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Aartvaark t1_iwdm143 wrote

Reply to comment by octopusgardener0 in The lifespans of honey bees living in laboratory environments has dropped about 50% over the last 50 years, hinting at possible causes for the worrisome trends across the beekeeping industry, according to new research by University of Maryland entomologists. by Wagamaga

Screwing with nature introduces chaos. No matter how carefully bees are 'kept', they're still 'kept', not free to live their natural bee lives.

They adapt to keeping instead of nature. Of course they're going to mutate in favor of their new lifestyle.

I don't understand why this wasn't predicted and avoided.

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octopusgardener0 t1_iwdnsx0 wrote

Normally I'd agree with you, but beekeeping is actually heavily weighted in the bee's favor, they're free to leave if they feel the hive is unsafe or not comfortable (which I've had done), or if they feel it's a poor location for resources, and they've been bred through the millenia to produce more than they need. However, honeybees can actually be considered an invasive species to North America, and I recommend if you want to keep bees in your backyard and want a more naturalistic way of doing it, to look for native bee houses or plant flowers that favor native bees, like nightshades, to bring more around.

Fun fact, native bees actually have a 90% pollination rate to the honeybee's 5% rate, but native bees are more solitary so honeybees match their rate through sheer numbers.

As an aside, my bee houses are foundationless as I believe they know what kind of comb they need better than I do, and I refuse to use artificial treatments for the hive, electing for more natural ones, like formic acid (concentrated venom) pads for mites, and ultimately hope I can reach a level where my bees are healthy enough I can go treatmentless and they can keep themselves so I interrupt them less.

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Aartvaark t1_iwdq5tb wrote

This is exactly my point. I get why you're defending and I applaud your practices, but as careful as you are, you don't realize how much you're changing their natural lives and lifestyle by providing what you think is beneficial and helpful.

Your end game is honey.

Their end game is survival.

I can live without honey. Maybe the bees should live without us.

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FwibbFwibb t1_iwh314e wrote

> I don't understand why this wasn't predicted and avoided.

Apparently this wasn't a problem 50 years ago.

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