I did do a bit of research but it seems unclear if getting stung more times would eventually give me near immunity, or flare into anaphylaxis. Anyone with experience on this is welcome to chime in.
As a side question, do you think bees are treated ethically by the industrial farming complex? Does that question even apply to bees? Not coming in with preconceived judgements, I'm genuinely curious
CCD: I believe that CCD is primarily caused by increased pesticide usage, glyphosate being the most common.
Are bees treated ethically by big farms: I believe the better question is, "Is our philosophy of farming unethical for any participant?" If the answer is yes (for even one identifiable participant), then I find that it will be unethical for every participant. Answer: optimize for sustainability, not for production alone.
Does the ethical treatment q relate to bees? Absolutely. See these movies... they are pretty one sided, but should be of interest: Queen of the Sun & More Than Honey
Well said. I like the cliche: If any of us are oppressed, then none of us are free.
I believe that CCD has multiple causes and dimensions. Bees are very specifically evolved, and much like any overtrained system, have weaknesses. A population of bees is always under stress - varrora destructor (a terrible kind of bee mite), various bacterial, viral, and fungal infections, other bees, predatory insects/animals, and more. Bees constantly fight to overcome these threats.
Now, with the introduction and high usage of pesticides/herbicides, we've pushed them over the edge. More so than glyphosate (RoundUp), I think neonicotinoids are the most dangerous chemical. Active in low PPM, long lasting (decade+), and just dangerous enough to bees to make a CCD incident possible.
Bees' direction finding is really incredible - imagine driving hundreds of miles away to a building with only the angle of the sun and a heading to work with. Neonicotinoids make bees "drunk" for lack of a better term - they cannot find their way back home. Only the oldest bees go out to forage. That way, if they get lost or sick, they're more likely to die and they've already achieved much of what the hive needs of them. If less foragers return, you have less food for the hive, so less new bees are made. Over time, as the bee population ages, you're left with less and less foragers, less and less bees, until you open your hive one day and find a handful of dead bees, a dead queen, and starved larvae. This is a classic depiction of CCD.
As for the ethical treatment of bees - as insects, I don't believe they have an ethical or moral component. They are put under great stress every year to pollinate almonds - it is the greatest bee mixer/spring break in the world. It is also how we get all the bee diseases/pests spread quickly. I'm more concerned about the treatment and sales of honey. Supermarket honey is very suspect - overcooked, mixed, strained to remove any "impurities". Sometimes it isn't even real honey or has been relabelled to be local when it isn't.
Not sure I am more concerned about the treatment of honey than I am about the overuse of pesticides (ethical treatment of bees), but I do agree that honey as a product is important. IMO, one cannot do more to "help bees" than to buy your honey local, natural (non-augmented food sources), and raw ("unheated": less than 118degf, but only to 100degf if possible).
Thank you. I had not read this explanation before.
Understanding the actual mechanisms can help elevate the discussion, move us past the emotional "Monsanto and pesticides bad!" rants to something more constructive.
Great posts, please keep them coming.
I can offer a few examples.
Varrora Destructor is a mite that afflicts colonies - it is voracious and a pain to get rid of. One of the best non-chemical ways to treat a colony is to dust it with powdered sugar or lay petroleum jelly in dishes out. The bees, once dusted, trigger their cleaning behaviour - they begin grooming themselves to get rid of the sugar. This also dislodges the mites. The jelly works the same trigger, except requires the bees normally clean themselves, spreading the jelly all over themselves, which makes the mites unable to stick. Both of these behaviours can be enhanced by breeding "hygienic bees" - bees that groom themselves more often and quickly rid the hive of dead/dying bees and larvae.
Bees, when hungry, will eat sugar syrup to survive. You can feed your bees to get them through the winter or other dearths in nectar supply. However, bees will automatically stop taking syrup when the nectar returns - you can always tell when things are blooming enough because they'll ignore your offered syrup. You can also add essential oils to your syrup to increase uptake - lemongrass and peppermint.
People think the queen controls the hive - in truth, nobody is in control. If the workers think the queen is failing, they'll start raising a new queen, then kill the old queen (or let the new queen do it). Bees that are placed in a hive that is not their own will "switch sides" to the new hive within a few hours to days after being placed nearby - the pheromones the queen gives off links them together.
An 84.3% increase in honey production. That said, I don't think there's any research on long term impacts.
Anyway, I have a big organic wildish garden, & I notice a big variety of pollinators (as large as my thumb almost, in orange or black, to as small as grain-of-rice size, banded & hovering). Yes, commercially, we rely too much on one species, but at least in Silicon Valley, I do notice we have a diversity of pollinators healthy & thriving, just as we have a diversity of smart people from around the world doing the same. If only those engineers could make honey. (Actually, never mind about that. I do NOT want your honey, only the bees please)
[1: http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263]
Sounds like a fun topic for a blog of the "updates once or twice a year with results from the latest experiments"-kind. Can you share some examples of programming that you did that the average beekeeper wouldn't think of?
Every single beekeeping book has a chapter on selling honey, because all beekeepers are flush with it. When you consider that most of the "hours" spent making honey are spent by the bees, I could see making $50-$100/hr (but not necessarily translating that to $100-$200k/year)
You'll never make that much as a hobby beekeeper. The real money is in pollination.
That said, the hours worked calculation for me last year was $650 / 10-15 hours or so.
I take this as a confession of guilt in the enslavement of poor unwitting bees. Nobody told 'em a bunch of humans were gonna steal their booty. And to top it off, they don't get pissed and stop making -- we steal, and they just still keep making more for us to steal... ;)
So, IMO, try bee keeping[1][2] and see if it starts to change your culture :)
[1] http://www.beesource.com/ [2] http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm (not affiliated)