[tptacek]

Varroa destructor mites are widely believed to have driven North American feral honeybees (themselves an introduced, invasive species) to extinction almost 2 decades ago. If there's controversy about this, I'd love to see sources.

[jly]

This is absolutely not true. A common and unfortunately widespread misconception by many in the beekeeping world and it's unfortunate these ideas persist.

This is a landmark census of a known population of feral bees before and after Varroa introduction: ~25 years apart [1]. The evolved methods of this particular group for Varroa defense are not the typical methods (hygienic behavior) that are seen with modern treatment-free survivor bees. There are now known to be a diverse array of natural methods that honeybees survive in the wild against Varroa. A couple of very recent papers survey these [2][3]. The last 5-10 years have seen an explosion of primary literature research on the topic, as well as queen breeders all over NA producing bees with genetic traits that allow them to survive without our help. You may also want to peruse this recent and passionate plea from one of the top honeybee researches in the world to move towards beekeeping methods that let bees better survive in the wild and stop circumventing their efforts [4].

Honeybees survive in the wild in North America despite beekeeper activities, not because of them.

[1] https://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/abs/2007/01/m6063/... [2] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... [3] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.12448/abstrac... [4] http://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/darwinian-beekeeping

[openasocket]

> Honeybees survive in the wild in North America despite beekeeper activities, not because of them.

Do we want honeybees to survive in the wild in North America? They are, after all, an invasive species. I'm not sure if they have any particularly destructive ecological effects, but certainly the ecosystem would work just fine without honeybees as it has for millennia? I'm not sure why making it easier for feral bee colonies to form should be considered a priority.

[tptacek]

Could you be clearer which part of what I said is "absolutely not true"? It's interesting that there are isolated colonies of feral honey bees that have evolved Varroa defenses, but my point is just that Varroa mites devastated the feral honey bee population in the US.

[mmjaa]

Having read the papers attached, and parsed your point of view, I'd say that the part that its "absolutely not true" is where you say, with some level of authority, that feral honey bees were devastated by the Varroa mite.

They weren't devastated, and have in fact evolved to deal with it.

What's missing, is your understanding that pesticides have caused far more devastation across a greater variety of honeybee species. Varroa mites are a straw man.

The consensus still holds, that pesticides are responsible for the decline: not mites.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27980344

[tptacek]

Sorry, I think you're going to need to (1) clarify exactly what it is you're claiming and (2) back that up with a source that isn't simply a news outlet reporting things secondhand.

Regarding (1): are you trying to say that recent bee losses are related to pesticides and not mites? We might not disagree. The eradication of feral honey bees occurred decades ago. Neonicotinoids were introduced more recently. Clearly there are some feral honey bee colonies today (after all: American beekeepers keep reintroducing new honey bees). If you want to tell me that pesticides are a greater threat to those colonies than the Varroa mites that wiped out all the 90s-vintage honeybees, I'm not going to dispute that.

[mmjaa]

I'm saying your claim that its mites is a straw man, is all. We've actually had almost this exact conversation before, you and I, and last time you weren't convinced that the science was 'sound enough'.

I don't expect you to be convinced this time, but .. lets see:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1393

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49768/...

[tptacek]

Sorry, I'm still not clear just exactly what it is you're claiming. I don't need to critically read magazine articles (or their sources) if we agree on the argument you're defending with them.

If all you're saying is that neonicotinoids are bad for honey bees, I don't disagree! My issue is that I don't think it really matters what's bad for honey bees, because it's not like there was a thriving population of wild honey bees for neonicotinoids to ravage: the mites took care of that 2 decades ago.