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Bill_Nihilist t1_iwbscn3 wrote

Reply to comment by Wagamaga in The lifespans of honey bees living in laboratory environments has dropped about 50% over the last 50 years, hinting at possible causes for the worrisome trends across the beekeeping industry, according to new research by University of Maryland entomologists. by Wagamaga

>“We're isolating bees from the colony life just before they emerge as adults, so whatever is reducing their lifespan is happening before that point ... This introduces the idea of a genetic component"

Or an epigenetic one? Like, for example, fetal alcohol syndrome obviously isn't a genetic difference, it's the developmental consequence of an environmental effect, but it's happening pre-adulthood. The logic presented here for the bees just doesn't hold up. I suspect the poor graduate student's viewpoint was misrepresented. No sensible scientist would jump to a genetic explanation based on these findings.

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octopusgardener0 t1_iwc1yzq wrote

I'm a backyard beekeeper, and we're recommended to replace our whole frames every two years because the wax gets full of toxins to the point it starts affecting the bees at that point. On top of that, all package bees are bred in massive farms scattered around the US (the eastern half all comes from one farm in Georgia, don't know if there's any more out there) which have dubious genetics at the best of times, plus varroa mite infection can cause developmental issues if they get into the brood cells before they cap them.

There's a lot of variables that can affect domesticated bees before adulthood, have they done any documentation regarding the states and histories of the hives they took them from?

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carlitospig t1_iwccb5k wrote

Yup, my first thought would be checking that Georgian farm too.

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GrayMatters50 t1_iwcqtym wrote

West coast & Georgia bees may have instincts that can detect other aggressive colonies in their vicinity. Look what stress does to humans!

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Tribe_of_Mexicans t1_iwcac5s wrote

Interesting. But more so, you breed octopi in your backyard and keep bee's, is that for fighting?

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Tripwiring t1_iwcf0be wrote

Bee vs Octopus 2: Octwopus

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static_moments t1_iwd7xww wrote

Octowhoopass!

( a word I didn’t think I’d be saying when I woke up this morning)

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Susan-stoHelit t1_iwcg5hn wrote

No, for breeding. A bee with 8 stingers on its tentacles! And octopus making honey!!!

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TooOldToDie81 t1_iwcmmok wrote

When you want that sweet inky flavor, nothing beats octopus honey.

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Tr8ze t1_iwcqmyw wrote

Thanks for this. Fascinating. Do you have any recommended resources for folks interested in becoming backyard beekeepers, and for those wondering what to plant in the garden to help out bees?

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Aartvaark t1_iwdm143 wrote

Screwing with nature introduces chaos. No matter how carefully bees are 'kept', they're still 'kept', not free to live their natural bee lives.

They adapt to keeping instead of nature. Of course they're going to mutate in favor of their new lifestyle.

I don't understand why this wasn't predicted and avoided.

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octopusgardener0 t1_iwdnsx0 wrote

Normally I'd agree with you, but beekeeping is actually heavily weighted in the bee's favor, they're free to leave if they feel the hive is unsafe or not comfortable (which I've had done), or if they feel it's a poor location for resources, and they've been bred through the millenia to produce more than they need. However, honeybees can actually be considered an invasive species to North America, and I recommend if you want to keep bees in your backyard and want a more naturalistic way of doing it, to look for native bee houses or plant flowers that favor native bees, like nightshades, to bring more around.

Fun fact, native bees actually have a 90% pollination rate to the honeybee's 5% rate, but native bees are more solitary so honeybees match their rate through sheer numbers.

As an aside, my bee houses are foundationless as I believe they know what kind of comb they need better than I do, and I refuse to use artificial treatments for the hive, electing for more natural ones, like formic acid (concentrated venom) pads for mites, and ultimately hope I can reach a level where my bees are healthy enough I can go treatmentless and they can keep themselves so I interrupt them less.

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Aartvaark t1_iwdq5tb wrote

This is exactly my point. I get why you're defending and I applaud your practices, but as careful as you are, you don't realize how much you're changing their natural lives and lifestyle by providing what you think is beneficial and helpful.

Your end game is honey.

Their end game is survival.

I can live without honey. Maybe the bees should live without us.

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FwibbFwibb t1_iwh314e wrote

> I don't understand why this wasn't predicted and avoided.

Apparently this wasn't a problem 50 years ago.

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Plebs-_-Placebo t1_iwcl4qw wrote

I've often wondered if the accepted practice of supplementing then with refined sugar water leaves them with a nutrient deficiency of some sort vs what they would get from flower nectar, can never seem to get a fully flushed answer with Google search, personally.

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supified t1_iwdggli wrote

You don't have to do straight sugar water though. Vitamin additives are pretty common and you can mix pollen substitute in too

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Plebs-_-Placebo t1_iwduen7 wrote

I know about the pollen pucks, but thanks for informing me about the vitamin additives, I'll check it out

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ADDeviant-again t1_iwcq0wu wrote

Epigenetics is such a new science.

I agree that it might be more like congenital than strictly genetic, though.

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[deleted] t1_iwcdxnp wrote

[deleted]

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Konkarilus t1_iwch1sb wrote

Thats not true. Epigenetics is an altered expression and regulation of genes. Genetics is the hard coded genes.

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