• 0 Posts
  • 28 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 11th, 2023

help-circle








  • Mid 30s, USA. I’m smart (Ivy League science doctorate) but I can’t drive a standard transmission because my dad “couldn’t teach me” because I “wouldn’t learn right”. It was just me asking him questions like "What does the inside of the clutch actually look like? " and him yelling “That doesn’t matter, just ease out on the clutch while giving it some gas!” Apparently I can be taught a lot, but not how to drive a standard.

    Weirdly, my engineer friend let me drive his standard transmission car once after giving me some basic instructions and I did okay going up and down the road alone, but that was just one day and I fear I’ve forgotten everything. But I must be mistakenly remembering that, because according to my father I “can’t be taught!”












  • Honey bee population counts are sometimes hard to interpret, since many colonies are split in half in the spring, with a new queen inserted into the queenless half to create new colonies. Thus, the number of colonies can be high, then low after lots of winter deaths, then high again after new colonies are created, then low again after the following winter, etc. Peering through those fluxtuations, it’s clear that (1) honey bees aren’t anywhere close to going extinct, but (2) it’s still a lot harder to keep a bee colony alive than it was decades ago. New parasites, new pesticides, lower food availability due to habitat loss and/or climate change, etc. Commercial beekeepers who manage thousands of hives also have very different pressures and their bees have different stressors than people who keep a few (or a few dozen) bee colonies. This report that more colonies died than in previous years means that beekeepers’ practices have a lot of room for improvement, but the bees won’t all be gone by this time next year.

    If anyone is interested in further discussion about bees and beekeeping, you’re welcome over at [email protected]