[lostlogin]

Bees don’t survive in the wild where I am in New Zealand and there is no way they can eat all the honey they make, which is an average of 65kg more than they use, per hive. If they swarm, the swarms will die from varroa. Having the honey there weakens their hive as it’s too large an area to warm during winter. What’s the ethical thing to do?

[telesilla]

The ethical thing is to halt the husbandry of farmed animals and let the bees die out naturally, so there is no longer a source of honey (except for that delicious beech honeydew, but I don't know if those insects can be farmed).

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1436-honeydew-ecos...

[ericb]

> The ethical thing is to halt the husbandry of farmed animals and let the bees die out naturally

What is it that makes the "natural order of things" better? Aside from our fantasies about not being animals, aren't humans part of the natural order, by definition? It seems like a deforested barren world would be more moral under this sort of reasoning?

[madmulligan]

I don't particularly agreed with the parent, but the honey bees in most places in the world are non-native species that are introduced to produce honey and pollinate large fields, orchards, etc. For example in the American Midwest we have European honeybees everywhere, and they displace native pollinators (bumble bees, native butterflies and skips, etc). All told it's not a big deal but I can see an argument for removing them where they aren't native.

[croisillon]

I don't know the details of honey in NZ but I can imagine it's similar to cows overproducing (and endangering themselves with) milk: they have been bred to do that

[lostlogin]

My queens pick their mates and so do most - open mating is standard as artificial insemination is hard with bees. Bees are bred for certain traits but it’s a long way from the levels seen in diary for many reasons. A beekeeper can interfere, and often does if a colony is defensive or has poor brood. Productivity is harder to measure as the situation in a given hive can be markedly different across an apiary. Queen age, disease burden, hive site, equipment differences etc.

Most the control comes from killing the bad and reproducing from the good (and then hoping the queen finds good drones, avoids birds and finds her way home).