Bees really are "magic" as per the article. I've been beekeeping for 3 years now and I love it. Working with such programmable insects is almost like watching automata at work. Via simple inputs, complex behavior. I recommend any one, but programmers especially, try keeping bees.
I have always been fairly fascinated by bees and kept 3 hives for a while. I got stung twice and each time had more swelling and pain than before, so I decided that risking life and limb to keep bees was probably not worth the risk and donated my hives to the local bee-keepers club.
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
It appears wikipedia agrees with you.
In my experience (Grew up on a farm, live in the country) Pesticide is only applied to chemical insecticides, because they are rarely used; herbicides are most commonly used by name (because when you are telling someone ie. your neighbour what you are spraying the generic class is meaningless and they want to know whether spray drift will potentially damage their crops)
And biologic treatments such as viruses which may be used on certain insects are called biologics.
CCD has impacted me - less than others as I only have a few hives. The numbers are astounding - 50-75% dead hives over winters are not uncommon. It puts an incredible amount of strain on the entire beekeeping system.
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.
"I'm more concerned about the treatment and sales of honey."
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).
Neonicotinoids make bees "drunk" for lack of a better term...
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.
Resources? That's hard to say - I'm not sure others address keeping bees like I do.
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.
And, they are so cute, busily working to help us. (Maxwell's demons were likely inspired by bees).
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)
Odd question, but have you ever tried training your bees? I've read articles on the prospect of using bees to scan for chemical compounds in such a way so as to detect drugs/explosives/illness and I would really like to hear first hand from someone who has some experience in this field. Also... quantum bees[1]!?
I have not. Frankly, I feel like I've just scratched the surface. There's a HUGE body of knowledge in beekeeping and very little of it is passed via what you'd consider a standard method - instead, you get a mix of anecdotes, best practices and "common sense". Now there ARE beekeeping papers, but many of them are studies of colonies in the field, not prescriptive.
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)
> most of the "hours" spent making honey are spent by the bees
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... ;)
Change your inputs (culture), change your outputs (requirements). Ergo, you don't need that kind of money if you live more sustainably. <IdealistRant/>
So, IMO, try bee keeping[1][2] and see if it starts to change your culture :)
