Bees play a key role in the U.S. food supply, and the mass deaths could jeopardize that.

Summary

The U.S. beekeeping industry is experiencing unprecedented losses, with hundreds of millions of bees dying over the past eight months.

Blake Shook, a leading beekeeper, called it “the worst bee loss in recorded history.”

Researchers remain uncertain about the cause, pointing to potential factors like habitat changes and weather patterns.

Beekeeping operations are struggling to survive, raising concerns about food security and the sustainability of crop production.

  • Billonthehill@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    6 days ago

    Bee-keeping is about the most intensive form of agriculture that we humans have, with one species (and a couple of close relatives) providing pollination for just about every major insect-pollinated crop on the planet. It is particularly extreme in the US. We ship a large proportion of all the hives in the USA to California for the annual almond crop flowering. Then we ship them all back to where they came from. It is a perfect set up for spreading diseases and parasites. In the process of all this, we are depriving native pollinators of sustenance. So the one alternative source of pollination when the bees die has already been decimated every single year.

  • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    27·
    6 days ago

    Millions of bees is not very many. That’s like one smallish operation.

    I’m sure it’s actually a much bigger problem than the numbers they have.

    Edit: ah I see now, the article says hundreds of millions of bees, and this post missed a couple words.

    • Nalivai@lemmy.world
      2·
      5 days ago

      Believe it or not, bees aren’t supposed to be immortal. Dead bees on random pavements are just sign that bees exist around somewhere.
      Not good would be not finding anyone, drad or alive.

  • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
    2·
    5 days ago

    There is probably lots of things effecting the bee population. Maybe it’s time to look for alternatives and create reservations to insure the bees survival.

    Or we could put all our eggs in one basket. It’s not like all the baskets of eggs aren’t going into a truck and driven off a cliff, when talking climate change.

  • x00z@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    I got a call from a friend who had 20,000 beehives at the start of the winter, and he’s at less than 1,000. He said ‘This is it, I’m done.’

    Maybe leave them their honey for the winter instead of taking it and replacing it with shitty sugar water?