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Date: | Thu, 31 Jan 2019 18:52:17 +0000 |
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>Jerry, that's a Straw Man argument--I've not heard anyone arguing for
extirpation of the honey bee from N. America.<
Of course it is. I just had to respond, given the over-the-top protectionism of Xerces and others. There's a growing body of evidence that a mix of honey bees and native bees aren't necessarily such a bad thing - there may be benefits. Many have tended to focus on the negative aspects to justify the 'managed bees are bad' mind-set. They have tended to have the null hypothesis upside down. Have you ever seen a native bee conservation advocate set up a study where the null hypothesis says that there ought to be .... benefit to native bees? From what I see, they set out to show the negative effects of managed bees on native bees, forgetting that the null hypothesis should be the opposite of their bias.
For those complaining about managed bees, that same argument should then be applied to those who brought managed bees to the US - mainly white colonists from Europe. Bit odd for any of us white folks to complain about the ecological effects of honey bees, when we decimated Native Americans, stole their land, and brought our bees and earthworms to the US, along with the plow. Our ancestors rapidly terraformed US ecosystems; just look at the Great Plains. No one is going to send all of us white folks back to Europe. Like it or not, we're stuck with the result of the breeding of our ancestors - where the more kids the better - need lots of hands to change the earth. We're also stuck with Honey Bees. Time to recognize that we can't turn back the clock. Honey bees have been in N. America for so long, they are as endemic as all of us who aren't indigenous Native American.
One look at the human population growth and it's self-evident, we are by far the most disruptive factor to ecosystems. The first colonists, who survived, changed N. America. They mostly came from Europe. We worry about cutting and burning of tropical forests - look what our ancestors did!
Any conservationist complaining about introduced honey bees better take a hard look at themselves. Bit disingenuous unless they are native american.
Sorry, I'm in a grumpy old man mode.
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