It is great and currently necessary we use them the way we do. It makes one wonder in the age of AI and evolving farm practices, can we start finding ways to cultivate already-climate-adapted native bees to do the work? Can we leverage adaptations for specific crops?
I get it that honeybees work great at pollinating monoculture fields, etc., but that does not change the fact we are perpetuating a square peg in round hole problem and pushing it very very far right now, at greater and greater cost, all while climate change is fighting us.
The hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.
To add, varroa quickly gains immunity to the pharmaceutical treatment we have, so the same medication cannot be used 2 years in a row. Most popular treatment from late 90s that used to kill 99% of varroa is now completely ineffective.
It was explained to me this is well planned and solved in Czechia. Varroa treatment is refunded my the government, but only one type of medication every 6 months. It's cheaper for beekeepers to use whatever the government gives them for free, than use something else. And the medication is free only for a few weeks, so everyone will use it at the same time.
And, by the way - natural pathogens exist in just about any population. These very, very rarely led to extinction. There is a media trend to claim the mites are at fault. This reminds me of prior fault yielding e. g. "mad cow disease" - and then the media also stopped doing any further investigation at that point. It's as if they have break points where you can not go past those points. Now it is the mites that get blamed.
Pesticides are bad for bees, but Varroa is too. Until Varroa arrived in Australia the bees there didn't suffer from colony collapse, despite high pesticide use.
As article suggest - it is fully biodegradable. I suppose venom has some short half-life. And since peptide is isolated, not full chain toxin, it should be harmless to humans.
Honeybees are not native to North America.
It is great and currently necessary we use them the way we do. It makes one wonder in the age of AI and evolving farm practices, can we start finding ways to cultivate already-climate-adapted native bees to do the work? Can we leverage adaptations for specific crops?
I get it that honeybees work great at pollinating monoculture fields, etc., but that does not change the fact we are perpetuating a square peg in round hole problem and pushing it very very far right now, at greater and greater cost, all while climate change is fighting us.
If they are not native, how did plant propagate seeds? Flies? Wasps? Butterflies?
The hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.
To add, varroa quickly gains immunity to the pharmaceutical treatment we have, so the same medication cannot be used 2 years in a row. Most popular treatment from late 90s that used to kill 99% of varroa is now completely ineffective.
It was explained to me this is well planned and solved in Czechia. Varroa treatment is refunded my the government, but only one type of medication every 6 months. It's cheaper for beekeepers to use whatever the government gives them for free, than use something else. And the medication is free only for a few weeks, so everyone will use it at the same time.
No. The mites are not what is killing the bees.
And, by the way - natural pathogens exist in just about any population. These very, very rarely led to extinction. There is a media trend to claim the mites are at fault. This reminds me of prior fault yielding e. g. "mad cow disease" - and then the media also stopped doing any further investigation at that point. It's as if they have break points where you can not go past those points. Now it is the mites that get blamed.
Lotta unsubstantiated claims you're making there.
The negative government prior is unusually attractive.
Some potentially seriously good news there if it all pans out the way it sounds like it might. Fingers crossed for the bees!
This assumes the mites are what kills the bees. What is that asssumption is flawed?
Nah, it cannot happen that Big Agro's poisons are to fault...
Pesticides are bad for bees, but Varroa is too. Until Varroa arrived in Australia the bees there didn't suffer from colony collapse, despite high pesticide use.
So what's it going to do to the honey? Will we have spider venom laced honey?
As article suggest - it is fully biodegradable. I suppose venom has some short half-life. And since peptide is isolated, not full chain toxin, it should be harmless to humans.
Probably, but not at any meaningful concentration.
Still the honeybees keep on dying ...
Perhaps it is time to stop blaming the mites for the decline of the honeybees.