Some sort of toolless to disassemble metal general frame&body with wood/straw/whatever disposable insides seems like it'd be reliable: in the event of colony death since the natural bee interface bits could be replaced with fresh and the overall main box/framework could be put in a dishwasher or flat out baked in an oven for total sterilization. I don't know if anything like that exists, or if it makes more sense to go another direction and just use a bleach solution or whatever.

The other big suggestion I found for pollination-only, and the one that seems the most promising, is to forget about honeybees entirely and consider mason bees instead [1]. While it seems they won't survive a winter and need to be taken inside and refrigerated instead [2], they look extremely low effort and use very simple "hives" (they're solitary, so just blocks or tubes appear to be fine). I'd never heard of them until researching just now though, so perhaps they should get mentioned more in articles like this.

I think a significant slice of the public at least in principle could be enlisted to help out if given a clear path to do so, but are intimidated by the thought about the work that goes into maintaining real honey hives for honey. Those serve a real place and I know a lot of bee hobbyists enjoy it immensely, but pure-pollination efforts might be an area to explore or invest more in public outreach on? There is the inevitable question of "what can I do", and while some stuff is obvious harm-reduction territory (if you use pesticides, stop) proactive best practices seem less well known.

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1: https://smalltownhomestead.com/keeping-bees-for-pollination-...

2: https://raintreenursery.com/plantcare/2013/11/preparing-your...

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