Bee die off hasn’t happened
The uncertainty of science: Despite numerous claims by environmentalists and scientists in the past decade that the bee population was dying off, new data from the Agriculture Department suggests that bee populations are now at a 20 year high.
The reason? It appears that beekeepers have been very innovative and creative when faced with disease or other problems that hurt bees. Driven by the profit motive and competition and free to act, they have come up with solutions.
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The uncertainty of science: Despite numerous claims by environmentalists and scientists in the past decade that the bee population was dying off, new data from the Agriculture Department suggests that bee populations are now at a 20 year high.
The reason? It appears that beekeepers have been very innovative and creative when faced with disease or other problems that hurt bees. Driven by the profit motive and competition and free to act, they have come up with solutions.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Not what I hear from beekeepers that I know. And not what I see, based on long time observations of the number of bees attracted to the flowers in our front yard. Sounds like somebody’s shilling for the pesticide industry…
hives have died off.
But because of diligent keepers they have maneuvered the remaining hives to create more Queens and they have harvested less honey in order to swell the hive size and thus force it to split and create more hives with the new queens.
They have also diversified the general bee genetic population by bringing in different hives for as far away as possible.
I have read of one local keeper who lost 3 of 20 hives to the winter weather but found his remaining hives had produced 20 new queens that he could separate and start new hives with. Not all survived but he ended up having to give away queens because he didn’t have enough hives to house them.
They have also started to promote non honey creating bees to non keepers as a way to help gardeners pollinate their home gardens. Like Mason Orchard bees.
The US has 4000 native species of bees and they end up pollinating more plants and more varieties than honey bees. Most though only pollinate a very limited variety of plants.
Attract them and help save the honey bee
I’m not a bee keeper but here in SE Arizona we’ve had a huge number of swarms. So many that I’ve helped exterminate quite a few and know of lots more. They’re 100% Africanized and there’s no shortage here.
You should click on the link and then click through to the actual Agriculture Department report. The numbers are very convincing, and would be difficult to fake.
As a former commercial beekeeper, I want to weigh in. When others were experiencing winter hive losses above 50%, I routinely had 2% loss. My hive numbers doubled every year. Hence I had back surgery and had to sell out.
Consider a teter-toter (sp?). The fulcrum is fixed. When the Varroa mite came into North America, it weighed down on one end. The only way to put things back into balance was to move the fulcrum; that is, to change beekeeper management practices. Sure, the miticides helped, but beekeeper have had a poor relationship to chemical companies which has included sueing them. That was not wise as those terrible chemical companies were the only ones who had the money to register good products to combat the varroa. Beekeeper were also trying all sorts of ways to cut costs. This included using queens from the southern hemisphere whose genetics were not capable of withstanding the pressures of American foulbrood as well as the varroa. So to save a couple of dollars per queen, they introduced bad genetics and the subsequent Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). I learned the hard way! However, because I labeled the queen source for all my hives, I was able to determine quite clearly the source of my problem in 2000 and have never used those crappy genetics again. Weavers (TX) have enjoyed a very good reputation for quality queens. they are operating essentially africanised free hives even in the heart of africanized country. I used Kona queens exclusively as they were readily available in Alberta and had great genetics.
The key to management is new brood chambers every 10 years and use new queens from a reliable source. I will be advising a few friends in the Portal Animas and Cotton city areas for queen rearing. The Africanized stock seems quite resistant to the varroa mite. This, combined with the great nectar flow last year and this spring, may well be the cause of the vast number of swarms in the SW USA.
For the mean time, I will bee heaven.
Phill O.
Take that, all you enviro-marxists. You see, nature offers the best argument for free market competition and capitalism. “Survival of the Fittest” requires total competition for scare natural resources and their proper distribution/allocation. No well intentioned EPA or any government agency can hold a candle to nature’s law of competition. There are no privileged groups…ultimately you either adapt to survive or your species goes extinct, as in “out of business” or Chapter Seven.
Isn’t nature beautiful??!!!!