There's a rather large body of evidence that herbicides, glyphosate in particular, are, at the minimum, contributing to the bee collapse. You can find a ton of studies on the topic - here [1] is a random one that overviews some of the literature, though it's already quite dated. It doesn't kill them, but wrecks their gut biome and causes numerous issues that contribute to colony collapse. It also significant but, as of yet, unclear negative effects on the human gut biome.
Humanity goes through seemingly endless cycles of poisoning ourselves: lead, cigarettes, leaded fuel, asbestos, CFCs, and countless others. It's highly improbable that this trend has ended. During each of these cycles is there tends to be science claiming something is safe when it ultimately turns out not to be. In part this is due to ignorance/arrogance, but it's also because those who earn a paycheck driven by these issues have a strong motivation to 'prove' that it's safe, especially when it's not.
This assumes no such thing at all (as I'm clearly no expert on bees), but it does assume that literal parasites cannot possibly be a good thing for the bees, and anything that genuinely helps the bees is a net plus for us all.
Pesticides are bad for bees, but Varroa is too. Until Varroa arrived in Australia the bees there didn't suffer from colony collapse, despite high pesticide use.
It seems that varroa were first discovered in North America in 1987. [1] Glyphosate use at that time was around 4,500 metric tons. By 2014 we were up to 125,000 metric tons [2]. There was an exponential increase coming after 1996 when glyphosate resistant GMO crops became a thing. I don't have an opinion on this topic one way or the other, but there seem to be quite a lot of negative correlates since then, and this is just another one. Of course correlation doesn't mean causation, but you can't completely dismiss it.
This assumes the mites are what kills the bees. What is that asssumption is flawed?
Then all the scientists who study apiary are wrong and someone in the HN comments knows better than all of them.
Congratulations, I look forward to your Nobel prize.
There's a rather large body of evidence that herbicides, glyphosate in particular, are, at the minimum, contributing to the bee collapse. You can find a ton of studies on the topic - here [1] is a random one that overviews some of the literature, though it's already quite dated. It doesn't kill them, but wrecks their gut biome and causes numerous issues that contribute to colony collapse. It also significant but, as of yet, unclear negative effects on the human gut biome.
Humanity goes through seemingly endless cycles of poisoning ourselves: lead, cigarettes, leaded fuel, asbestos, CFCs, and countless others. It's highly improbable that this trend has ended. During each of these cycles is there tends to be science claiming something is safe when it ultimately turns out not to be. In part this is due to ignorance/arrogance, but it's also because those who earn a paycheck driven by these issues have a strong motivation to 'prove' that it's safe, especially when it's not.
[1] - https://e360.yale.edu/features/bee-alert-is-a-controversial-...
I had though that glysophate-blaming was dying out now the principal glysophate producer is the Chinese state.
while mites are evidently the ultimate cause of bee death in this scenario, i implicate humans due to their widespread enabling of mite destruction.
https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/24/3/20/7683...
This assumes no such thing at all (as I'm clearly no expert on bees), but it does assume that literal parasites cannot possibly be a good thing for the bees, and anything that genuinely helps the bees is a net plus for us all.
Nah, it cannot happen that Big Agro's poisons are to fault...
Pesticides are bad for bees, but Varroa is too. Until Varroa arrived in Australia the bees there didn't suffer from colony collapse, despite high pesticide use.
Big Ag was already using those poisons before varroa, so if it was the cause, you would've seen it manifest before varroa.
It seems that varroa were first discovered in North America in 1987. [1] Glyphosate use at that time was around 4,500 metric tons. By 2014 we were up to 125,000 metric tons [2]. There was an exponential increase coming after 1996 when glyphosate resistant GMO crops became a thing. I don't have an opinion on this topic one way or the other, but there seem to be quite a lot of negative correlates since then, and this is just another one. Of course correlation doesn't mean causation, but you can't completely dismiss it.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa
[2] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5044953/