[LeifCarrotson]

How does that fact change the narrative? If anything, it makes it worse.

It does take away a bit of the emotional appeal of pristine, natural, innocent public resources that need protection from greedy farmers when the bees are owned by and grown for a different group of greedy farmers instead of being championed by people with purely altruistic motivation. But that they're declining when there are people with expertise and financial incentives trying to make more of them means there's a pretty serious problem.

[tptacek]

They are in fact not declining. There is no indication at all that a reliable supply of bee-driven pollination service in the US is in any way threatened. You'd be forgiven for not knowing that, though, since the story is presented in the media as if farmers relied on wild honeybees (an invasive species eradicated several decades ago by the Varroa destructor mite) rather than commercially managed bee husbandry.

[jly]

First, wild honeybees were not eradicated by Varroa. There are many papers written and researchers who have studied substantial wild honeybee populations for decades, and chronicled their decline and resurgence to pre-Varroa numbers. What has happened over the last few decades is that wild North American bees have adapted and are thriving, while 'babied' commercial bees are struggling.

Second, the number of commercial bee colonies for pollination services is not declining because beekeepers can choose to focus on making more when they need to. A reliably-consistent number of colonies can exist whether 5% die out every year or 50% (although at different cost). Having said that, what IS declining is the annual survival rate of colonies, which is linked to many factors, of which pesticides likely play a part. This is a not-so-subtle difference. Just because it doesn't immediately threaten commercial pollination doesn't mean there is no issue.

[tptacek]

You just wrote a comment that essentially says there's no issue. Wild North American bees† are thriving. Commercial bees are "struggling". But they're not struggling in any way we can measure, since prices for bee-driven services aren't changing.

If neither commercial pollination nor wild populations are threatened, why is this a top-of-mind issue? My contention: for the same reason glyphosate is. These are cosmetic problems that are easy for us to talk about and assign blame for, without confronting the thorny systemic issues that really implicate out way of live.

† Presumably you either mean invasive feral honey bee colonies, since honey bees don't belong here, or native bee species like the Bombus bees, which aren't exploited at scale in agriculture.

[cryoshon]

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

check out this study. Science is a reputable journal. sure, it's just one study. but there are thousands more.

looks like there is ample evidence of bees being harmed by pesticides.

[tptacek]

I don't think you heard me say that neonicotinoids don't "diminish bee health".

[emodendroket]

The information I've turned up suggests that commercial bee colonies are also rapidly dying off. https://beeinformed.org/2016/05/10/nations-beekeepers-lost-4...

[tptacek]

Are commercial pollination services perhaps using robotic bees? Because pollination services went up by something like 1% since that article was published.

[emodendroket]

I am not an expert in the field or anything, but it's not necessarily the case that, because pollination services have gone up slightly, the problem is solved. It could be that they've been able to work through this problem so far but will not be able to do so indefinitely.

[headsoup]

Are the bee sources still the same? Bees are often imported from other regions to meet supply.

[tptacek]

I have no idea. Why does that matter?

[emodendroket]

If all the bees keep dying perhaps you'll eventually run out of bees to import.

[random4369]

[Citation needed]

[tptacek]

Happy to:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-...

That's the Washington Post noting bee colonies at a 20 year high (a timespan that includes the tail end of the original Varroa epidemic!) in late 2015.

Then, go look up pollination service prices since 2015 --- a trivial Google search! --- and compare them with inflation.