Pollinator decline is a problem I need to learn more about myself
Honeybee catastrophe is hugely exaggerated and not a serious threat.
That is a very misleading statement referring to a very questionable article based on questionable interpretation of the US-specific statistics.
Just some of the questions and counterarguments in the comments to that same article:
“All the article talks about is the number of colonies. Is this representative of the number of bees? (Has the number of bees per colony remained relatively constant?)”.
″...Making splits causes a yield of two weak hives, which is not the same as having the vigorous, healthy original hive. And just so you know, the splits the commercial folks are making from the survivors of pesticide, fungicide, herbicide exposure on industrial crops are the already weakened colonies that happen to make it.”
“The typical Consumerist answer to a problem—”just buy more” bees and queens is not addressing the real problems which are decline in clean forage from toxic chemical exposure, lack of forage diversity, trucking bees all over the country, narrow in-bred genetics. The loss of all pollinators, as well as decline in overall ecosystem diversity from the same insults, is the real issue.”
Speaking of some more credible sources:
For example: ”...wild bees have undergone global declines that have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and insecticides 3,4,5,6,7″ (Nature, 2016).
“A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators” (the UN, 2016, reports 2016, 2017).
By the way: ”...field results confirm that neonicotinoids negatively affect pollinator health under realistic agricultural conditions” (Science, 2017).
That is a very misleading statement referring to a very questionable article based on questionable interpretation of the US-specific statistics.
Just some of the questions and counterarguments in the comments to that same article:
“All the article talks about is the number of colonies. Is this representative of the number of bees? (Has the number of bees per colony remained relatively constant?)”.
″...Making splits causes a yield of two weak hives, which is not the same as having the vigorous, healthy original hive. And just so you know, the splits the commercial folks are making from the survivors of pesticide, fungicide, herbicide exposure on industrial crops are the already weakened colonies that happen to make it.”
“The typical Consumerist answer to a problem—”just buy more” bees and queens is not addressing the real problems which are decline in clean forage from toxic chemical exposure, lack of forage diversity, trucking bees all over the country, narrow in-bred genetics. The loss of all pollinators, as well as decline in overall ecosystem diversity from the same insults, is the real issue.”
Speaking of some more credible sources:
For example: ”...wild bees have undergone global declines that have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and insecticides 3,4,5,6,7″ (Nature, 2016).
“A growing number of pollinator species worldwide are being driven toward extinction by diverse pressures, many of them human-made, threatening millions of livelihoods and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of food supplies, according to the first global assessment of pollinators” (the UN, 2016, reports 2016, 2017).
By the way: ”...field results confirm that neonicotinoids negatively affect pollinator health under realistic agricultural conditions” (Science, 2017).