Experts scrambling to understand losses in hives across the country are finally identifying the culprits. And the damage to farmed bees is a sign of trouble for wild bees too
    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      13·
      7 hours ago

      The image’s caption:

      Bret Adee, one of the largest US beekeepers, has 55,000 hives used to pollinate crops. As monoculture farming spreads, bees have to be moved across the country, especially for almonds, blueberries and cherries. He lost 75% of his bees over the past year. Photograph: K Brinson/New York Times/Redux/eyevine

      A quick Google search reveals that his operation, Adee Honey Farms, is in South Dakota. here’s another article on this subject with a different photograph of the same place. Their web page doesn’t have many photos of the field in question, but there’s a couple.

      This is not an AI image.

      • tehn00bi@lemmy.world
        2·
        5 hours ago

        This is what large scale pollination companies do. They haul in tons of hives around various crops and let them do their thing for a while and then pack up and move to the next one. Basically these bees are like sailors going port to port, spreading all of their goodness around.

      • Internet Rando@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        13·
        6 hours ago

        Okay, so they are just monocrop idiots instead. Pardon me if I don’t cry a river for the industrial land rapers.

        I currently look at what was a fetile farm valley that’s been so stripped of it’s topsoil that the only thing these morons grow any more out here are Filberts. You know a lot of Americans salivating for Filberts?

        I have zero sympathy for those that stay industrial ag over sustainable…