• @[email protected]
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    1 month ago

    Bees live less than two months, so if only 80% of bees died in the last 8 months that would suggest a sharp recent population increase. And even if you take it as read that it means bees dying and not being replaced, 8 months is still a terrible timeframe to use because it’s literally saying “there are 80% fewer bees now, at the tail end of winter, than there were at the height of bee season”.

    I’m not saying there isn’t a bee crisis, just that this factoid is very badly worded.

    • @[email protected]
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      151 month ago

      Without looking at data it could also mean “beginning 8 months ago we noticed a downwards trend of bees compared to the prior year(s) that culminates to an 80% decline at the time of writing.”

  • Glifted
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    452 months ago

    Honey bees are dying but you can help native bees in your area. Find out what they like and plant that shit. Also just letting weeds grow helps a lot of species.

    I get leafcutter bees at my place as well as a few other solitary species

      • @[email protected]
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        92 months ago

        My city will put a letter in my mailbox telling me to get rid of weeds and fine me $150 if I don’t. Rip

        • @[email protected]
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          11 month ago

          Send them a letter back with the definition of a weed.

          a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.

          If you want them there, they aren’t weeds.

        • @[email protected]
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          52 months ago

          Ouch. I have been trying to plant native plants in our garden. Luckily I don’t have anything like that in my city.

          How do they enforce that? HOA?

          • @[email protected]
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            21 month ago

            No, the city rolls around and if there are things sticking up out of the ground high enough outside of a flower bed they take pictures and send you a letter

          • PNW clouds
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            2 months ago

            The actual city sends a fine. If you don’t clean it, they send a crew. If you don’t pay for the crew, they lien the property.

            Source: got letter from the city a week ago.

            In fairness, I’ve been dealing with a lot and there were some areas that looked like we were abandoned. I’ve been meaning to clean out the unwanted stuff so the flowers can grow. My lawn is mostly moss and clover and that’s not what they cared about.

          • @[email protected]
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            31 month ago

            Cities have a lot of soft power in that regard. Mine, just as an example, bans parking on grass. Even if you’re not in a fancy neighborhood, and have been parking on your lawn underneath the spreading oak tree for the last 50 years, they can ticket you for it (and tow) if they feel like being ornery.

            I think the usual wording for grass/plants goes along the lines of property values and nuisances to bring it within legal frameworks for what they can regulate.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      Making bee hotels for solitary bees is child’s play. Take a chunk of wood, drill holes, hang in a tree.

      Technical aspects:

      • Don’t use pressure treated lumber, anything else is fine.
      • Look up “solitary bee hotel” for your area to see what size holes to make for the locals. In any case, it’s going to be a variety of different sizes to cover all your bases. Doesn’t have to bee (heh) perfect.
      • Make the holes, especially the edges, nice and smooth. They’re not dumb enough to nest their if the hole is raggedy and might jack up their wings.

      That’s mostly it. You can research easily enough in an hour or less There’s a woman on YouTube that sells bee hotels and has solid advice for making your own. Wish I remembered her name. Anyone?

      Damned satisfying when you find the holes plugged with wax! You have new tenants! Stupid easy and basically free.

      CAVEAT: These things are single use. Chunk 'em out every season, or better, burn them. Keeps the mites out. Make another for free.

  • @[email protected]
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    211 month ago

    Want to help? Plant pollinator gardens. Easy peasy. Even some pots of local wildflowers on your patio. It all helps.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 month ago

      It does, but the problem everyone’s talking about isn’t about wild bees, it’s about farming bees. Monospeecies of non-native bees pollinating monoculture of probably corn. They are dying, but only because they’re basically kept in bees analogue of factory farming conditions.
      Wild pollinators are fine (well, as fine as any wild species can be in our world, so not really, but at least not worse than others)

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    Probably the same reason we had 40+ tornadoes, huge hailstorms, floods, and drought-enabled wildfires in six adjacent states within 48 hours. Anthropogenic climate change is real, whether you believe in it or not.

    The upside is now farmers won’t have to worry about what to do with the crop surplus from trade wars, dismantled USAID, and defunded school lunch program.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)
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      802 months ago

      Dont forget that time the hurricane hit Tennessee and it fucking flooded the mountains

      Everything is totally normal

      • @[email protected]
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        171 month ago

        Well, one would expect mountainous areas to flood because elevation focuses water flow. I’m in Florida, flattest state in the union. We never flood except in hurricanes, and those floods don’t last like they do in other places, in and out.

          • Yeather
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            31 month ago

            Hurricanes are known to travel in land and up North though. The fact a hurricane hit Tennessee isn’t odd. It was the strength and the length it lingered over the state that made it devastating.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 month ago

              It’s always the lingering part. What was that one that fucked Houston not long ago? Sat on top of them forever. Hurricane Ivan was like that down here. Only a CAT-3 at landfall, but I listened to that freight train sound for over 10 fucking hours.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 month ago

      Anthropogenic climate change is real, whether you believe in it or not.

      You know who believes in climate change? Fossil fuel companies, insurance companies, the military industrial complex, and every single politician talking about buying or taking Greenland by force. All the very same people who have spent the past half century publicly denying the existence of anthropogenic climate change. Not only do they believe in it, but they are designing their profit models around it at our expense.

  • @[email protected]
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    331 month ago

    Imma go out on a limb here and blame late stage Capitalism and some sort of pesticide or whatever that could solve the problem if it costed 5 cents more but the solution is to save that money and let the bees die.

    Imma take my chances on that.

    • Phil Ociraptor
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      41 month ago

      there’s a crazy scene in the documentary More Than Honey where they compare beekeepers with US Almond Farm pollenators. It’s all about money and it’s sickening.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 month ago

        I was gonna quote the documentary too. My favourite scene was when they pollinated by hand and said: who’s better at pollinating? Humans or bees? It’s definitely not humans.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 month ago

    LETS KEEP PUMPING CAPITALISM UP

    NEW IPHONE WITH AI LETS GOOOOO

    Sorry for getting all excited, it’s just we don’t have much time.

  • @[email protected]
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    151 month ago

    Shame. The US is a beautiful country and psycho cult rednecks have let deregulation ruin such beautiful wilderness.

  • @[email protected]
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    122 months ago

    make sure you retract words like bias and gender from your articles and they will come back. they are just extremely bigoted.

  • @[email protected]
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    32 months ago

    hello frog, that is sad to hear, have you tried calling doompost?

    (how is there no !doompost??)