←back to thread

Scientists identify culprit behind biggest-ever U.S. honey bee die-off

(www.science.org)
186 points pseudolus | 5 comments | 01 Jul 25 10:35 UTC | HN request time: 1.049s | source
Show context
GeekyBear ◴[01 Jul 25 15:05 UTC] No.44434645[source]▶
The standard practice for commercial crops is to bring in commercial hives of bees for pollination season that are shipped together via truck from crop to crop and region to region.

https://sweetharvestfoods.com/the-commercial-honey-bee-trave...

That sounds like a great opportunity to spread the resistant parasites from hive to hive and region to region.

replies(5): >>44434867 #>>44434899 #>>44434963 #>>44435195 #>>44435737 #
timr ◴[01 Jul 25 15:56 UTC] No.44435195[source]▶
Varoa mites are incredibly hard to control. Back in undergrad I worked in a fruit fly lab, and we would periodically have outbreaks, despite being about the most isolated, sterile population of insects you can imagine.

I doubt that there's any hope at all of controlling mites in free-roaming honeybees. I'd wager that we've done damage with overuse of miticides (which are insecticides, btw -- the article doesn't connect those dots) in a misguided attempt to control nature.

replies(3): >>44435508 #>>44436297 #>>44438244 #
1. GeekyBear ◴[01 Jul 25 16:25 UTC] No.44435508[source]▶
> I doubt that there's any hope at all of controlling mites

I'm more interested in no longer spreading the mite gene(s) for pesticide immunity across the country.

replies(1): >>44435618 #
2. timr ◴[01 Jul 25 16:35 UTC] No.44435618[source]▶
Well that’s easy: stop using miticide.

The resistance genes are not spreading due to physical transport, they’re spreading because of evolutionary selection.

replies(1): >>44435886 #
3. GeekyBear ◴[01 Jul 25 16:58 UTC] No.44435886[source]▶
I would say that the pesticide immunity genes arise because of evolutionary selection, but once they come into existance commercial beekeeping practices quickly spread those genes from hive to hive and across the country.
replies(1): >>44436971 #
4. timr ◴[01 Jul 25 18:53 UTC] No.44436971{3}[source]▶
You might be right that the physical distribution plays a role, but the partial selective pressure of insecticide is like a resistance-generating machine -- as anyone who has tried to kill cockroaches will tell you.

Regardless, I think we both agree that the extremely unnatural pressures of industrial agriculture are a root cause here.

replies(1): >>44437142 #
5. GeekyBear ◴[01 Jul 25 19:16 UTC] No.44437142{4}[source]▶
Certainly.

For example, Scandinavian countries that have made a concerted effort to only prescribe antibiotics to humans when they are medically necessary saw the genes for antibiotic resistance becoming less prevalent.

Unfortunately, America still allows agribusiness to feed livestock a constant stream of lower dose antibiotics, because doing so makes animals more efficient at turning feed into muscle.