Glyphosate - related to bee decline

[kenmac]

the cattle farmers around me spray their fence lines, and they have the co-op spray their hay fields for weed. I'm quite sure the cattlemen around me aren't the only ones doing this

 

[LouNY]

And the decline of honey bees stopped quite a while back,
I just picked up some honey the other day and that bee keeper and another one told me the decline had stopped several years ago.
And then there is this article,
Believe it or not, the bees are doing just fine - The Washington Post

So you all just keep up bashing advances and improvements.

 

[cqaigy2]

And the decline of honey bees stopped quite a while back,
I just picked up some honey the other day and that bee keeper and another one told me the decline had stopped several years ago.
And then there is this article,
Believe it or not, the bees are doing just fine - The Washington Post

So you all just keep up bashing advances and improvements.

Interesting article.

I didn't get the sense that bees were not being impacted, but rather, the impact is being managed by the bee keepers.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^
It also pointed out that they really don't know how the wild bee population is affected; and they are responsible for pollinating everything except for certain commercial agricultural operations.
I would like to keep a hive or two, but with a blueberry operation right behind me I don't see how that's possible.

 

[Diggin It]

I know from personal observation that Honeybees were way down this year compared to the last several, but I have no idea why. I used to see them all over a flowering hedge I have, but there were barely any at all this past year. I used to have to watch for them while mowing there were so many on the clover in my lawn. Last year, I don't recall seeing any on the same amount of clover.

Later in the year, I saw them clustered around my Hummingbird feeders though.

 

[NorTracNY]

And the decline of honey bees stopped quite a while back,
I just picked up some honey the other day and that bee keeper and another one told me the decline had stopped several years ago.
And then there is this article,
Believe it or not, the bees are doing just fine - The Washington Post

So you all just keep up bashing advances and improvements.

Not sure what your point is. The honeybees are dying. The losses are significantly more for the beekeepers than they were decades ago. My grandfather never had the losses I have.

From the article...

"It means that the main effects of colony collapse disorder aren't being felt by the bees themselves, but by the people who breed and manage them."

"“Honey bees are not about to go extinct,” Kim Kaplan, a researcher with the USDA, said in an email. “It is the beekeepers who are in danger, facing unsustainable economic losses."

The cost of those losses are currently getting passed on to the consumer. The average retail price of honey has roughly doubled since 2006, according to the National Honey Board."

So it means the beekeepers are fighting hard to stay in business which means find ways to keep the bee population up. When a beekeeper splits a hive, the beekeeper loses honey production that year. So beekeepers are keeping their numbers of hives up, but producing less honey. It's taking more effort/cost to maintain the bee population.

"Wild bees — whether they're honeybees or one of our 4,000 other native bee species — face different difficulties. If those species suffer die-offs, there's nobody around to breed new queens and help them recover. Wild bees are on their own.

Recent research has shown that the use of certain insecticides called neonicotinoids has been linked to declines in wild bee populations. But assessing the true magnitude of the effect is difficult, because it's a lot harder to survey wild bee populations than domesticated ones."

The article has some nice facts, but is written horribly. This is the last sentence...

"By and large, our domesticated honey producers appear to be doing just fine, too."

What product has had it's price double since 2006 like honey, but people would say things are fine?!?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My dad was a bee keeper, and a bee inspector. Mites is what caused a significant decline in bees over the last 30 yrs.

 

[tcreeley]

I've made cider the last few years, from our 17 wild apple trees. None of the trees have ever been sprayed in the 35 years we've been here. I like apples and I always look for one to eat. I hated looking for the good spots where I could take a bite without worrying about worms and holes and just nasty apples. The last couple of years there are more bug free apples. Making cider- we cut out the bad spots. Now the need is much less.

I used to get bit by bugs when I was outside. Rarely happens now. I never see honey bees anymore. The fields and woods are quieter too. Fewer birds singing. Fewer birds. I was up to 60 species I could ID by sound. Now they just are not there.

This was not a good year for our wild apples. Just fewer apples. I'd say it is an every other year thing. That would make next year a boom year for our apples. Unless they were not pollinated. Time will tell.

Just north and east of us by some hours - Nova Scotia likes its glyphosate :
Glyphosate spraying resumes in Nova Scotia forests
Glyphosate spraying resumes in Nova Scotia forests - Nova Scotia Advocate

 

[Jstpssng]

Last year was a bumper crop for apples and all sorts of other mast. Thaf combined with this year's dry weather has a lot to do with the low fruif yield. Do you clean the dropped apples up every year? That and pruning helps the tree stay healthy. The heat and dry weather also has a lot to do with the lack of biting insects. Yet I got out of mg truck yesterday and was swarmed with late season mosquito's... I can't think of anything more distracting than having bugs flitting around in the cab while I'm driving.

 

[tcreeley]

Here is a good clip- of what I am encountering in Hudson- absence that increases every year.

NATURE MOMENTS: THE SOUND OF EXTINCTION
- Nature Moments: The Sound of Extinction | Maine Audubon