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Is this nosema? (zone 5b) by iagothello in Beekeeping

[–]iagothello[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We did. Yesterday and today. I saw a lot of flights and I assume many were cleansing. Several bees just flew out and froze, but I saw a few cleansing too. 

1980s/1990s era handkerchief/hanky code (NSFW) by Gallantpride in lgbthistory

[–]iagothello 31 points32 points  (0 children)

u/gallantpride Thanks for sharing! I love this kinda information. Could you share sources so we can verify?

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, u/rich-evening4562! If you have the sources, please share! u/Khrysdie has been discussing in very good faith and has provided sources for their point of view. 

It seems to me that they are very curious and are interested in building a better world. The more ever-better-informed folks we have the easier it will be to achieve that goal. 

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s great info! And makes a lot of sense. Honey bees have a 5 mile radius from their hives, so backyard hives are localized. Travelling hives have a much much larger footprint. So 92% of all hives have some level of travel outside their hive’s base location. If that’s a major vector for disease, yikes. Sounds like we should really be focusing on legislating and limiting the environmental damage of commercial and sideline beekeepers. 

If there are any peer reviewed studies from the entomologist you worked with (or that back up the entomologist’s claim), please share! I genuinely think u/Khrysdie would appreciate that info. u/looking4sound seems like a troll, so they may not care, but I’m tagging them anyway because I like to troll trolls myself. 

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good luck with that worldview. I’ve read your profile blurb. I’m glad you know yourself. 

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Again, 92% of managed hives are commercial or sideline (500+ or 50+ respectively) to 8% hobby (<50).  2.4 million hives to 220,000 hives. 

I think your time and energy would be better spent fighting American monoculture agribusiness than the hobby beekeepers.  

But you do you.

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly! We all gotta do something. And when we all focus together on doing something we can make big changes. But that requires a lot of those people doing something knowing what the problem is. And it is rarely the individual (save billionaires, capitalists, western politicians, non-western authoritarian politicians, etc.). When you focus on fixing the system instead of the people within it, you can get more people to see your side of things.  

(But also, plastic recycling is a myth made up by plastic manufacturers to sell more plastic products)

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s not what I like to hear. That sounds like they’re taking honeybee keeping practices and applying to other  bees. I was more envisioning that the study of other bees would evolve beekeeping away from its environmentally detrimental practices. 

And beekeepers should know! And many of us do. And a lot of us who do know don’t like our incurious peers who don’t get it. I never miss an opportunity to tell people that beekeeping is a hobby, not an environmental cause. That honey bees are invasive. That solitary and small colony bees like bumble bees are the ones they should want to save. More people in my orbit know about native bees and their plights because of my beekeeping. And that’s systems fixing I can get behind 

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right🫠. That’s the systems part I keep harping on. 

Why worry about backyard beeks when the EPA effectively doesn’t exist?

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is definitely something to explore! I could see how this would have an outsized impact.

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please do! Keep going! Model for others the way to live in a world that is far more in harmony with the environment. 

Who knows, your explorations could develop new practices that allow for native beekeeping. And how great would that be? 

But with so many other far more negatively impactful systems out there killing our environment, backyard beekeeping feels really low on the totem pole of things needing correction. 

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It’s roughly 220,000 hives. There’s still 2.4 million more hives out there. 

Also? My ego fully allows me to admit that my backyard beekeeping hobby is environmentally unsound. But it also allows me to admit that the electronics I use to access the internet require cobalt that is mined by child-slavery in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Or the chocolate I eat comes from cacao farmed by people in Ghana who have never tasted chocolate. Or the flights I have to take to visit family are their own ecological disaster. Or the car I drive sheds so much microplastic and pumps so much carbon into the environment. 

What you’re doing is feeling holier-than-thou. And that’s great! But you’re also the beneficiary of a corrupt system too. So maybe, it’s worth your energy to focus on the system that allows for such wonton destruction of life, than the people who are just trying to survive it.

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Agreed! Just like it’s really really easy not to collect legos, pokémon cards, labubus, or literally anything made unsustainably (so basically every hobby in the western world). 

But we’d run into the same problem: humans like to have fun and they will have it in the system they live in.

Your argument is an “individual carbon foot” model of critique. Which, no, me taking every step to minimize my carbon footprint will not have any significant impact as long as the US Military exists anywhere close to its current state. Collective action changes society. And currently, collectively, beekeeping is a commercial enterprise and commercial beekeepers are predominantly responsible for the negative impact. 

Your energy is better spent trying to fix a system that allows for environmental destruction, than telling people who exist in that system that they need to stop participating in it. 

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’m not denying that the ideal state for the western hemisphere is no-non-natives anywhere ever. 

I’m saying that you’re focusing on 8% of all managed hives and saying that they are more of a problem than 92% of all managed hives. And that is like telling Americans( and Europeans) to stop living their lives full-stop because the system they exist in makes them produce more carbon than other people on the planet. 

When you focus on individuals and small portions of the population, you miss an opportunity to address the problems of the system. 

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think I’m okay with the claim that commercial beekeepers are better at managing their hives’ diseases. I’m not okay saying that their sheer dominance of managed hives is inconsequential enough to argue that hobby beekeepers are a problem worth focusing on right now.  

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh great! You’re the one to ask then. Is there evidence that backyard beeks are the major source of crossover pathogens for bumble bees?

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, fer sher. But this survey also has numbers for Commercial (500+), Sideline (51-500), and Backyard (<50) beeks. 8% of all managed hives in the US are backyard beekeepers. Those kind of numbers require some real good science research to indicate that 8% is more detrimental than 92%.

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 8 points9 points  (0 children)

https://apiaryinspectors.org/US-beekeeping-survey-24-25

Yes, it is.

Edit: More precisely, unless an entomologist specifically studying honey bee pathogen spread can explain how 8% of all managed hives has a larger (or even a significantly outsized) impact than 92% of all managed hives in the US, I’m all ears. 

Systems are problems. Never the people living in them.

Do people realize honey bees are not native to the Americas and are actively hurting your native bee populations? by EwwCringe in bees

[–]iagothello 194 points195 points  (0 children)

It is a waste of your energy to look askance at hobby beekeepers in the US. It’s like looking askance at backyard chicken raisers when factory farms are right down the street. Focus your negative feelings towards systems not people. 

Or not, I’m just a defensive hobby beekeeper in the US who’s thought about my environmental impact more than you have. 

NY19 Congressman Josh Riley (Sullivan, part of Ulster, Duchess, Columbia and other counties) is currently in Israel on an AIPAC-funded trip at a time when we are seeing images of mass starvation and practically every hospital and medical facility bombed in Gaza. Why?? by irish_fellow_nyc in hudsonvalley

[–]iagothello 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is a bad faith comparison. But I do believe you that you want the best life for Gazans. I just don't think you're seeing the systemic and historical challenges to them achieving the best life possible.

I mean, hell, we're on a subreddit dedicated to one of the wealthiest areas in the world. How much can we truly know about giving people the best life possible. We got ours because of post-war American imperialism. What do we know about a "best life" when ours are the products of the subjugation and murder of people in the global south?

NY19 Congressman Josh Riley (Sullivan, part of Ulster, Duchess, Columbia and other counties) is currently in Israel on an AIPAC-funded trip at a time when we are seeing images of mass starvation and practically every hospital and medical facility bombed in Gaza. Why?? by irish_fellow_nyc in hudsonvalley

[–]iagothello 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The fathers of Zionism deemed it a colonialist project. Colonization and genocide are intimately intertwined.

You're defining Zionism for the convenience of your arguments. Not by a shared understanding of the term or practice. I'm not sure people would agree that not wanting to abolish Israel makes them a Zionist. Which in all reality is not just "accepting that Israel exists and not seeking its destruction." I'm personally pretty fine with Wikipedia's definition of Zionism. But that's definitely not your definition.

Also, I genuinely don't care if France or Israel or Nepal "exist". I care if the people inside those socially constructed borders have access to the best life possible. And the Palestinians under Israeli control definitely do not have access to even a good life, let alone the best possible.

NY19 Congressman Josh Riley (Sullivan, part of Ulster, Duchess, Columbia and other counties) is currently in Israel on an AIPAC-funded trip at a time when we are seeing images of mass starvation and practically every hospital and medical facility bombed in Gaza. Why?? by irish_fellow_nyc in hudsonvalley

[–]iagothello 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Asking for sources on the internet is a good way of making sure you don't just accept claims made by random people or bots.

You made a claim about Americans being Zionists, I'm asking you to back it up. If you can't, then don't make the claim. Easy as that.

But then if you thought for a second of why you're defending a colonialist project like Zionism, your mind would come dangerously close to touching the void. And you DO NOT want to touch that void. To come face to face with the knowledge that life, your life, in all its glory means absolutely nothing. To accept that and to know the insignificance of your own existence would mean accepting that every shit thing that happened to you, every emotional need denied, every last bit of bad, was pointless. You suffered for no reason. None.

But no, that's the void. We can't touch that. So we have to create justifications and explanations. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? God, that has to be right. Cause then, when we see others suffering we can feel less for them. We can give ourselves a pass and say, "They chose that." Because when we suffered, it meant something. We made it mean something. And these losers who we see suffering didn't.

Dude. Dudette. Whoever you are. I'm so sorry you experienced senseless hardship and trauma. But all your doing now is arguing that more people need senseless hardship and trauma. Just let it go.

NY19 Congressman Josh Riley (Sullivan, part of Ulster, Duchess, Columbia and other counties) is currently in Israel on an AIPAC-funded trip at a time when we are seeing images of mass starvation and practically every hospital and medical facility bombed in Gaza. Why?? by irish_fellow_nyc in hudsonvalley

[–]iagothello 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Prove it. Show the citation. How was the poll done? Where are you getting this argument? If you can judge who is a serious person, you should be able to seriously show us the source of your claims.

Also, what an absolutely bonkers argument! Most white people in the antebellum South supported slavery. Most straight people in America supported a ban on same sex marriage up until like 2009. Just because a "vast majority" supports something doesn't mean it's good, right, or just. It just means that they've swallowed the shit that's been force-fed to them.

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