USA Colony Losses

[Murox]

This is the culprit. Canadian and asset management owned
https://www.saputo.com/en/our-products/europe-sector

Thanks, that's a few more artificial brands added to my personal boycott list. We used to have up until around three years ago a proper cheese factory in Campbeltown, got closed because of management by accounting rather than producing real food. Local farmers tried to buy it out, again thwarted by accounts with deep pockets who would sell. Now it's become a derelict site used for storage by the local big contacting firm. So now there is no truly local cheese produced at all.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

for those that are thinking of braving the podcast, the first half hour is somewhat interesting/informative, I think the meat of the discussion starts at the half hour mark and then peters off in the last fifteen minutes when chicken fever crops up!
Interesting that although he himself spends thousands on pollen substitute (mostly given as liquid feed in the autumn) he does ensure people get the point that if you have bees in an area with plenty of natural pollen - there's no need to feed it.
He also mentions probiotic feed (given as a powder out there) so wait for the questions on 'what feeder to use for yoghurt' shortly.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Thanks, that's a few more artificial brands added to my personal boycott list. We used to have up until around three years ago a proper cheese factory in Campbeltown, got closed because of management by accounting rather than producing real food. Local farmers tried to buy it out, again thwarted by accounts with deep pockets who would sell. Now it's become a derelict site used for storage by the local big contacting firm. So now there is no truly local cheese produced at all.

we used to have a dairy in Llangadog, originally a MMB establishment and situated slap bang in the middle of the Towt castchment dairy farming area. then it diversified and produced top quality butter, cheese and even tinned rice and custard which was as good if not better than Ambrosia (well, the 'premium' range definitely was) unfortunately the plug was pulled on the whole project and the site is now an agricultural merchants with a civic amenity site on some of the land.

 

[Murox]

At least yours has a glimmer of hope. Sadly they sound like just another UK specific industrialization process, transforming the economy of the region from a focus on agriculture and food production to a reliance on importing everything.

 

[mbc]

I wonder if all those wild fires in caly have a knock on effect with these colony losses?
Where to people look for factual information on such things across the pond?
I do occasionally peruse bee-l and beesource but there's a lot of chaff to the wheat from my perspective.

 

[JamezF]

It's all quite depressing, really. I'm finding myself increasingly at odds with the direction of the modern world. Perhaps it's part of the natural transition into being a Grumpy Old Man

But, ultimately, I just don't want to eat industrially-produced food. In part because I don't feel the management of companies that produce it have any significant interest in the health and well-being of their customers (nor in fact the sources of their ingredients). Profit overrides any other considerations, including honesty about what's in the packet. And it's galling that so often it's far more expensive to buy the raw ingredients to make something (never mind the time and energy that goes into making it) than it is to buy the finished product that came out of a factory, even something as basic as butter or cheese (since Dani mentioned it a few posts back).

James

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Blake Shook offers an interesting perspective as both a first generation commercial beekeeper (30000 colonies) and a bee broker in the almonds with access to a wide range of other operations. His own thinking appears to be along the broad lines of multifactorial issues much as was generally agreed on after the ccd years.

"multifactorial issues" I heard called leaky boat syndrome. Youtube presented to me a quick talk with Bob Binnie. Only 10 minutes an some blatant advertisment.
He suggests that beekeeping is like paddling a leaky boat where you keep it afloat by bailing most of the time but when the number and size of leaks gets too much you're going to sink.
Also that there have been extreme bee deaths over the last 120 years, every 18-20 years, never an explanation. Not heard this before and it's presented third hand, "I heard a presentation years ago . .. . ".

 

[rolande]

"multifactorial issues" I heard called leaky boat syndrome. Youtube presented to me a quick talk with Bob Binnie. Only 10 minutes an some blatant advertisment.
He suggests that beekeeping is like paddling a leaky boat where you keep it afloat by bailing most of the time but when the number and size of leaks gets too much you're going to sink.
Also that there have been extreme bee deaths over the last 120 years, every 18-20 years, never an explanation. Not heard this before and it's presented third hand, "I heard a presentation years ago . .. . ".

Vaguely remember the references to previous episodes throughout history being made during the ccd years but if asked would have probably had them far further apart than twenty years.

 

[rolande]

I wonder if all those wild fires in caly have a knock on effect with these colony losses?
Where to people look for factual information on such things across the pond?
I do occasionally peruse bee-l and beesource but there's a lot of chaff to the wheat from my perspective.

Blake Shook, in his role as a bee broker, says he's seeing the same losses from both cellar stored colonies and outside wintered ones as well as across treatment free and treated operations. But, he points out that the USDA has been very much on the ball with their response so maybe there'll be a better understanding of exactly what's happened this time.

 

[Moobee]

It's all quite depressing, really. I'm finding myself increasingly at odds with the direction of the modern world. Perhaps it's part of the natural transition into being a Grumpy Old Man

But, ultimately, I just don't want to eat industrially-produced food. In part because I don't feel the management of companies that produce it have any significant interest in the health and well-being of their customers (nor in fact the sources of their ingredients). Profit overrides any other considerations, including honesty about what's in the packet. And it's galling that so often it's far more expensive to buy the raw ingredients to make something (never mind the time and energy that goes into making it) than it is to buy the finished product that came out of a factory, even something as basic as butter or cheese (since Dani mentioned it a few posts back).

James

I will join you as a grumpy oldish woman then. It’s all just greed, amplified by the Oompa Loompa running the US…

 

[Paulypaul]

Bees are the canaries in the coalmine of the local environment.

When I was a kid, my dad would drive the family from London to Cornwall on holiday. When we stopped at service stations he used to wash and scrape the dead insects off the windscreen.
That doesn't happen anymore.
That's a profound drop in the insect population. Why is that?

I read a popular science book a few years ago that said British sealife is at 3% of preindustrial levels. I wonder if it's the same for insects.

Perhaps it's humans that are keeping honey bees alive. Perhaps otherwise, they'd already be gone. Maybe honey bees are the pandas of the insect world. Or they'd just be at the low population levels that other insects are at.

 

[JamezF]

When I was a kid, my dad would drive the family from London to Cornwall on holiday. When we stopped at service stations he used to wash and scrape the dead insects off the windscreen.
That doesn't happen anymore.

I think we'd need to be careful about drawing conclusions from such an observation. For a start, cars are far more efficient aerodynamically than they used to be, so perhaps insects are more likely to be carried over the vehicle in the airflow. Roads are also far busier and perhaps insects just tend to avoid them now for whatever reason (increased air turbulence? poorer air quality?). I'm not suggesting that numbers of flying insects definitely haven't decreased, mind.

James

 

[Parsonage Bees]

dead insects off the windscreen.

I'd suggest that what we saw #edit(in the 1960-70s)#edit was not a normal insect population but a rebound from previous insecticide use.
I think it's in 'Silent Spring', Pesticide destroys the insect population, predators of those insects die, insects recover more quickly than their predators and their populations explode. There's no natural balance anymore. Probably should be no natural cycles anymore.

 

[Murox]

Worse than pesticides is simple habitat destruction in all its forms in the UK, even encouraged by successive governments over the last 40 or so years which has wrecked and is still wrecking our environment.

 

[Paulypaul]

I think we'd need to be careful about drawing conclusions from such an observation. For a start, cars are far more efficient aerodynamically than they used to be, so perhaps insects are more likely to be carried over the vehicle in the airflow. Roads are also far busier and perhaps insects just tend to avoid them now for whatever reason (increased air turbulence? poorer air quality?). I'm not suggesting that numbers of flying insects definitely haven't decreased, mind.

James

Apparently there has been an "Insect splat" survey...

The Kent Wildlife Trust (in partnership with Buglife and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)) run Bugs Matter—the national citizen science survey of ‘bug splats’ on vehicle number plates to monitor flying insect abundance. The survey involves participants counting the number of insect splats on their front number plate at the end of a journey, and submitting the count via a mobile app, along with a photograph of the number plate. The report compiled from the data collected up until December 2022 concluded that compared with 2004, in England there was a 67.5% reduction in observed squashed insects, in Scotland a 40.3% reduction, and in Wales a 74.8% reduction.

Sauce: https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2022/12/Bugs-Matter-Technical-Report-2022-PRESS.pdf

Here's a UK government Inquiry report on insect population decline:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cmselect/cmsctech/326/report.html

 

[ericbeaumont]

dad would drive the family from London to Cornwall

We would often drive from Surrey to Cornwall in the 60s and at the end the front of the car would be covered in insects. Petrol stations en route had water and sponge to wash screens and in the days before self-service, the attendant would offer to clean the screen.

On long trips in the last five years I have noticed the return of dead insects, so maybe the general reduction in the use of insecticide or environmental awareness is beginnng to have an effect. Hope so, because a recent 27-year German study recorded an insect decline of 76%, and you can imagine how that will have affected bird populations.

 

[roche]

I think we'd need to be careful about drawing conclusions from such an observation. For a start, cars are far more efficient aerodynamically than they used to be, so perhaps insects are more likely to be carried over the vehicle in the airflow. Roads are also far busier and perhaps insects just tend to avoid them now for whatever reason (increased air turbulence? poorer air quality?). I'm not suggesting that numbers of flying insects definitely haven't decreased, mind.

James

Currently in NZ driving a modern car. Need to clean windscreen of insect regularly but not as often as 30 years ago...

 

[Moobee]

We would often drive from Surrey to Cornwall in the 60s and at the end the front of the car would be covered in insects. Petrol stations en route had water and sponge to wash screens and in the days before self-service, the attendant would offer to clean the screen.

On long trips in the last five years I have noticed the return of dead insects, so maybe the general reduction in the use of insecticide or environmental awareness is beginnng to have an effect. Hope so, because a recent 27-year German study recorded an insect decline of 76%, and you can imagine how that will have affected bird populations.

Isn’t there a corresponding decline in bird populations too?

 

[Garry R]

Cheese, almond milk, adulterated honey (aka corn syrup) drove me to make this partly for a laugh but to make the seriousness stick in peoples' minds.

 

[JamezF]

Cheese, almond milk, adulterated honey (aka corn syrup)

Don't forget tomato puree

James