Whatever Happened to the Bee Apocalypse?

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Do you remember the headlines screaming that the bees are going extinct? Whatever happened to that? We looked into it and turns out the honeybees are doing fine. But the wild bees aren't. What does this mean, how much should we worry, and what can we do? I'll sort it out for you.
The paper with the meta-analysis about causes for colony collapse disorder that I mention at 1 minute 50 seconds is this: journals.plos.org/plosone/art...
The paper about the combined effects of pesticides on bees that I mention at 3 minutes 7 seconds is this: www.nature.com/articles/s4158...
Data about honeybee losses that I mention at 4 minutes 55 seconds are from this website: beeinformed.org/2021/06/21/un...
The paper about the lack of pollinator supply that I discuss at 5 minutes 20 seconds is this: www.sciencedirect.com/science...
The estimates for the contribution of wild bees to pollination at 5 minutes 45 seconds are from here: academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
The numbers about the decline of wild bees that I discuss at 8 mins 10 secs are from this paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science...
At 9 mins 10 seconds I mention that honeybees pass on viruses to wild bees, more about this in this recent paper: www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
The paper I discuss at 9 mins 35 seconds about the food fights between honeybees and wild bees is this www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
The paper with a similar finding that I mention at 9 mins 50 seconds is this pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26640...
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Many thanks to Jordi Busqué for helping with this video jordibusque.com/
0:00 Intro
0:45 Colony Collapse Disorder
3:34 The situation of the honeybees
5:27 Wild bees
7:49 The situation of the wild bees
10:20 What does it mean and what can we do?
12:10 Sponsor message
#science #biodiversity #environment

[@synura8086]

I'm so glad you did this video. It's difficult to explain the importance of wild bees (vs. honey bees) to non-biologists because of the complexity of this topic. You did a really good job. There's a lot of work to be done here, informing people about the importance of wild patches in gardes and public spaces, and keeping honey bee hives out of Nature Reserves.

[@introprospector]

Honey bee agriculture is a mistake and should be ended. Leave the bees alone

[@Khomyakov.Vladimir]

Populations declining for 48% of world’s bird species Staggering declines in bird populations are taking place around the world. So concludes a study from scientists at multiple institutions, published yesterday in the journal Annual Review of Environment and Resources. Loss and degradation of natural habitats and direct overexploitation of many species are cited as the key threats to avian biodiversity. Climate change is identified as an emerging driver of bird population declines.

[@Khomyakov.Vladimir]

State of the World's Birds Annual Review of Environment and Resources Vol. 47:- (Volume publication date October 2022) Review in Advance first posted online on May 4, 2022. (Changes may still occur before final publication.)

[@evawettergren7492]

I love that wild gardens are starting to be promoted... it has always been my preferred style (because of laziness, not due to any knowledge about ecology...) and I have gotten my parents onboard lately too. (It helps that they too have gotten fed up with trying to maintain an orderly garden in their old age) It also looks so nostalgic with a flowering meadow in the garden as I grew up in a rural area and used to jump through fields of tall grass and flowers as a child. These days most fields are cropped for animal feed several times during the summer so there are lots of 'lawns' rather than flower fields.

[@DrTheRich]

First I thought i wanted a bee-hive to help the bees in my food garden, but when i heard this from a biologist, luckily in time, I realized I needed to make it especially wild bee friendly. I leave more weeds and long grass standing in not important parts of the garden, and leave weeds that give flowers like white and purple dead nettles. I also made some bee-hotels for the non-ground bees. I like wild bees more anyway, they have way prettier colors and are often more fluffy. Such a joy to watch fly and work.

[@nathanielmuller4400]

Sabine, thank you so much for doing this. I've been a beekeeper in the US for almost a decade. I started a club in my area 6 years ago to help new beekeepers focus on more sustainable management practices. About 75% of students and new beekeepers reached through outreach programs had their only goal listed as to "save the bees". In Virginia we have over 400 species of native bees, and these are the bees in danger. Educating beekeepers on the need to protect our native wild bees is hard enough, educating the public is a much more difficult job and I think you did a superb job. Again, thank you greatly

[@PrideGaming86]

Hey I'm from Virginia and have been more and more interested in bee conservation recently, what area is your club located?

[@danielmeuler2877]

When i first read this comment, I figured there was No Way there is 400 native bee species in Virginia let alone the US. Looks like there are 4,000! the things you learn reading KZbin comments. lol

[@extropiantranshuman]

thanks for helping out with educating the public!

[@grantcivyt]

@@danielmeuler2877 More surprising still because bees are non-native

[@PirateRadioPodcasts]

Let's not forget the OZONE HYSTERIA too! Where did it all go? MAGIC !!!!!

[@396375a]

I remember the gloom and doom stories about the honeybees disappearing, but sadly, the attention span of a mosquito at a nudist colony made me move on to the next great threat to humanity. So glad this video was made!!!

[@asdf9890]

Which threat is that? Just curious. Pick one😂

[@arctyk2816]

@@asdf9890 economic collapse, climate collapse, neuralink, nuclear war. you want me to keep going?

[@tigwhite883]

I live in a desert in Mexico, far from any green area, and wild 🐝 🐝 🐝 s still come all the way here to pollinate some flowers I have. Hard working little fellas.

[@alishabee369]

Local bees live within a few hundred yards of their homes. The bees you see out are almost all females. Bees are so cool.

[@DivineBearFalcon]

Wild bees doing great in my area, I do not mow my grass in July to let the clover flowers bloom. Clover also fixes nitrogen into my soil thus reducing need to fertilize(Duch study). I only fertilize with my own made compost, I grow native flowers which bees love and let natural predators (lady bugs, etc) control pests (aphids, etc) . Local birds also do a great job of pest control with Magpies and Blackbirds controlling pests, they even dig up ant nests to feed on them. It feels like nature does a good job of balancing if you let it, mono culture farming is certainly one of the issues if you ask me, pesticides, pollution being others. For my squash that I grow, I see a fly variety that mimics a bee in appearance doing the pollenating. I see nature as a system of balance, I enjoy watching the balancing act play out in my backyard.

[@melody3741]

this is awesome and really cool, but just because you see them a lot doesn't mean they are doing well, I think that's an important detail here

[@HedgehogZone]

Most studys say that the beeapocalypse was nothing but a hoax nowadays!

[@beyondEV]

Over here in Switzerland, working as a facility manager, i had may share of discussions. lead to me actually looking at the numbers for the factors with allegedly contribute. Every Factor (Pesticides, Changes in Agriculture, more "biodiversity areas") started to improve way before the CCD appeared and bees in general started dying in record numbers. The one thing really changed was the introduction and far reaching spread of the Varroa destructor by beekeepers importing queens from oversees. The trouble is not only the direct damage of the parasite, but that it suppresses both the immune system and the resistance to toxins. And of course, profit motive was more important, so many effective means to fight it, were ignored, as it would have made the honey potentially unsafe.

[@extropiantranshuman]

why not just rip out your grass for weeds to grow in? That's what I've done! Now I get hummingbirds, butterflies, june bugs, etc. It's amazing what life you find when you start trying! You can actually make a honey alternative with clover - emmymade did that! I too let nature balance everything - I hardly ever kill insects intentionally - I just remove the problematic source (usually food) and then send the insects on their way. Nature does the rest. If you create an unnatural state - it only makes sense for problems to occur - it's like eating a healthy diet and then all of a sudden having one meal of pure sugar - like candy - then all you want is candy and before you know it - health problems form!! When we create an artificial stimulant - it disrupts everything. Flies are pollinators where I live, along with ants, etc. A lot of people where I live who hate and kill ants, flies, etc. end up being the ones who bring in farmed bees and then when everyone else complains of their bees being a nuisance - they're the first to protect the bees being there. Utter hypocrites - when will they learn that they killed their original pollinators?

[@tas5622]

Are you in Europe or in the U.S? If you are in Europe what plants do you use? (this is an American we have different native plants, curious what is native to your area). Thank you

[@dudmanjohn]

Thank you Sabine. I am in UK. After my retirement I learned beekeeping and kept bees for 11 years. I learned during that time that while most beekeepers' focus is on their bees, and they care for them they don't give a damn for wild bees or other insects. They take the income from honey sales, queen breeding and, for a few, pollination services. I became increasingly aware of the damage I was contributing to and 12 years ago stopped keeping bees. I try gently to explain in my own way the issues to non-beekeepers who learning of my former interest say things such as 'the bees are in trouble aren't they?' I also became annoyed with local and national beekeeping associations that distort the information about declining wild bee, and other insect, populations.

[@Jake12220]

As someone that keeps both native and European bees in Australia l dont see any issues in terms of competition between the bees, the coexist just fine. The issue in many areas is monocultures as most native bee species are quite small and have a limited range. Where a European honey bee can travel fifteen km to find something in bloom, an Australian native is restricted to less than 500 metres, so in monoculture areas natives would starve most of the year where European bees would be able to look further out.

[@dudmanjohn]

@@Jake12220 Having read your comment, and someone else's comment I became of A. Australis and T. Hockingsi. Fascinating to learn that these bees are 'kept'. Native bees in UK are just left to find their own 'homes' . One non-native bee the Tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) arrived in UK in 2001 having extended its range from France. Their nesting habit means a bird box is just as suitable as a tree. I did get a call outs from a householder who thought they had a nest of honey bees in a bird box.

[@mikolajtrzeciecki1188]

"beekeeping associations that distort the information about declining wild bee" - So a "green" organization is blowing an aspect of a nature's problem out of proportion, thus making it difficult to address the said problem? And they do it (gasp) because of the profit of their members, not out of some sinister conspiracy reasons? Hard to believe, and it certainly does not happen in other areas of ecology...

[@CATASTEROID934]

@@dudmanjohn Meliponiculture or stingless beekeeping is popular in south america usually in the form of small modular hives, and as stingless bees are usually relatively tame with some species like the mandaçaia (Melipona quadrifasciata) never attacking even when their hives are opened and disturbed they are popular in urban areas with some species being tiny only 1-3mm long and having only a few hundred individuals in their colonies making for miniature hives that are almost toy-like in scale. Sadly traditional meliponiculture is declining and the native habitats for these bees is shrinking, modern breeds of A. mellifera have naturally displaced stingless bees with their much greater honey yields. You can find a lot of videos here on KZbin of Brazilian meliponini hives and the beekeepers that care for them, they're fascinating to watch.

[@tobiaswilhelmi4819]

German beekeeper here. Here there is no competition between commercial beekeeping and nature conservation at all. Every beekeeper I know also takes measures to support wild bees, from floral diversity to build niches for every kind of Nest to spread information for those who are interested.

[@tnijoo5109]

I never thought of honey bees robbing the wild bees of nectar or the idea that beekeepers could be putting wild bee populations at risk if there aren’t enough flowers. Very glad to know this. Excellent video.

[@Oldman808]

Yes, and some honeybee owners are so greedy. They’ll put far too many hive boxes in the same location.

[@munchingsquirrel5067]

@@Oldman808 There's a saying, "There is no surplus in nature". So in a location where majority of the food is from wild flowers, any bee hives means less food available for wild bees.

[@tnijoo5109]

I think laws requiring a certain amount of flowers be grown for each hive would be helpful.

[@Oldman808]

@@munchingsquirrel5067 There are some beautiful wild bees on my mammoth sunflowers every year, these look just like a honeybees only 1/2 the size, and they are not aggressive.

[@Maurazio]

in switzerland it's a problem in the cities, too many hobby beehives. and it was found that in zurich there are 160 wild bee species that should be protected so it's a problem.

[@CampingforCool41]

My mom has a big wildflower garden she planted last year. I’ve seen more different kinds of wild bees than I’ve ever seen before or even knew existed in our area. I’ve also seen a lot of honeybees for the first time- someone must be keeping a hive nearby.

[@mayflowerlash11]

Sabine combines "dad jokes" with dead serious comments on the world. Very impactful. Love your vids Sabine.

[@Skablergen]

Her smile in the thumbnail is a little ominous given the title of the video, as if she herself caused the beepocalypse

[@Nickesponja]

Maybe she did and is trying to cover it up with this video

[@kingo_friver]

Sabine's beepocalypse conspiracy lol

[@CAThompson]

I noted that 'BEEPOCALYPSE' could be the bees themselves wreaking destruction.

[@johnnyrivas2619]

"I'll fucking do it again!" Sabine, probably.

[@CAThompson]

@Charlie Don't Serf Whether she's hot is besides the point as far as she's concerned, likely. Learning something whilst thirst-watching would be time well spent.

[@johnathansaegal3156]

It's gotten so bad on my homestead that I have to pollinate my squash myself. I live on a homestead on the side of a mountain. In the valley below is a monoculture of hay farms (and domesticated beehives). For the last three years, hand-pollination of my squash is the only way for me to get healthy squash - if any at all. We don't have a squash farm; it is only 1/10th of the food we grow. Our strawberries and jalapeño peppers do well, half of the cabbage this season we let go to seed, yet none of the pods contain seed - so it looks like we will be hand pollinating the cabbage if next season we get the same problem. We do have all the food crops closely intermixed for diversity (not planted directly next to each other, but close enough with non-edible flowers to give the pollinators a nice buffet). We use no pesticides, and everything is purely organic from the soil we use to the well water. It's a conundrum we have not seen in the years prior. I don't want to place blame on the hay fields a few miles down the mountainside, but we simply do not see the bee population we used to see. (Northern Nevada, USA)

[@TheThaiLife]

I'm in Thailand and they have had a lot of cases where a person sprays chemicals on their fields and we find the hives dead. Somehow a bee or a few can bring the poison back to the hive and it kills them all. But on the flip side, if I go into the jungle with a sweet cologne (I accidently did once), thousands of bees come out to check you out. Pretty scary.

[@RobertHildebrandt]

11:53 "What's at risk are natural resources that we exploit but that we haven't put a price on". Thank you for this statement! Markets force companies to cut costs. As long as companies can lower their prices at the expense of others (external costs), they will do so. The topic of a Pigovian tax (a tax to prevent companies from hiding external costs in their prices) is a really interesting one that could directly address the root causes of so many problems. I particularly like the version where the tax money collected is redistributed to citizens so that ordinary citizens are not burdened, but still have an incentive to buy the greener solutions because of the price difference. I am not an economist, but this sounds like a game theoretically great solution that I really wish more people knew about.

[@johannuys7914]

Most people know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

[@brothermine2292]

Another, more general name for this kind of solution is for government to "internalize the negative externalities." A negative externality is a cost (to some members of society) that isn't paid for by the seller or buyer. A well-known example is the damage to people's health caused by polluters. One of the difficulties with the tax solution is to accurately assess the cost of mitigating the damage in order to properly set the amount of tax... not easy to assess or mitigate in cases where people's lives are cut short by the externality. Another solution is regulations that ban or limit harmful activities, which seems like a better solution than a tax to deal with externalities that cut short people's lives.

[@jakesecondname2462]

It makes game-theoretic sense as long as you forget the interests of the companies (and company owners) being taxed. They make it rather hard to achieve in practice; capital flight is always looming around the corner.

[@RobertHildebrandt]

@@brothermine2292 > Another solution is regulations that ban or limit harmful activities, which seems like a better solution than a tax to deal with externalities that cut short people's lives. Agree. I think bans are great for things where the damage is great, the benefits negligible and society can function without. I think taxes are a fantastic tool if one wants to use markets to invent alternatives. Or for situations where bans aren't politically feasible. Or I guess for situations where almost no damage is done if almost no one is consuming it. > One of the difficulties with the tax solution is to accurately assess the cost of mitigating the damage in order to properly set the amount of tax... Yeah. My naive approach would be to start with an educated guess and increase/decrease based on feedback of experts. Maybe experts would get better at making educated guesses after a few trials and errors? If my understanding is correct there might be some room to experiment without burdening the common citizen thanks to the redistributed tax money.

[@RobertHildebrandt]

@@jakesecondname2462 I don't see how capital flight would benefit the company owners as the taxes I am talking about are not a tax on their capital but the -produced- (edit: sold) goods. But yeah, for this to work the same taxes need to be applied to locally produced and imported products (edit: but not exported ones). Otherwise fleeing the country and selling from the outside would immediately become the game-theoretically best solution.

[@patrickegan8866]

There's been a lot more focus in Australia on native bees in recent years, with guides on the combinations of plants to keep them happy all year round, plus you can buy native bee stations pretty easily and cheaply

[@introprospector]

Stop using honey

[@Yawgrimas]

@@introprospector I think you missed the purpose of this video. Honey and the use of honey is not just the main issue (though sure the growth of the honeybee industry is harming honeybees and wild bees), things like manicured lawns for the ever expanding urban sprawl, lawns should be left to grow and wild flowers bloom, sure they may be "weeds" but they're also the bees food. As Patrick says, programs of planting that allow for year round flowering that feeds bees. Also our lack of research on wild bee ecosystems pre-industrialisation means there's a lot of lost knowledge and gaps we just simply don't know, and we can't use data from already damaged populations to make accurate predictions, or true causation links. Honey is not the primary and only problem though.

[@Jake12220]

As someone that has dozens of Australian native bee colonies (mainly australis and some hockingsi) European honey bees are not really an issue for them if the ecosystem is relatively healthy, they all get along fine. The cost of the honey is dramatically different, around $10per kg for Europen honey and $200 per kg for native honey, so l can't blame anyone for wanting to stick with regular honey. Mind you native bee honey has some remarkable properties containing a rare type of sugar that doesn't spike insulin levels so potentially ideal for diabetics or those wanting to loose weight. But even with dozens of native colonies and dozens more wild native colonies and with both local commercial European bee hives and wild European colonies l still have lots and lots of other solitary and semi solitary bee species on my property. While it's true we won't know exactly how things were pre settlement, we are lucky in Australia to still have a lot of relatively untouched areas. Indeed my land has had gold mining, cattle farming and orchards at various points over nearly two hundred years now, yet l still have huge grass trees and countless cycads that have been growing since before James Cook got to these shores. Humans don't always completely mess things up.

[@raylopez99]

@@Jake12220 Only about 25M Aussies in a land the size of the USA, is why AUS is not yet totally messed up. But give them time... As for natural honey, you're right, but, like adulterated olive oil, a lot of ignorant consumers cannot tell the difference between natural honey and sugar water with food coloring in it. Speaking as a bee keeper.in Europe.

[@Dontreallycare5]

@@raylopez99 To be fair, properly cooked rice syrup is literally indistinguishable from clover honey unless you have some very expensive equipment that can test its molecular homogeneity. Which is why I haven't bought honey from a store in over half a decade. Germany might have the testing standards to spot the fakes effectively, but the USA certainly doesn't - especially when the fake honey is mixed with real honey during bulk homogenization that big honey sellers do to create a more uniform looking product.

[@simongross3122]

There's actually news in Australia about this today. A whole lot of hives had to be destroyed because of some deadly mite which they are afraid will spread.

[@robertshorthill6836]

Simon Gross. Australia has been without the Varroa Distructor mite since before it appeared everywhere in the world. Now there is an outbreak of this mite down under there. There was a time, in my days of being a "beek", that varroa was unheard of. Now it is everywhere. So called "wild" and "native" bees don't seem to suffer from varroa infestations, but they are being decimated by other factors, not from too many honey bee colonies. There is ample forage for all bees, just not enough of any species.

[@simongross3122]

@@robertshorthill6836 I hope the efforts to target an insecticide at the mites which were reported yesterday will be successful, and the other factors you mentioned somehow addressed. But I have a feeling that research will go towards saving honey bees rather than the native bees. BTW, what's "beek"? Used to be slang for a judge in English I think. Oh, is it short for "Beekeeper"?

[@robertshorthill6836]

@@simongross3122 When I was a beekeeper many decades ago, I was pretty serious about my "hobby". It was a significant portion of my yearly income and I was known as a "beek" to the post office people. My queens would arrive at my PO box, they'd call me up and I'd go pick them up, make up a nuc or three and get the queens laying before re- queening a colony. I had never heard the word beek, but I liked the term. It stuck with me all these years. I do not have any bees now, but I have to say, once a beek, always a beek. I still hope to catch a local swarm, but it's almost too late in the season to build it up before fall and winter. Bob

[@simongross3122]

@@robertshorthill6836 Mate, that is really interesting. Bees are a mystery to most people I think, including me. I take it you're retired now. I fully understand that once you have a deep interest it sticks with you forever. For me, it's science, maths and music. I might go have a look for YT videos on beekeeping just to satisfy my curiosity :)

[@robertshorthill6836]

@@simongross3122 hello mate, yes I am retired, but due to inflation, medical issues, the price of food, beer, and gasoline, I still have to work part time. There is a local hardware store that hired me to do assembly with this other bloke ( fellow, dude, gent) and together we can stay on top of items customers would like to purchase -- expensive gas grills, wheel barrows, gas and wood fired fire pits (stands), push and propelled lawn mowers as well as zero turn rider mowers for large estate lawns. They also sell Stihl chain saws and cord weed cutters. Fridays are my best days. I'm on my own to tackle my to do list. My wife helps her daughter out at her day- care as often as needed. I have done assembly work most of my adult life. Some of these products are remarkably well engineered. I dabbled with auto mechanics for a few years til I realized autos are engineered to fail within 3 to5 years. So I became a luthier for several years working for Gibson Guitars in a small mandolin factory. Then I ran an old shaper machine in a furniture factory, which I didn't like all that much. The boss and his buddies in authority positions were incompetant assholes that made my job double difficult. Then as a tech making electro- mechanical assembly/ components for the auto/ motorcycle industry for dynomometers to fine tune racing machines. A lot of my jobs have been interesting and I've been told I'm "over qualified", but I'm not too over qualified to starve to death or be homeless. I built myself a couple mandolins while at the mando factory back till '96. I try to play old time fiddle tunes when I can. I grow a garden to have seasonal fresh vegies and can eat my weight in squash, beans, peppers and of course tomatoes. Last summer, I must say, was a great year for gardens. Just warm enough for a great season. This year may be almost as good. My toms and stuff got in the ground about 2 1/2 weeks earlier this year. I wanted to catch a bee swarm this spring, but alas, no luck. Maybe next year, huh? Cheers, mate. I wish you well. Bob in SW MT

[@ayamaguire6697]

Sabine’s sense of humor is so subtle and wonderful.

[@seltonk5136]

Cute bee stings too

[@c.augustin]

Sabine - applying your "special" style of communication to non-physical topics is a really good thing! Your humor works so well even with serious topics, that even non-scientifically inclined or trained people might listen and understand.

[@bmaurus]

I do appreciate your deadpan humour.

[@BobStein]

@@bmaurus right. The dry, understated delivery amplifies the charm in nonlinear ways.

[@billhanna2148]

Very well said, thank you 🙏👍😎

[@michaelmccoy1794]

Wow. As a fisheries biologist-technician, this problem interaction between (domestic kept) honey bees and wild bees sounds familiar. It seems very similar to the problems that hatchery salmon cause for wild salmon populations...

[@tomface55]

"the problems that hatchery salmon cause for wild salmon populations" I've never heard of this before. Any recommended reading on the topic?

[@simp4makima966]

@@tomface55 kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5qpfqedgsiLa5o

[@shockwavecg]

Tell us more, please!

[@extropiantranshuman]

@@shockwavecg there's this tiny river called the kern river in California. There's a hatchery there. Why? Because this tiny river that might have one or two fish swimming in it will have 20 fisherman huddled in just one place! How does a native population keep up? They don't - so they artificially breed them to keep the fisherman happy. I don't know why the fisherman would be happy if they're causing extinctions and are not catching real fish - but that's just me - I guess they have a case of willful ignorance.

[@shockwavecg]

@@extropiantranshuman Has anyone told them? It might not be willful, they simply might not know. If they knew - especially if that river is someplace they've been coming to since they were children, they would probably help to take steps to protect it so they could bring their grandchildren one day.

[@slavric]

Yesterday I binge watched (or listened) many of your videos. The concentration of information is huge, many points of view included and looks rather unbiased. Humor adds to the value and there is a broad range of topics. Thank you for your huge effort and bringing us digested and valuable information. I'll keep on watching and leaning. Thank you a lot.

[@persimmontea6383]

Also, there are wild honeybees. Years ago I knew of at least a dozen trees in the woods nearby with wild honeybee colonies, today I know of just one. Clearly, something is happening.

[@coderentity2079]

I find Sabine's work honest. It's very hard to succeed with honesty instead of being popular and flashy. Keep it up! Btw bees and their society is fascinating af!

[@grassgeese3916]

And her jokes are delivered with this endearingly-unlaughing face-- ! I really like this content hehe

[@AaronALAI]

You literally have the best videos on KZbin, thank you for sharing the knowledge you harbor.

[@azmard4865]

She's underrated. Tons of people could benefit from this channel 🌹💯

[@michaelferguson4549]

Your 15 minute limit is wise. Though I write rather than KZbin, I try to keep my newsletter between 3,000 and 3,500 words or about a 10 to 15 minute read for a college graduate. As there is a price point for an 'impulse buy', there is also a optimal impulse read or impulse watch and it is at about that 15 minute point. You can go longer but your loss of viewers will be such that total minutes watched (or read) goes down. Also, there is a limit to how much profundity one can stuff into a week. You need to research, then think, then organize and finally produce, whether video or article. There are too many people who are producing so much that they don't have the time to think things through. Your casual viewer probably doesn't think about how much research went into becoming knowledgeable about wild bees v honey bees. But, I did, and I am impressed. Good job.

[@Davidmc23]

A most excellent talk! As a former honey bee keeper I can certainly attest to the positive impact of not being a bee keeper. The wild bee population on my little farm has exploded as have the species I'm now seeing. It's getting hard to figure who is who now, a good problem to have imo. The changes happened as part of a larger plan of providing more diverse forage and habitat as well, really happy with what's been developing.

[@sol_mental]

Let a thousand flowers bloom, what a beautiful final message 😊

[@artkoenig9434]

Well done and eloquently spoken.Thank you for your ability to use your incisive logic to explain the problems.

[@spvillano]

She was dismissive of some things, such as "lose a hive, buy another". That's like going out and getting some nice dinner dishes, then tossing them into the trash, rather than washing them, then wondering why you don't have enough money to get some of the choicer foods that you wanted to enjoy like before.

[@oranisagu]

There's a ton of (often easy) things people with a garden can do: * don't use all of the area for weekly mowed grass, designate some parts to wild grass and flowers (seed mixtures of local wildflowers can often be bought) - it takes less work and looks really nice * bee hotels take a bit of yearly care but are really helpful * instead of non-native plants as sight-shields, ask your gardener for native alternatives. you might need some structure to support things like bramble bushes etc, but then they can offer the same protection of privacy while being better at harbouring local wildlife * keep pesticides to a minimum. depending on the pests, you can buy Ichneumon wasps for bigger pests, ladybugs against aphids and probably others I'm not aware of. * mosquitos can apparently also be somewhat deterred by plants like lavender, basil, rosemary and more * even if you only have a balcony, you can plant flowers that local wild bees are able to benefit from. indigenous plants often also have the benefit of being far easier to care for (i.e. not even need to be moved during winter). not having a garden I'm far from well informed, but there are tons of resources online, the important thing is to know there is an issue and starting to ask questions and helping to inform others that may be unaware.

[@karlb8481]

One of the more informative and entertaining of your videos. Thanks so much for the wide net you cast, with considerable humor. As a gardener from a farm family in the corn belt, it's a prescient concern here. I wonder what crop seems to connect with the corn belt spike in bee mortality? Alfalfa or possibly another?

[@yasploofyh8358]

At 3:23 you mention 90% but the subtitles read 40%, just a little mistake I encountered. Great video Sabine!

[@davishall]

I noticed this too. I'm hoping we could get some clarification on which number is the mistake.

[@neillynch_ecocidologist]

@@davishall The whole point she was making is that it's a non-linear relationship so it doesn't really matter which she meant, I would say. Basically, it's NOT 20% (10% + 10%) when pesticides were combined together is the point she was making - though I doubt anyone would expect combining pesticides to work that way in the first place. The use of the phrase 'up to', both spoken and in the subtitles, adds to the uncertainty that she meant to convey. HTH.

[@bardmadsen6956]

I was a crop-duster flagger back in the mid 70's and have always wondered how long it really takes for nasty chemicals to degrade. All I know is that when I walk out in the yard with thousands of wild flowers, in the north-woods, there is no flitting of any insects! Even in the cedar swamps the mosquitos are occasional. It's eerie and reminds me of The Andromeda Strain film.

[@kayakMike1000]

What part of the northwoods are you in? There's plenty of mosquitos in my northwoods.

[@spvillano]

If you want a hint, some chemicals look to be able to last a century or so, for some fluorine containing chemicals. For even more joy, look up blood DDT levels in humans, it's still present in many people's blood.

[@bardmadsen6956]

@@kayakMike1000 The edge of Yoopers and Cheese Heads. I use to live up here on and off as a kid 60's, 70's, and back. Got real sick of the metroplexes. You?

[@bardmadsen6956]

@@spvillano They had just stopped using DDT, there was one open bag of it at the airport. I bet I have a number of of them, one exposure of the parathion flops was scary. I was really close to the Pecon explosion also with ammonium perchlorate. But really, I've never found a study on any of the half life's of anything like that and in agricultural areas they spray year after year. I recall always being amazed how fast a health cotton plant can die. The Teflon documentaries are scary also.

[@jatpack3]

@@bardmadsen6956 i was in Niagra last week and skeeters and horse flies were pretty bad. I live south of GB and mosquitoes are plentiful here as well.

[@TokyoAlex]

One more factor that you might want to add to the equation is that a lot of those exaggerated statistics come from pollinator services. Every year they move from state to state, from season to season, and from crop to crop. There is no honey bee that is evolved or bred for that. Unlike professional beekeepers that have their own apiaries, these migratory beekeepers really stress the hell out of their colonies. Now take that and think about what decisions are been made by the accountants. Any colonies that are lost can just be written off as an expense against their revenue. disease + varroa mites + mite treatments + changing locations + peticides + sugar syrup + end of pollination season finances = some exaggerated numbers

[@dooleyfussle8634]

This was my immediate explanation for this problem when it first came to my attention about 5 or 6 years ago. Thanks for not only confirming my hunch but for providing a much more detailed explanation. Thanks too to Sabine for her clear eyed look at the situation.

[@TokyoAlex]

@@dooleyfussle8634 Yeah. Sabine is awesome. Also, if you watch a few videos on queen rearing, you will see that beekeepers can lose huge numbers of colonies and bouce back every year. It is almost like complaining about how many apples died. Not a perfect analogy, but it does work.

[@sallylauper8222]

Pollinator services are probably a major factor in hive collapse and Sabine should have spoken about them.

[@audreysavard3248]

I remember some years ago. Some of those pollinator were accusing neocotinoides of killing their colonies. Problem: those pesticides were in moratoire and were only sold with an agronome approbation. Since the two bigger honey producers , etablish on different site said there were no problems with their colonies, the gouvment ask to send them some samples of the dying colonies for doing free pesticides analysis. No one send it. What was the problem in the finals? A very poor nutrition gestion at the end of the season and the bad use of a pesticide against the varoa.

[@MrDino1953]

A very timely episode Sabine. A few days ago, in Newcastle, Australia (where I live) varroa mites have been discovered in test hives in the port area which are monitored for bee parasites. A strict lockdown has been imposed on transport of bees in the state of New South Wales while all commercial hives within a 10km radius of the port district are being eradicated.

[@RyanK-100]

I love the logical flow of Sabine's presentations. She doesn't take a time out to hear from 10-year-old Sophia who feels sad that her bees died. Or implications that people will start starving to death because of lower food production. No gobbledygook. And lots of connections.

[@crowlsyong]

Yea

[@michaelsmith4904]

Wait, hold the phones! 10-year-old Sophia feels sad that her bees died?!

[@kayakMike1000]

@@michaelsmith4904 yup. It was all over the news a few years ago. I think there was an indie go go.

[@asdf8asdf8asdf8asdf]

I don't know what's most compelling: the level of research, the nuance presented, or Doc H's epic sense of fashion, head to toe. A great package deal.

[@telanos2492]

I remember reading about CCD a decade ago, and then totally forgot about it as it doesn't seem to have been mentioned in recent years. Thanks for an excellent and informative video!

[@GamelanSinarSurya]

Another fantastic video Dr. Sabine. You are an amazing educator. And your deadpan humor is spot on. Thank you.

[@mecidgaliba2854]

Thanks for the great video, but I saw a little problem with the captions. 3:24 You said *90 percent* but the captions say *40 percent* . Which of these percentages is the correct one?

[@neillynch_ecocidologist]

The whole point she was making is that it's a non-linear relationship so it doesn't really matter which she meant, I would say. Basically, it's NOT 20% (10% + 10%) when pesticides were combined together is the point she was making - though I doubt anyone would expect combining pesticides to work that way in the first place. The use of the phrase 'up to', both spoken and in the subtitles, adds to the uncertainty that she meant to convey. HTH.

[@bunnykiller]

I had to have some bees removed from between the walls in a bedroom 2 months ago, the guy said there were close to 100,000 of them that were to be relocated. We got hit for 400$ and a gooey floor, "luckly" we were in the process of revamping the walls and flooring anyway. He did leave with over 100 lbs of honey/comb ( 4 @ 5gal buckets)... So, they are still alive and doing well, very well...

[@mrtransmogrify]

2:00 As someone who used to troubleshoot systems, multiple causes of failures are the worst nightmare... it is difficult to isolate and sometimes when you begin the rectifying process, new failure symptoms emerge due to some combination of failures that escaped the previous round of diagnosis... which lead you to question if your initial diagnosis was correct at all

[@andrewallen-tidy3818]

Great video Sabine, thank you so much for explaining it so simply and interestingly.

[@simoncleret]

Consider making a "bee hotel" for solitary bees in your area. It can be as simple as an old stump with holes of various sizes drilled into it.

[@edsnotgod]

It's ridiculously simple. For some reason they like to nest in the wood and even tools hanging around my outside basement stairs so I bought a few ready made "hotels" and they moved right in All I have to do is keep the hotels in place. They aren't aggressive or anything.

[@0LoneTech]

Make those holes deep enough, though. Some of those bee hotels end up more like bird buffets.

[@Jake12220]

What they like will depend on the species, some will like holes in solid timber of various sizes, some prefer bamboo or reeds, but many prefer compacted earth with holes drilled in it. Its best to look up what species are in your area and what their preferences are given they can be quite different.

[@SadisticSenpai61]

We should probably do something like that. Although given we live near a nature "pass through" area and have a ton of wasps nearby... That said, we do see bumbly bees fairly regularly.

[@Jake12220]

@Dodala Duhananda Inda Bhude l normally have three European honey beehives on my property here in Australia, they are currently hanging out at my parents place while l setup a new stands for them. My parents have another four of their own. But... I also keep native bees, there are three fairly common species of communal native bees in Australia that behave in a similar way to European bees, though much smaller. While l only have three European hives, l have dozens of native beehives. There are also multiple species of solitary and semi social native bees in large numbers here, but then l have over 100 acres of land that looks largely untouched, even though it was largely striped bare over 100 years ago in a gold rush.

[@NafiKhan]

thank you for making a video on this topic, i've heard about honey bees vs wild bees but i hadnt looked into it much and this is very helpful

[@SunFlower-jr2qh]

Absolutely refreshing! Fascinating and important so well presented. I am a gardener I always notice unique and solitary bees and rarely see honeybees unless I’m with clover

[@rayoflight62]

I appreciate the variety of topics on your channel...

[@SolofAvaldor]

Great video. I appreciate the way you cover complex issues with actual data. I also appreciate the humor you bring to your communication.

[@Marqan]

Glad you made this video, was wondering about this issue myself. The message from previous articles on the topic was very unclear or misleading.

[@begonnne]

This video is tremendously informative and is presented in such a way as to keep it interesting to watch. Thank you, Sabine.

[@StuartBelote]

I just came across this after listening to your video on tine. Your sense of humor is excellent. Loved the video and will be watching you in the future.

[@aybiss]

I love you Sabine. Your videos never go quite where I expect them to. Keep telling me more things!

[@hobbyhermit66]

Thanks for putting this out there for folks that may have never thought about it otherwise. Makes me want to find out more about bees native to my area. 👍👍

[@artawhirler]

I had often wondered about this! Thanks for explaining it!

[@leovalenzuela8368]

Another brilliant video, thank you Sabine!

[@kc62301]

Thanks! This was especially informative and interesting given the headlines over the years.

[@nanorider426]

6:40 Bee- and physics-humour. More of that please. 😆 Edit: Thank you for doing this video. Much has been said about this topic, yeah, I've seen the "apocalypse is here", but it's the first time I have seen some number-crunching . It's nice to hear some real facts about about it.

[@NoNameAtAll2]

you like jazz?

[@briancowan528]

Sabine, you are so good at explaining things iin a way backed up by good research. Thanks.

[@Myrdden71]

Loved your humor as well as your facts. Thank you for this information!

[@bmenrigh]

This was so much better thought out than I thought it would be. Good message!

[@DavidKennyNZL]

New Zealand has strict import restrictions due to having lots of unique wild life. Although some problems and deceases have got in they are normally managed to limit the spread.

[@Oskar_A.]

Very informative video! Thank you, Sabine.

[@tomoliver3794]

This is such a great video, thank you so much for making it! And thank you for including our meta-analysis too, I wish this video counted as a citation!

[@kathorsees]

Thank you so much for your work! This world really needs it, and I'm so thankful for people like you. Cheers!

[@ronusa1976]

I help wild bees with growing mint plants. The mint flower for like a month. It is a hardy invasive plant and will take over your garden if not tended to. Sabina is right we have no idea how many wild bees we have. At least 20 different ones love mint plants and some are really hard to see being so small. I have a 7 videos on KZbin channel in 1080I of these wild bees. I would provide a link but KZbin would censor this post and have it deleted.

[@Jake12220]

There are over ten thousand different named species of bee in the world, on my property l have over ten different species that l know of, but a lot of native bees look(yet not behave) very similar so it can hard to know exactly how many species you might have.

[@kolokolok]

Just saw some of your videos. Very therapeutic to watch. Bless you =)

[@let4be]

Outstanding video and very interesting take on what's happening, showing the real side of intricasy of ecosystems! Thanks Sabine! You are amazing!

[@metroidragon]

Excellent take on a very complicated topic.

[@KonradZielinski]

I was quite confused when a local council here in Sydney Australia was getting complaints for removing a Honey bee Hive that showed up on a suburban street. For some reason people don't seem to understand a core part of what you said, ie that Honey Bees are an introduced species in Australia and one that is competing with native bees for resources. Apparently though we do have native bee species here that can be cultivated for honey. On the up side they are stingless but on the down side the honey yields are not as high.

[@Denevembruh5623]

I always see her thumbnails and think it's such a relevant topic. No matter how obscure it's always relevant. Keep up the good work Sabine. I love you 😍

[@MrWildbill]

Thanks for this, I see the great honey bee extinction make the headlines every few years and then seems to fade away and I never got a clear picture of just where we were on it so thank you for doing the legwork to give a pretty good picture if the scale and nature of the issue. I don't know the state of wild bees but can say from empirical experience there seem to be about the same concentration of bees as always.

[@fen4554]

Her dead-pan humor is very endearing.

[@PtolemyJones]

Thank you Sabine, very informative.

[@johnregan2882]

Bees are bad a math....... Sabine, I love the humor in your teaching and variety of intellectual coverage of diverse topics.

[@b43xoit]

Not to mention those block parties that the bees attend because they are so social.

[@erzengelmichi666]

Great videos. I just recently became aware of this channel and I'm impressed. Since my childhood I soak up everything from science and technology like a sponge. I find it hard to imagine not being interested in it. 😊

[@Argosh]

Over the recent years there was a very simple thing that scared me: I had to clean my windshield less and less. When I began driving around 15 years ago I had to clean my windshield from all the insect impacts every few days, nowadays it's more like every few weeks... Remember when you could see hundreds of butterflies of different species? There's humans alive now that haven't seen a butterfly.

[@LevelJoy]

Excellent breakdown of the problems surrounding the decline of pollinators (and its relation to honey bees). I am fascinated by wild bees (and other pollinators) and there are so many misconceptions around 'saving the bees'. Thank you for this!

[@priscillaallen5276]

Thank you for this fun and informative video. Such a relief to get the full and factual story. Your intelligent and honest approach is invaluable.

[@basbekjenl]

There was a great example I heard a while ago, bugs on the windshield was a common occurrence and it has decreased a lot since long ago. I don't know the details I don't drive much but I thought it was a good example of bio diversity decreasing. Or just the volume of bugs around.

[@traumflug]

Well, just look at the cars around you. Headlamps and windshields are typically mostly free of bugs. 40 years ago it was quite common one had to wipe both in the middle of long trips, because bugs covered them considerably. There's an excuse, aerodynamics of cars also got a lot better since then. But I don't think this is the only reason for fewer bugs on windshields today.

[@wesrogers7934]

Yes insect numbers in general have collapsed since i was a kid. Windscreens, window screens at night, streetlamps... no more bugs.

[@theimmortal4718]

Drive through South Carolina

[@MamguSian]

What an eye-opener! Thanks so much for putting this subject into perspective and highlighting the plight of wild bees, and especially for letting me know that, when I finally have a garden, I don't need to feel obliged to get a bee hive 😊 I'll be much happier with bee hotels and masses of wild flowers. Your knack of combining hard facts with your humour is priceless! Keep 'em coming!

[@weijingburr2392]

Thank you Sabine! Good stuff.

[@videoworks5666]

“Let the thousand flowers bloom .“ Well said, Sabine.

[@gefginn3699]

Great post Sabine ⭐️ I love the idea of dedicating large parcels of land to wildflowers 🥰

[@blasty137]

Thanks a lot for the very informative video and putting the issue in the proper context.

[@Waverlyduli]

Love your vids, Sabine. Diverse, informative, well researched and scripted and fun.

[@limiv5272]

I completely forgot about the bee apocalypse until I saw this video in my recommended. If it were up to me, the media would be forced to report on updates to things that were previously headline news, and to give them the same level of importance as the original publication. Imagine how much better informed we'd all be if things worked like that.

[@sapelesteve]

Gotta love it when Sabine talks about the "Birds and Bees"! Very interesting topic. 👍👍

[@timeenoughforart]

The farm area I live in use to flood irrigate. We had one of the best honey producing areas in America. Trees grew along the sides of our fields and the ditch banks were fill of "weeds". The we switched to pivot irrigation and the trees, and ditch banks are gone. Agriculture also saw a decline in small farms. What are left are massive fields of monocrops, usually corn. I haven't seen a butterfly for years. I don't hear pheasants anymore. The cottonwoods on the south side of the property have been dying. There have been a family of longlegged hawks living there since my family bought the farm in 1976. They only have three trees to nest in and every spring I expect them to be gone. The water just doesn't get deep enough for the trees to grow. That's the farm land, a few miles north of me the sagebrush desert is meeting a similar destruction. Who sees the loss when your live in the suburbs, or just don't pay attention. I'm 63 and have seen decades of change, of death. It really feels like no one cares. More than once have seen that blank stare when I tell them I haven't seen a butterfly on the farm for a few years. Most of the time I get, "We just saw one at the park last week." Ya, but you didn't see hundreds did you.

[@deejay8ch]

Fantastic video Sabine

[@wpherigo1]

One of your best videos. Great balance of information. Everything we do has unintended consequences. Some good, some not so good.

[@entropyachieved750]

Great topic. Funny how many warnings about this and that end up being forgotten about... At least i now have an actual understanding about the issue

[@harbingerofevil]

First of all, thanks for making this excellent contribution! I'd like to add that you can have a "wild-bee hotel" and flowers on your balcony or even wine/... if the balcony is big enough. A backyard with more blossoms may be helpful if it's rather small. Filling the "hotel" with eggs can happen really fast if there is plenty of food. I guess having wild bees on close proximity gets standard once we (do?) start growing food on buildings on a large scale. BTW, wild bees are less aggressive than honey bees... Sabine, is there any information on how growing food on buildings does progress? Maybe there's enough to make a video about that?

[@tsamuel6224]

Great video. Had no idea wild bees were in trouble. Definitely see fewer over the decades. Also nice dress, so simple, looks good on you.

[@joecanales9631]

There was a short film video from Seeker out earlier this month which reported on the importance of a microbial symbiotic relationship with bees which was highly affected by fungicide. The fungicide did not harm the bees directly so had been believed to not be harmful to bees, but because of the loss of their microbes, the bees were suffering. I have been watering my desert hillside to encourage wildflowers and am amazed at the variety of wild bees. There is little large scale farming in the desert, but my greenhouse is green. Wild bees help.

[@extropiantranshuman]

too many people believe that microbes have nothing to do with veganism - but it's the microbes that keep everything alive. I believe we should start looking past veganism and animal agriculture towards jainism/ahimsa - where all life is cared for properly!

[@extropiantranshuman]

I don't believe in large-scale farming in the desert - i live in the desert and that's waht we have - it's not good. Greenhouses ftw!

[@jmk.3035]

Thank you for bringing up this topic! Here at my place (Hintertaunus ;) ) I have been transforming my garden to a more wildlife friendly place for quite some time now and it's always fascinating watching very different wild bees which then are also often connected to only one or a few plants. I could also imagine that this topic is much more relevant to for example us Germans in relation to US Citizens (generally speaking) because of our much higher population density and thus less untouched nature.

[@Jake12220]

If bees are from a colony (not solitary species) then the hive will generally only attend one species of flower at a time and only if there is enough of them to be worthwhile. So a garden with a million different species of plants all with just one flower each will probably be ignored, in favour of a nearby tree with a lot of flowers, even if its far further away than the million unique flowers.

[@Jake12220]

Also keep in mind that in Germany European honey bees are native and have only really bee farmed in the way they are now for a few hundred years. There have always been a lot of wild honey bees throughout most of Europe and giving they can travel up to 15 km each way to flowers most of the country outside of large cities will have bees within range and suitable trees or plants available. Germany does still have a lot of suitable forest and nature reserves. This is more a north American issue due to their low number of species of both plants and animals, south America has lots of native bees, both wild and cultivated, so does Australia and many south east Asian countries, l have no clue about north and central Asia, but Africa is so diverse that l wouldn't be overly concerned. I think we mainly hear so much about the problem simply because so much of the news around the world comes from north America.

[@jmk.3035]

@@Jake12220 Thanks for this infos about collecting strategies of hives as I'm still at the very beginning on this topics and have not really read into Systematics, Comparative Psychology, etc. I have primarily observed solitary bees so far and for example the Macropis seems to be bound to Lysimachia vulgaris so I try to always let a good amount of those flowers grow but also have to control their massive spreading. So as in the bigger (global) picture it's always the question about how much intervention in the small private ecosystem is acceptable if you want to give nature as much opportunities as possible for doing its own thing while still beeing able make use of it like growing Edibles. Or how much additional intervention (if any) is needed if there's the obvervation of a presumably self-sustaining complex system which is already damaged by other interventions. Could be a topic for another video.

[@doitatit]

Thank you Sabine, your presentation’s are always worth watching. One other pollinator that gets forgotten are moths.

[@Reneator]

I really enjoyed your dry humor! Keep it up!

[@EyeoIsis]

Thank you so much for this video! It cleared up a lot of my confusion as to what is actually happening to the bee population. I get it now, thanks to you.

[@TheRealBozz]

I've seen 2 bumblebees in my yard this year in Oregon. 0 honey bees. I used to see hundreds a day. The few Monarch Butterflies left are migrating now. Dragonflies, hummingbirds, Canadian geese, a seemingly endless list of decline. I miss the variety. I feel ambivalence towards our species. We could make a garden of this world. We will not.

[@trueblueclue]

OK nerd

[@r5LgxTbQ]

Plant wildflowers. You can buy a big bag of seed local to your area at home depot in spring.

[@IZn0g0uDatAll]

I couldn’t agree more. I remember walking in the Alps as a kid, it was buzzing with insects and butterflies. Last time I went it felt ominously deserted of life. That’s terrifying. In just one generation we have eradicated a huge portion of the biosphere.

[@Video2Webb]

Really good presentation Sabine. Thank you. I think we need to use tiny drones to do observations because these wild bees are just too hard to study ourselves, big lumbering things that we are! Maybe that is one way that technology could help - bring more data in and then some policy changes in all the sectors which are active forces for the existence of wild bees might be figured out.

[@isabellakhadka5723]

Thank you! I really appreciate your thoughtful and well-compiled summary. I also appreciated the humor! 😎

[@roberttradd1224]

Thank you for this. I always appreciate your thoughts and adore your underlying humor ("im an astrophysics. You can trust me ") wishing you continued success. Looking forward to your next presentation

[@garryjones1847]

I love Sabine! She keeps everyone straight! No bull zone on this channel!

[@shawnerz98]

The low key humor in your videos is great! :)

[@AZGATOR2002]

I love your videos! Perfect mix of science and humor for a Saturday morning.