DW Planet A - 2021-04-30
Think honey bees are disappearing? Or that the more hives we have the better? Think again. Here's why they're the bad boys of the bee world, and what we should be focusing on instead. We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess. #PlanetA #Bees #BeeExtinction Read More (Links): Pollinator assessment https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/pdf/2017_pollination_full_report_book_v12_pages.pdf Wild bees and pollination https://www.fibl.org/fileadmin/documents/shop/1645-wild-bees.pdf Pollination in the almond fields in the US https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/07/honeybees-deaths-almonds-hives-aoe Crop production hurt by lack of pollinators https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0922 Wild bee numbers declining https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdfExtended/S2590-3322(20)30651-5 Honeybees threaten wild bees, preserving both https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00060/full Reporter: Amanda Coulson-Drasner Video editors: Amanda Coulson-Drasner, Frederik Willmann Supervising editors: Kiyo Dörrer, Joanna Gottschalk
I was so grossly misinformed regarding the bee problem; thank you so much for this!
I'm really glad you guys made this. I've been studying bees and wasps independently for some time and I think it's important that people know that honeybees are invasive. In October, when I heard the American Bumblebee disappeared from 8+ states, that's what I cared about most. Bumblebee keeping is actually becoming a valid form of beekeeping, despite not being profitable and I really like that.
Thank you for spreading this word! I can't tell you how many times I've been attacked when I've posted actual data about the number of honeybee hives, trying to answer people who in all innocence have believed that they were catastrophically decreasing. With over 2 million views, this video has done infinitely more to educate people than any of us could ever do ourselves!
Thank you! Most people don't know about bachelor bees, they made up something like 98% of North American bees. They typically live underground so any time we till the soil, they all lose their homes. When we cut our grass, we suck them up.
I've never understood the fascination with the honey bees while ignoring the bachelor bees. Bachelors are native, the honey bees aren't.
Bachelors also tend to sting less because they aren't defending a queen and colony.
I tried ‘bachelor bees’ in google and got nothing. What kind of bee are you talking about?
I tried ‘bachelor bees’ in google and got nothing. What kind of bee are you talking about?
I tried ‘bachelor bees’ in google and got nothing. What kind of bee are you talking about?
I tried ‘bachelor bees’ in google and got nothing. What kind of bee are you talking about?
@IsleOfFeldspar solitary bees
I always thought: What difference does my tiny garden make? Then I put up one of those bee hotels, and wild bees started to come to our garden. We added more bee hotels, left "wild corners" in the garden, put in a tiny pond and started planting insect friendly plants (native to our region) and now we have loads of different species. There is a noticeable difference. This year we had a small hornets nest. I'm terribly scared of wasps and was scared when I saw the hornets but they totally left us in peace. But we didn't have a wasp problem this year because the hornets scare them off. :-D Also, I learned a bit about wasps and saw we had a lot of solitary ones that are not as aggressive as the standard variety that forms hives. I left out small dishes with water for insects to drink from in hot summers and they were visited by a large number of solitary wasps. Scared the hell out of me at first but now I got to know them better and they are not aggressive and will leave you alone. It's basically only two varieties of wasps here in the region that will pester you. And they are indiscriminate when it comes to food sources. They will eat human food and become aggressive and annoying. I'm no expert but I have the feeling that those varieties will thrive because they are more versatile and the wild ones will decline. A bit like birds in big cities where only sparrows and pidgeons stand a chance up to the point where they become pests.
It is absolutely worthwhile to make your garden a wildlife habitat. There is so much to see in our garden now. We have a wide variety of birds coming to bathe in our pond, we have lots of different butterflies, bees, bumble bees, hover flies, even dragonflies. We have small bats, beetles, etc.
And the ground is full of earthworms here, which is a good sign as far as I know. I absolutely love my wild garden and the wild bee population increases with every year. We had to put up a new bee hotel this year. :-D
For anyone reading, including he original commenter, if you have bees and see a wasp nest gettig started, destroy it asap. Some wasp species hunt bees, and the bees dont stand a chance, 100s die for every wasp, and wasp numbers will grow out of control. Theres also the possibility of the wasps being a dangerous species, such as Asian Wasps. They thrive well enough in the wild without our help
I loved your entire comment!!! It makes me happy to read about someone learning, interacting, accepting, and losing their fear of insects. I just hate to hear of people that blast their properties with insecticides because they have a complete misunderstanding and fear of bugs... unknowingly hurting themselves in the process. You are doing everything right and I thank you! 😀
I would loveee to do this
cant, HOA
@Zack 189 HOA's are evil
I always thought about this. Everyone talks about honeybees and saving them but I always wondered about how we're using them, of course usually for profit in some way, but I wondered a lot more about other pollinators, specifically other species of bees and wild bees. I didn't even know that certain bees were suited better to certain plants, though it definitely makes sense.
Extremely important information. My neighbour just picked up beekeeping (without adding any flowering plants to feed them to his garden) and I already thought that this may be very bad news for the (sadly, few) surviving wild pollinators in the area. But now I know for sure. Thanks for the film. I hope many people will see it, understand the danger and ACT!
Great video! My oldest son took an interest in this a while back and is installing native pollinator houses/habitats for solitary bees in our neighborhood and in conjunction with our local Botanical Gardens as his Eagle Scout project. Thank you for bringing more attention to these helpful insect friends!
Here in Brasil we have more than 300 species of stingless native bees. Those can easily be keep and multiplied at racional boxes. This species varies from 2 millimeters to 1.5 centimeters, so they reach lots of kinds of native species. These bees can be keep at our backyards
I had no idea stingless bees were even a thing, I always thought that was like, one of the universal constants in how they got classified AS a bee in the first place?
Their honey also tastes better. If I ever move to South America, I'm raising Jatai bees.
@TAmari I keep 3 species on my backyard at a big City in Brasil, my neighbors never noticed them
@Chitin skin I have some hives os this species as well
Couldn't agree more and I'm a beekeeper.
Keeping honey bees is like keeping chickens to save wild birds.
Karen believe me your not a beekeeper.
@Anders Lund Larsen Funnily enough, it’s actually more so the opposite. Rice and other grains give significantly more energy than meat per person. You may feel like you’re eating more but you’re getting far more energy for far less cost
@tsunamis82 but if you're feeding chickens monocultured crops you are contributing to the decline in both wild bee and wild bird populations. The inefficiency calorie conversion from crop to chicken to, presumably, you and others, is not worth the tiny offset of an alarm system for some birds that hang out in a tree in your backyard.
You keep backyard chickens for food and that's the end of story; no need to pretend it's some altruistic act
@peanut kaboom you are making some assumptions unfortunately. My chickens are fed on a wide variety of foods, rolled oats, pearl barley, canary seed, cooked rice, wheat etc. in their last bag of food there were sunflower seeds, and some gm corn. They also get dog roll, to make up for lack of bugs during winter, kitchen scraps and leftovers. Some of these are grown as monoculture, some will have been fertilised using non organic and also have been sprayed with weed and pest control. I have 6 laying hens and two pets that don’t lay. I do not kill my hens for food and when they die they are buried. I occasionally sell eggs at the local dairy and people fight over them because they are that good. I also reared the laying hens from day old chicks.
Having a large area of native bush and land I plant seeds that are plants that bees are attracted too. I do not use weed killer, or spray the orchard. Nor do I use seeds that have that red neonicotinoids on them. My hens are also free range.
@tsunamis82 I appreciate your response; it seems to have confirmed the point I was making. You do feed some monocultured crops to your chickens, as well as others that utilize pesticides, and there is still the basic problem of inefficiency. I’m also curious about where you get your chickens, and what sort of operation provides them to you.
The point is, while it may appear to have marginally beneficial localized effects like the one you described, on the whole raising chickens is a net negative environmental impact.
Interesting. I'm an organic gardener and have been growing food for my family for decades. I add pollinator-attractive crops and never paid attention to the types of bees I draw into my plot. One of these days I'll need to invest in a field guide to pollinators. Though I did know that the early spring bees pollinating for our apple trees were different... my neighbor called them mason bees, I think?
As a professional exterminator we have several protocols in place specifically to minimize the risk of wild bees and other pollinators from being affected by our products. I have no idea how it's handled in the agricultural industry, but I would imagine that due to how much of a larger scale pesticides are applied in areas like that the risk of wild bees being affected is much higher.
This video is excellent. I originally fell into the thought process that getting honey bees was going to be helpful. Ultimately, I did my homework and came to the same conclusion as this video that wild bees are the way to go, even though we don’t get honey out of the deal. I am in the process of setting up my bee houses for mason and leaf cutter bees and look forward to starting my experience with them this spring. I’m also hoping my garden will benefit as well. I’ll likely have videos on my channel so be sure to subscribe if you’re interested in seeing how it goes.
It's really sad to see insects and bugs number decreasing, I remember when I was a kid there would be tons of butterflies in my backyard, but now I rarely see a butterfly anywhere, I usually don't care about these stuff but when I was coming back home from school I saw a beautiful blue winged moth on the side of the road and it made me think about the beauty of nature I guess.
I am so glad I'm seeing this, many people don't realise that honeybees aren't the only bees and aren't the only pollinators
Especially, at least in America, bees are invasive. They came over from Europe with the colonists so America has always had other other pollinators
@heartz. You should've dumped that friend
@Malamockq You know male mosquitos actually pollinate too, right?
@KoltLeo Yes I do. But don't necro 7 month old posts child.
Honeybees are awesome
Thank you so much for this doc. There is so much nuance that gets left out in the Save the Bees! Discourse. People don’t realize that honeybees are invasive to the Americas. It’s frustrating that the public has been duped into “saving the bees” to support an industrial monoculture system that ultimately physically and chemically abuses honeybees.
I was a backyard beekeeper for several years here in California. Despite the face that I adore beekeeping, I ultimately stopped as I became worried about our native pollinators having to compete with hives. Interestingly, I noticed our local Beek’s were not quite as worried about the honey bees dying out.
People like easy solutions. It's like electric cars, they buy an e-SUV and they think they are saving the world, when a smaller normal e-car would serve their needs 99% of the time and would require less resources to make and run.
You have hit the nail on the head with a couple of things here. The lack of nuance in discussing situations that we as a society seem to suffer from repeatedly. And the fact that it's not the honeybee that is the problem, but the way our civilisation does things.
Thank you for sharing your evolution and awareness about the priority we must place on native bees! As you know, European honeybees are linked with Big Ag, and legally, honeybees are classed as livestock. And we know the negative impact of non-native livestock on other wildlife, the stripping of lands, ultimate degradation of biodiversity and climate, and human health.
I spotted a blue carpenter bee last year in a dead tree in my garden. This year I have two of the same species nesting in the tree. They look like huge black and blue bumblebees and are pretty cute. I also once spotted 4 sleeping bees in a flower and googled and could find out that sometimes very young bees sleep together in one flower, how fascinating!
This has motivated me even more to finish my garden project! I’m hoping to have a variety of plants throughout my back yard I know it’ll take time but I’m glad I was educated on this topic today.
This was an extremely informative video for me. Makes me wonder what the orchardists around here use to pollinate, considering I live near the apple capital of the world. This also makes me reconsider what I'm planting to be a help to native pollinators in the area. Thank you so much for sharing this!
I was at an agricultural conference a few years ago where a guy was talking about how we didn't need to worry about saving the bees since honey bees are doing better than ever. During the Q&A I asked him about native and wild bees and he admitted to not knowing about them. I think more farmers need resources outside of the pesticide companies that have basically taken over. It was pretty clear no one there had realized that the problem went beyond cultivated species.
@tyler mccandless so your grandfather was using neonicitinoids and glyphosate decades before they were invented?
@H H but just because you use fancy word for terrible chemicals doesn't mean a spices is gonna disappear there is a lot of land out there they are probably just hiding
@tyler mccandless no guy, I'm saying you and I are talking past one another.
@H H agreed
What governments could easily introduce is a compulsory section into all pesticide application training (commercial users have to be certificated) which details all the species affected by the pesticide being trained on, details alternative methods of pest control and gives a cost breakdown of the benefits of using other methods - many intensive management regimes are so reliant upon various pesticides uses, intensive fertilisation and single cropping strategies that the farmers are spending thousands each year on artificial additives to the environment
It's funny, just yesterday I was looking at fruit trees online and the nursery also sells orchard mason bees, ones particularly good at pollinating fruit trees, which was the first I had ever heard of solitary bees– like most people I thought all bees were colony insects. After a little digging I found that they're actually native to my region (Pacfic Northwest), and are used for pollinating a lot of the fruit crops here. If I buy fruit trees, maybe I'll have to get some of them too.
In my area we have a lot of wild bees actually, and they’re so cute! Most of them do not live in hives, but rather alone or sometimes you can find a pair. The ones that live alone are also very friendly, you can let them walk onto your hands! I hope also where I live well be able to support these animals. They are very interesting underneath the stigma of dangerous and annoying we have created for them. And some are even super fluffy :)
This is such important information. It saddens me that the majority of people don’t know about this, and are only focused on the honey bees. As a person who loves zoology, biology and animals in general, the extinction/endangerment of these species and many more breaks my heart. I hope we’ll take the necessary steps in saving these precious animals.
One thing I noticed at my work is we planted a bunch of native plants from the state I’m in. That outcome brought back a ton of bugs and birds I haven’t seen in a while. It’s amazing what happens when we actually get out of the way and let nature just do it’s thing.
as a bee keeper Ive said this to anyone who would listen to me, its scary how much we are loosing and everyone is trying to fix the wrong problem
Damn is your name actually Corey Taylor or is it a joke?
@رزيئة Im just a fan of slipknot
@Madlum Sibul why are you so mad bro
@DW Planet A (sympathy hugs)
@Jana Sadly, taxonomic bias is a thing. ☹️ Insects are so important yet a lot of people hate them or think they're all evil little monsters. I get that insects are a common phobia but that shouldn't blind people to how essential they are for the environment.
I can't believe I got the wrong idea of what save the bees meant for so much time. Now if there's anything more that we can do apart from what was mentioned I'd love to know
Great video. This is something I try to educate people on and they have such a hard time understanding. Same with native plants and not planting invasive plants.
Good video and very informative: In Brazil we do have many kind of native bees like Melipona scutellaris, Melipona quadrifasciata, Melipona fasciculata, Melipona rufiventris, Nannotrigona testaceicornis , Tetragonisca angustula and many more, very important in the fruit pollination and honey producing.
Thanks for putting that right! I heard of so many projects that intended to "save bees" and then set up honey bees. 😥They are making it worse while intending to help. I don't understand why this realization didn't spread further!
Thank you! People were making a big deal about honey bees, but don't care at all for native pollinators.
I am most concerned with endemic species surviving.
@Denis Matei If humans takes the dogecoin kid larping like he's a boomer neo-con seriously, than humans deserve to go extinct. That aside, the world's population is definitely too big. Raping the land for ravenous parasites isn't farming. Maintaining an apiary for large crops is sustainable and doesn't harm natural order much if you're not a clueless clown. You have no idea what your talking about and you sound like an indignant kid larping like he already inherited his daddy's business.
For good reason, though -- If honey bees are doing well today, then that's a reversal from recent years. For example, the lede of a six-year old article, "Organic beekeeping enjoys international backing," October 15, 2015, still found on the website for FiBL (where Sabrina Gurten in the above video works) reads: "The importance of honeybees to agriculture and thus to human survival is well known. Nevertheless, the honeybee as a species is in danger of extinction but we still have time to prevent this. In order to encourage organic beekeeping and contribute to saving the honeybee, IFOAM – Organics International has therefore established an Apiculture Forum."
666th like
@TrumpstersAreTurds Because it's political. Even before I went to college to get my degree in Entomology, I was never super fond of honeybees, and once I looked more into it, I have pleaded with others to stop caring so much about honeybees and start worrying more for native bee/wasp, beetle, and fly pollinators.
@Denis Matei yes, tear down all the useless building and build farms!
my parents started a pollinator garden at their old house. almost the entire side yard was taken up by it, and the people they sold it to loved it, so hopefully they will continue it.
As a beekeeper, I know varroa mites decimate honey bees, and suspected is the same with wild bees. Varroa is probably the number one threat to all bee populations. Once contained in just certain spots around the world, varroa mites are now everywhere, All hives need to be treated regularly for varroa, and wild bee populations are sol.
I think it is really dishonest to point out the negative impact that beekeeping has had on biodiversity while completely omitting the numerous positives. Professional berkerpers are among the strongest proponents of stricter pesticide regulation and the preservation of natural habitats. Here in europe, they actually affect legislation on an international level. The decrease in pesticide use that was achieved for the sake of honeybees helps wild pollinators just as much. I hear this talking point all the time and people need to stop acting like beekeepers are making things worse. People complain about the overreliance on honeybees when they should really focus on the circumstances that necessitated it.
We definitely need to save the honeybees. But insects in general are in serious decline, some now endangered. If we don't fix this soon, the Earth will lose all its fruits and other stuff we need from them.
I love the bumblebees. They’re so cute and fuzzy. I once was able to pet one because it fell asleep in a flower.
@krazy Ninja Bumblemees have no stingers.....
When I was a toddler I tried to pet a bumblebee and got stung for the first time. I don’t blame it-grabby toddler hands are a real threat if you’re a little bug! But their fuzziness and clumsiness is just too cute
@krazy Ninja kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
@krazy Ninja but that gives you a bigger balls
@krazy Ninja What the fu- H o w
Thank you for making this video. honeybees arent underpopulated, they are an introduced species anywhere except europe. And they are flourishing in the places they were introduced. It's the native bees such as the Bumblebee in america that are facing endangerment, a large part because introduced honeybees can easily swarm and outcompete them for resources.
This is a fantastic video for educational purposes, we plant alot in our garden that particularly cater to our native wild bee's, and have masses of bee's and butterflies, not as many as there used to be but still alot
Hopefully we can turn this around and help these wild species flourish again
Hey, we've finally got a video about this! I didn't really care about the honeybee thing, considering they're protected heavily by humans to the detriment of native insects that are important to the local ecosystem.
It's like the idea that vegan or vegetarian lifestyles will save the world despite the fact that we're already happening local ecosystems by taking large amounts of land for the exclusive use of a small number of plants that don't actually help the environment at all. It's easy to say that saving the bees and eating vegan will save the world because it's a simple ideal that doesn't actually require any real change, but the easiest solution is almost never the best one. Often, the easiest solution just doesn't work at all.
Unfortunately, the mass public only wants to look at issues like these at a shallow level. It's why being vegan/vegetarian is as far as most people go to "save the world," why people donate literal millions to save a few pandas over the plants and insects that are going extinct right now because pandas are cuter, and why almost nobody gives a damn about finding a recycling solution that actually works. Research is not easy, and they only want the easy solution to planetary issues.
I like this video. I am the Founder of "Day o the Honey Bee" in Canada. I have been trying to raise awareness about threats facing wild pollinators an Honey Bees since 2009. Unfortunately, when I began my campaign, no one cared about wild bees because I could not get people to understand the the multitude and millions of links between specific wild pollinators and their food supply, ecology, or biodiversity. However, people were able to relate to Honey Bees because it is one insect that is so widely used, it became the "poster child" for my project. I have not forgotten about other insect pollinators though because one of my goals is to get a moratorium on Neonic pesticides in Canada. Dr. David Suzuki has endorsed my idea to create a Day of awareness with the Government of Canada so that focus can be drawn to ALL pollinators - not just managed bees.
In a local wild park, an amateur entomologist called my attention to "blue bees" that were pollinating some blooming wildflowers that were...blue of course. I think we don't notice wild bees since most of them don't live as colonies. I'm also a fan of leaf-cutter bees for the perfectly round patterns they cut in young tree leaves to make their nests! (commenting from Japan)
@eat hot chip and lie Agreed. Sir @the unexplained, I'm just trying to explain GMO to you. Basically in the past, humans have already been selectively breeding plants to try and get better genes. That's basically spamming 10 pulls in gacha hoping you get something good. GMO is basically the same process with more diversity and less gambling, because you can now use desired genes from other species.
I'm not saying that GMO is a pure angel and all, it also has its own pros and cons. If we understand it and know how to use it then it can be beneficial to us and the environment. It's not inherently bad itself.
So Japan has enlightened Buddhist bees?
Metallic shiny blue? I saw a bee that looked like that once. It looked & sounded like a bee atleast
@Smusky It most likely was!
Thank you. I've been in arguments with to many people about why most honeybees aren't the best
Meh, I have the utmost respect for your garden keepers spirit. I also feel it is important to tend to the creatures who exist along side us. That said, natural selection is a funny thing isn't it. Even if all of those so call wild bees went extinct, the niche would be filled by new species of pollinators within barely 2 human lifetimes. It is important to remember that tending to something sometimes means letting it be replaced.
The beekeeping industry also has some major flaws. Rather than catching local honey bees and propagating them, bees are shipped from all over the country; and because they have been commercially bred, they are not naturally resistant to pests and diseases of the locality to which they are shipped. This is a problem because it is also ruining the genetics of the local honey bees since the commercially-bred bees are producing drones (male bees) that local queens will mate with on their mating flights.
Nice! In my country we are finally studying and discussing more about the stingless bess (native, social bees like Melipona quadrifasciata or Tetragonisca angustula). People still don't know that Apis is an invasive species, but we see more and more movements about native beekeeping (meliponicultura), the existence of those bees, importance, and why we shouldn't focus only on Apis.
Wow this was very informative. I had the complete wrong picture in my head. Thank you for this, I am planning on starting my own little garden in my yard so I will now be sure to use native species of plants and logs with holes in them. Again, incredible video ❤️
This is the WRONG message; Pollinators are in trouble across the board. Honeybee populations in the wild have plummetted in the same way as other wild bees and pollinators - only managed bees are surviving, because we work hard to keep them. The key message is 'Pollinators are being wiped out by loss of habitat and use of chemicals'. ALL pollinators are under the same threat.
I'm happy to see people finally being told about this. It's been bothering me for years to see rare solitary bee species in our garden being displaced by honey bees.
We should start keeping wild bees like in India and Australia
Amazing right! Who would have thought indigenous peoples and species are good for the land they came from.
@DW Planet A Can this issue be addressed by experts in artificial intelligence?
Could they create some basic micro-robots to pollinate crops?
At least while we figure out how to grow more wild bees...
I had a bumble bee hive on my yard in an inconvenient location; called many pro bee organizations near me (Tampa Florida area) on advice and they didn't care. One guy (Serious Beesness) was interested in relocating them, but for a fee. He destroyed / damaged their hive during removal and didn't vacuum all of the bees, but charged $300. He said that was humane. I guess so compared to eradication. I'm skeptical he humanely relocated them because how he put the hive in a plastic trash bag and threw it in the back of his truck. With hindsight, I would have gone out there at night with a red light and put up a small fence around the hive to keep others and pets away; leave the valuable bees alone as much as practical.
One of the things I found out was when west nile was the concern, the chemical used to kill mosquitos is toxic to bees. My best friend's husband was a beekeeper. The city was treating the area for mosquitos and they ask them not to spay because it would kill their bees.
Thank you. I’ve been saying this for years as an animal rights advocate. I’m so tired of people arguing that we are killing the bee population by NOT buying honey.
I wish more people researched things before going ahead and impulsively doing something they think is for the greater good. Sometimes it does more damage than intended!
Thank you for such an informative video, it does however, show that people need to learn more about the environment they are surrounded by constantly.
TierZoo - 2021-08-31
Great video, and such an important topic. It’s not just bees, insects in general are sadly seeing a huge decline in numbers and diversity. Thankfully, if we make the right changes, the insect populations will likely bounce back almost immediately, since they reproduce so rapidly and are such well adapted organisms.
Uncle Reggie - 2022-07-03
@tiggy wiggo insect social justice warriors.
I kinda seen this coming.
Bug lives matter!!
Muhammad Luqman Khan - 2022-07-08
It also helps make millions of dollars through donations to do these supposedly ethical things.. hypocrites
Random Person - 2022-09-03
Omg
Education - 2022-09-05
In terms of biodiversity, i am more concerned about biodiversity of plants . They are the medicine for every disease if we have the knowledge and wisdom to research and use them . But , first need to stop polluting them wild population.
Education - 2022-09-05
How fast do you think industrialization is harming the plant’s biodiversity ?
How fast do you think a new specie of plant can appear and be found by human ???
Do the math .