[HN Gopher] Bringing back California's wild bees
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Bringing back California's wild bees
Author : chapulin
Score : 94 points
Date : 2022-12-24 05:52 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hcn.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hcn.org)
| WalterBright wrote:
| The previous house I had in a new development I had left the
| native plants in the yard alone. It was a meadow, with a wide
| variety of plants in it, including lots of wildflowers. It was
| mowed high twice a year to keep the fire risk down.
|
| It was beautiful. And didn't need any watering.
|
| It was the only lot in the development that didn't landscape with
| golf course grass.
|
| When it came time to sell the house, it sold almost immediately,
| and this was during the 2008 housing collapse.
|
| I did love that yard. I've been trying to do that with my current
| yard, with some success. The biggest problem is the invasive
| plants keep trying to turn it into a monoscape (himalayan
| blackberries, scotts broom, nettles). In the warmer season,
| there's a constant buzz of bees emanating from it.
| Steven420 wrote:
| It's sad that most people are worried about saving invasive honey
| bee populations while ignoring the many wild bee species that are
| on the verge of extinction
| alar44 wrote:
| No it isn't. Think of the average driver during rush hour. Now
| be happy that person gives a fuck about bees at all.
| bilsbie wrote:
| It's not common knowledge that they're invasive.
|
| But I do find it interesting how we pick and choose which
| invasive species to villainize.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| The ones that were introduced by humans in massive
| quantities, we can add cats and dogs to the list of invasive
| spacies, and human itself
| WalterBright wrote:
| I have no problem villianizing murder hornets.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| It's like villianizing sharks, and we know well how
| important they are
|
| Agreed for villianizing mosquitoes though
| bilsbie wrote:
| What about wild ponies?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The Mustangs are an invasive species in the west and
| their population growth is devastating the local flora.
| "60 Minutes" ran an episode about it recently.
| bilsbie wrote:
| But we extincted bison. Don't we need a grazing species
| in these areas?
| culi wrote:
| they don't sting so they're fine. Also in North America
| horses lived here 10kya before going extinct so at least
| here they're resuming an ecological role that was once
| occupied by their ancestors
| civilian wrote:
| Also x2, horses originated in North America! They came to
| eurasia over the bering land bridge!
|
| So the horses that were released (and have thrived!) in
| north america are originally north american horses. It's
| part of why they do so well-- they can eat all of the
| native brush here. Whereas if a cow gets loose in n.
| america it's gonna poison itself.
|
| https://awionline.org/content/wild-horses-native-north-
| ameri...
|
| https://returntofreedom.org/new-research-proves-yet-
| again-th...
| drzaiusx11 wrote:
| We're on track to lose all our pollinating insects within a
| century with a steady 2% decline year over year (conservative
| estimate). It's true that European honeybees can displace
| native populations when nectar sources are tight so efforts to
| plant native plants can help both bee populations. I don't
| think we should vilify the European honey bee, but rather
| address the root problems affecting both native and non-native
| pollinators alike: over use of pesticides, lack of nectar
| sources, new disease vectors, etc
| darth_avocado wrote:
| It is not popular, but wasps are actually equally important
| to pollination as are bees. There are thousands of species of
| wasps declining at an unprecedented rate. Outside of farmers,
| us dept of agriculture and universities dedicated to this
| research, it's barely even acknowledged because of the bad
| rep the wasps get.
| kaikai wrote:
| Blame media campaigns about the issue. I keep bees and most
| people I speak to about it seem to think it's a noble defense
| of our insect population. I get to tell them how they should be
| worried about native bees and other pollinators including wasps
| and flies.
| xipho wrote:
| I don't think blame is the best approach. The general
| public/media takes time to catch up with "current" science.
| First pollinator awareness, then, oh, there is more than just
| honeybees polinating Almonds, rinse, repeat, then at some
| point, oh, there should be thousands of species _in my back
| yard_.
|
| Regardless, I fear that until we put serious laws into
| regulating both pesticides and fertilizers (taxonomists
| anecdotally noticed diverity declines with the advent of
| fertilizers, think killing water quality, over 50 years ago),
| we're going to be fighting an uphill, if not impossible
| battle in this area.
| DrFunke wrote:
| I wish it were possible grow a hive of native bees the way that
| we grow honeybees. I've put in local pollinating plants, set up
| bee hotels etc, but this only seem to attract commercial
| honeybees and not the natives.
| mythrwy wrote:
| There's a non old world honeybee the Maya kept. They still do.
| Not closely related to old world honeybees. But it produces a
| fraction of the honey.
|
| https://www.thoughtco.com/ancient-maya-beekeeping-169364
| seltzered_ wrote:
| "And honeybees, which easily become feral, may contribute to the
| decline of their wild compatriots. "There seems to be a lot of
| evidence that they share their viruses and parasites," says
| Ponisio, adding that honeybees also can compete for food with
| wild bees. "
|
| This is kind of the interesting part to me. Beekeepers seemingly
| will argue the opposite about this.
| tptacek wrote:
| They're wrong.
| mugwort13 wrote:
| [dead]
| hedora wrote:
| Here's a simple way to help out (if you are in California) Type
| your address in here:
|
| https://calscape.org/
|
| To get a list of plants that are native to your microclimate
| (based on 100+ years of surveys). You can filter based on shade,
| fire safety, bee and bird attractors, deer proof, whether they
| need to be watered, pruned, etc.
|
| Then, buy some of those plants at a nearby participating nursery
| (which you can also find on that site).
| memonkey wrote:
| One of the absolute best websites out there for getting native
| plants. I use it every single time I go to the nursery.
| culi wrote:
| Equally amazing resource:
|
| https://www.calflora.org/
| scoofy wrote:
| >These human forces are transforming complex ecosystems into
| something more akin to biological strip malls
|
| >Time and again, the van passed housing developments, national
| banks, cattle fields, golf courses, strip malls.
|
| >powerful global forces also turn the world's biodiversity into a
| metaphorical McDonald's
|
| Sigh... I'm a nerd who's already written about how golf courses
| can be utilized to help prevent the extinction of the Migratory
| Monarch Butterfly:
|
| https://golfcoursewiki.substack.com/p/golf-for-non-golfers-g...
|
| This mindless blaming of _development, as such,_ is a common
| refrain from cliche californian 'environmentalists' many of whom
| have done so much more harm than good in the last 50 years by
| blocking urbanization. California has so much sprawl it's absurd.
| We need to be honest about how _blocking urban development,_ but
| allowing suburbia to stretch from San Diego to Palm Desert to SLO
| with everything in between is the source of these issues.
|
| I have advocated for some time that golf courses have the exact
| potential to be a refuge for native urban pollinators _exactly
| because_ they are large urban green spaces _with extremely low_
| humans /sqft. We need courses to step up and prioritize native
| vegetation off the fairways and work with local universities to
| set up apiaries. Many, many golf courses don't use any
| pesticides. The use of pesticides is just vanity for creating
| course conditions that are surreal and unnecessary.
|
| The problem is that we're turning _everything suburban_ in
| California. Repeal Prop 13. Stop the land hoarding along the
| coast, and start disincentivizing suburbia.
|
| There is no solution to _there are too many humans_. All the
| solutions I heard from 'enviornmentalists' here are basically
| that other people shouldn't exist. We need a way for people to
| live in tight urban environments, yes, _with national banks,
| cattle fields, golf courses, strip malls, and mcdonalds,_ but
| leaving more of the country side to stay wild.
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