• Dropper-Post@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    well if that is the case, humans can take pollinator job roles when AI will take their excel jobs.

  • RizzoTheSmall@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    I can’t find any research on the impact of increased prevalence of vaping on bee populations. I feel there should be scientific studies done on this. It’s pretty much sweet smelling sticky bee poison that people are now walking about puffing all over every surface.

    • bigcow@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      I agree it does mention hundreds of millions but is confusing because…Shook said. “If we lose 80% of our bees every year,…” Not very clear in the article on exactly what percentage of the bee population died.

  • F_OFF_Reddit@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Imma go out on a limb here and blame late stage Capitalism and some sort of pesticide or whatever that could solve the problem if it costed 5 cents more but the solution is to save that money and let the bees die.

    Imma take my chances on that.

    • Phil Ociraptor@slrpnk.net
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      1 day ago

      there’s a crazy scene in the documentary More Than Honey where they compare beekeepers with US Almond Farm pollenators. It’s all about money and it’s sickening.

      • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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        24 hours ago

        I was gonna quote the documentary too. My favourite scene was when they pollinated by hand and said: who’s better at pollinating? Humans or bees? It’s definitely not humans.

  • BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    I was worried so I looked for the source of the information, it seems to be from 'Washington State University" from their website they say it concerns “Commercial honey bee colony”, so it might not be all bees (I don’t know enough to say what the difference is exactly), they say “60 to 70% losses” (not 80), and they also say “Over the past decade, annual losses have typically ranged between 40 and 50%.”, so it is probably worrying but not as much as the CBS article was making it seem.

    Source: https://news.wsu.edu/news/2025/03/25/honey-bee-colony-declines-grow-as-wsu-researchers-work-to-fight-losses/

    • xta@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      so worry but not panicking yet. gotcha, nothing will be done then.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Part of the panicking should be wild bees. They’re dying at accelerated rates.

        We also know why, commercial bee keeping is part of it, as is hobbies bee keeping.

        And pesticides… and monoculture farming.

      • BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        I don’t know whether you were satiric or not, but it feels like it, hard to tell on a text medium. No hard feelings either way 😄

        If you were “mocking my post in a satiric way”: I didn’t mean to say that nothing should be done or that it was not a reason to worry. I actually believe we should protect our ecosystems, but I think we need accurate data and this kind of posts, even if they convey the “right” message according to me, are misleading and create false information about what is going on. I truly believe we should try to avoid doing this.

    • dantheclamman@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      This story is about domesticated honeybees, which have been declining for decades due to Colony Collapse Disorder and other stressors. Native North American bees are in their own long-term decline, with 1 in 4 species at risk of extinction. However, domesticated honeybees are tremendously important for the pollination and yield of many crops important to humans, and this population drop, thought to be the largest annual losses seen, should be considered in the context of the longer decline, and the possibility that we could hit a tipping point when pollination, and a crucial pillar of our food system, could fail.

  • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    Bees have been under assault for a while.

    It’s hive mites. The Varroa mite is going to wipe out all bees from the planet. And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

    Source: talked to a beekeeper.

    • Nalivai@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      It does, but the problem everyone’s talking about isn’t about wild bees, it’s about farming bees. Monospeecies of non-native bees pollinating monoculture of probably corn. They are dying, but only because they’re basically kept in bees analogue of factory farming conditions.
      Wild pollinators are fine (well, as fine as any wild species can be in our world, so not really, but at least not worse than others)

  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    That’s $15 billion worth of crops.

    They just can’t break out of that frame, even when the topic is EVERY LIVING THING FUCKING STARVING TO DEATH.

  • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    it’s the European honey bee that’s dying in unprecedented numbers

    but it’s not all bees

    European honey bees are the easy button for farmers but they are going to have to decide if pesticide is more important or not

    this nobody knows what’s happening is bullshit provided by the likes of the Monsanto and other chemical companies

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      They (save for a smarter minority) are 100% gonna decide that pesticides are more important. Until they learn they aren’t, but it will be too late.

          • AugustWest@lemm.ee
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            2 days ago

            I guess I am going to be that guy…

            Roundup is a pesticide. It is an herbicide, but it also is a pesticide. As are insecticides, fungicides, etc. Pesticide is the catch all, herbicide is the descriptive.

      • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Say what you will about RFK, but he’s broken clock right on a couple of issues, pesticides being one of them. Sure, maybe his rationale isn’t right, but his end game may be a benefit. Unfortunately it’s at odds with Trump’s complete destruction of regulation, but he (RFK) seems to be chugging along. I think making America healthy is good; I don’t think pesticides or ultra processed foods make kids transgender.

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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          20 hours ago

          I don’t think pesticides or ultra processed foods make kids transgender.

          Of course not. That requires being infected by a trans first - they work under vampire rules which is why we need to keep trans and children away from each other! /s

    • Flemmy@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Finedust from traffic, mircoplastics, insecticides, GMO infertile weeds… etc. Bayer as well.

      • Colloidal@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        Haven’t you heard? Bayer and Monsanto are one. And Dow and Dupont have fused too. Together, Bayer-Monsanto and Dow-Dupont control over 60% of all grain seed production in the world. All your wheat, corn, rice… it’s all in the hands of these 2 companies.

    • Redex@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I’m not too up to date with this story, but haven’t pesticides been used for forever now? Why would the suddenly cause a 80% drop in population?

      • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        I think bee populations are under threat from pesticides, habitat reduction, disease, climate change, nutrition, et cetera.

        Of that list, pesticides are probably the easiest to solve.

      • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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        2 days ago

        neonicotinoids were invited in the 1980s and it’s been recently understood that it’s like a forever chemical. it will get into the dirt and go through the plants and pass on through pollen

      • 0tan0d@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s not the same pesticides year over year. My bet is some MBA pushed a tweak to the formula for short term gains.

        resist

      • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        As one stuck in Cheetoland, I deeply apologize for what he’s doing despite the efforts that had been undertaken to stop him and if he does end up attempting to annex your nation, I want you to know I preemptively surrender and defect to the Canadian Armed Forces.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    We’re pretty sure it’s the Monsanto pesticide and anyone who suggests it is hit with a litigation threat. Curiously, as we’re speed-breeding domesticated bees the wild bees are dying out faster, so as the bee population dwindles it also becomes more domesticated and less wild. I know that’s a bad thing, but I am fuzzy on the why details.

    I’m a brown thumb, and plants wilt as my shadow falls on them, but if you’re a green-thumb, plant pollinators, which will help the bees.

    Also plant milkweed for the monarchs.

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Some beekeepers actually mentioned that they’ve been scraping the beeswax clean off their hives more frequently because its known that the beeswax collects pesticides and herbicides over time which affects the colony due to exposure.

      The problem is its not just monsanto acid, there’s a ton of other issues also correlated like weather/climate, seasonal flowering, untreated parasites, bacteria, etc.

      We’ve literally nuked the environment so hard that even if we fix one problem, the population will not make a full bounce back (although I would think monsanto is the biggest threat)

      Biggest scam of this century was corporate produce monoliths convincing people Organic was about health and not the fact that it doesn’t use a scorched earth policy and scam one off hybrid plant seeds to grow food which has been setting us up for a widespread fammine for decades.

      Some random superweed is gonna crossbreed with some rapid out of control growth plant and wipe out half of the food chain.

    • MintyAnt@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Plant native. Plants that are native to your ecosystem. Those are the true pollinator powerhouse plants that bees need to survive

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        I forget the term for non native, non invasive plants (naturalized?) but those are good too. Native is best, of course. I see a ton of carpenter bees (native bees to my area) on my red clover (non native, non invasive).

        • MintyAnt@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Unfortunately, naturalized plants are not good. It’s a scale, with invasive plants being extremely bad. Naturalized plants aren’t as bad. But still bad

          In the end, our native insects rely on native plants (with extremely few exceptions to not be distracted by). A native plant can support hundreds or even thousands of species.

          A non native / naturalized plants cannot support even a fraction of that. They can also support… Non native insects. Which in turn fuck up the ecosystem, either by displacement or direct damage.

          I’m not gonna tell you to rip out naturalized plants like clover. I’m not gonna say you should destroy your garden. You should just know that native plants are superior in literally every possible way, and your NEXT plant choices should be as native as you can get :)

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            2 days ago

            If you can suggest native ground cover that is low maintenance and easy to start I’d consider it. I’m not going to put plugs in my yard when I can just over seed with clover. Clover is strictly better than turf grass.

            • MintyAnt@lemmy.world
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              It is better than turf, but I’m not talking about grass lawns, I’m talking about plants like for a garden. It’s better to have more garden plant masses, less grass lawn.

              Most people don’t need as much lawn as they have and reducing down to more what you actually use is great, but it’s totally situational.

              If you wanted a NorthEast suggestion for general ground cover I’d say wild strawberry. But if it’s like … Lawn then just stick with what you’re doing.

              • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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                1 day ago

                That’s a good point. I’ve got a little 4x4 raised bed. I didn’t do anything with it last year and haven’t gotten around to anything this year. I’m in the south east. I was considering just dumping a bunch of sunflower seeds in. I’ll try to do some research though and get something better.

                Edit: turns out sunflowers are more native than I thought, but might be more Midwest.

    • spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      Also, the domesticated bees are generally honeybees. And unfortunately, honeybee and wild bees don’t fulfill the same rile, so even if we replaced wild bees with honeybees 1:1, we still wouldn’t be able to polinate everything.

    • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      It’s Bayer’s now. Monsanto sold it to Bayer when they started getting heat for neonicotinoids killing all the bees.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I’ll hop in here and add that your locality probably does pesticide fogging/spraying. For what it is worth, you can ask them not you spray your property. Make some local wildflower patches in your yard. Less stuff you have to mow, more food and habitat for native birds and insects. It’s a win-win.

      • MintyAnt@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Native plant patches can also absorb some of the harmful crap like pesticides to a degree. It does help.

  • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The longer I live the more I see modern civilization collapse inevitable and happening in the relatively near future.

    How the fuck do you even prepare for something like that?

    • Qixotika@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Fall back to the fundamentals - communities, you’re part of many, join more. The people in your community can work together for survival or or turn against each other. You have a chance if you work with people, but not much of one if you try to lone wolf it. History is prologue. (your community should include everyone you can get on board, I’m not saying huddle up, I’m saying join the fight - It’s wealth disparity and it’s a global war)

      If we were to do that now, we could take it all back in a week, but we won’t do that. Humans have to lose something important to them before they really take a look around and desperation kicks in, and too many aren’t seeing much difference yet. If you really connect to your community, they’ll see your suffereing or someone elses and that might be the catalist for them, but we’re easy to pick off piecemeal and lazy as fuck, so we’re losing meters every day.

      There’s volumes of context here and I’m getting dragged into minutia, but we die apart, live together. That’s the formula, history proves it.

    • GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      U don’t. U just watch it collapse. If u cannot control something, don’t worry too much. That’s my take. Enjoy everyday.