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Date: | Tue, 22 Dec 2020 07:52:20 -0500 |
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>But to launch into some moral rant is to forget that we are talking about self-organizing insects, not a sacred cow. I wonder how many beekeepers have the same reverence for hornets.
I don't have a "reverence" for hornets, but I respect their right to exist and I advocate for that right as president of our state bee association. We often receive questions from both members and the public about how to deal with "nuisance" insects (hornets/wasps mostly). We made the executive level decision this year not offer advice on how to remove (translation: exterminate) hornets and wasps. As your comment alludes to, it seems a bit incongruous to care about one flying, stinging insect but wish death upon the rest. Frankly I think it weakens our message as advocates for honey bees if we casually advise the public that wasps are not worth some level of basic compassion. For much of the public, honey bees are lumped into the nuisance category--unless we can help to change their way of thinking.
BTW I fully acknowledge that sometimes the natural world conflicts with our needs and desires as humans and action needs to be taken, but that's different than casually swatting every non-honey bee I see in my yard.
Honey bees are livestock. If they are sick or starving they require human intervention; to withhold it is wrong. Yes, bees are sometimes intentionally killed in properly designed scientific experiments. That's a far cry from letting a hive in your backyard dwindle to death "to see what happens."
Scott
Johnston RI
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