#bee decline

Australia has a high prevalence of solitary bee species: that is, bees that don’t live in colonies or hives and potentially don’t even make honey. Nicknamed the “Bee Man,” his dream is to ensure no more go extinct.

23-year-old Clancy Lester’s interest in entomology was first ignited when he embedded himself with the Yolŋu (that’s pronounced YOL-gn-oo) Aboriginal people in Australia’s Northern Territory, and saw first-hand how their livelihoods were affected by declines in native bee species.

Annual harvests of honey from native bee species not only represent a joyous and nutritious part of their traditional diets but also a feature in traditional songs and fables.

Declines in the populations of honey-making bees, which Lester says is due to a combination of habitat loss and over-application of pesticides in agriculture, is slowly robbing this and future generations of Yolŋu people of their birthright.

Seeing empty hives, he told ABC News AU, lit a “fire in his belly”.

These days, Lester conducts school workshops and community-based conservation projects teaching how people can make simple changes to make room for bees, either planting native species and converting median strips and road verges into native floral beds, or building bee “hotels.”

Domestic beehives linked to spike in viral infections in nearby bumblebee populations 

Many species of wild bumblebees are in decline -- and new research shows that diseases spread by domestic honeybees may be a major culprit.

Several of the viruses associated with bumblebees' trouble are moving from managed bees in apiaries to nearby populations of wild bumblebees -- "and we show this spillover is likely occurring through flowers that both kinds of bees share," says Samantha Alger, a scientist at the University of Vermont who led the new research.

"Many wild pollinators are in trouble and this finding could help us protect bumblebees," she says. "This has implications for how we manage domestic bees and where we locate them."

The first-of-its-kind study was published June 26 in the journal PLOS ONE...

Here’s what it says in the vid and what I think about it. 

Haha mentionning vomit when talking about honey, nice one, PETA. Yup honey is bee vomit, but in fact not. Just like pollen is fucking flower sperm and some fruits are fucking vegetable ovaries yet you still eat that, fuckers

they don’t tear off the wings, they clip one tiny side off so they won’t escape ONLY IF THE QUEEN WAS OBTAINED THROUGH SELECTIVE BREEDING SO IT WONT ESCAPE AND SPREAD the others are fine thanks (maybe US beekeepers do that, in specific apiaries. Just don’t buy industrial honey and you’ll be fine)

“use chemical sprays to manipulate bees for their own gain” wot ? here a little parenthesis. Chemical is a no word. Everything is made of of chemicals. You. Your mom. Your cat. Your fucking laptop. EVERYTHING. Just using the word “chemicals” doesn’t mean shit. anyway back to this sentence : WHAT CHEMICALS ?! the picture there shows a guy with smoke. You don’t want to use smoke ? Use water. It gets sticky and isn’t really nice for the bees (a lot less than smoke) but it works. Or else you can find an extremely big umbrella and put it over the hive before coming so the bees won’t see you. Not... really... working but works better than nothing. Also I’ve used nothing and depending on your bee species it can work. By the way smoke (usually from wood pellets) doesn’t make bees sleep, it makes them think there’s a fire nearby and thus enter the cells to get as much food with them as possible. THATS IT Other chemicals involved in honey bee handling are MEDICAL TREATMENTS (not all working and not all I would recommend, especially the organic thymol one that fucks up bee brains but this is not the subject). You’d rather your colony dies ? Okay. 

thousands of bees are killed during harvesting process. The bee they show is not a honey bee. It is not dying but probably cleaning. Thousands of bees don’t die whenever you open a hive, if you are good enough NONE will, and if you are regular like me you will happen to kill one or two depending on what you’re doing. THATS IT 

they steal the honey and replace it with sugar water. NO ? Just no. Maybe bad beekeepers do but you know what ? It’s so fucking counterproductive. This is why bee hives have supers. Because the more room they have the more honey they’ll store and then there’s enough for bees and bee keepers alike

Many bee species are facing collapse because we exploit them. FALSE. Bee species collapse because they are not monitored and are faced with habitat loss, ressources dwindling, pesticides, pathogens and climate change (Goulson 2015 is here for you). HONEY BEES the ones that we are monitoring collapse... well... they aren’t collapsing. Only in USA EUROPE and JAPAN. In the rest of the world colonies are increasing and live well, thanks. Hm would it be because beekeepers in the west give up ? I wonder. Not buying honey from them will do that 

See my article about vegan honey (which is ! surprise ! heavily sponsored by PETA !!) for more thoughts about vegan honey 

You still think I am wrong and the little cunts at PETA are right ? Come at me bro, I’ve got 3 years worth of PhD research for you. And accessorily a PhD. On honeybee decline. 

You think I’m violent? See PETA ads. See vegan propaganda. We’ll see who started being violent first. 

A near-total ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on crops in Europe has been introduced following a vote in the European Commission. From 2019 onwards, almost all outdoor uses of the chemicals will no longer be permitted.

The proposed ban gained a large majority backing from the twenty eight EU member states when it was put to the vote at the end of April 2018. When a similar ban was…