Using CRISPR-Cas9, scientists engineered a yeast to produce the nutrient feed. Farmers could have it in two years.
And so the house of cards grows by another level. We’ll just modify this to add this missing thing. Never mind why it is missing. 10 years later we are 9 layers deep on plugging holes we’ve created that technological advancements got us out if until they don’t and whoosh the cards come crashing down. The hardiness of nature replaced by the frivolity of man.
Here in Germany farmers are payed for a strip of each field to be planted with wild flowers instead. They don’t lose money at all and nature keeps a bit of land. Simple and cheap.
That is awesome news BUT
The real reason is humanity being a bunch of irresponsible greedy fuckwads, and I fear that this will be used not in the “let’s be less greedy, let’s fix the problems and let’s use this to help the bees” but more as a “woohoo, bee factory farming!” and “W00T, this means we can fuck over bees even more, let’s go!”
Can we please stop it with the greed?
Greed is incentivized both neurologically and economically. You cannot count on all of humanity rewiring their brain. We must destroy the economic incentives and then work on countering the neurological component.
I dont think this is very true. How do you explain that 99.99% of people are super happy living their lives with just enough money to have somewhere to live and pay for food and some vehicle?
To me it seems that we have like 0.0001% of the population being super greedy and mentally ill, and they are the ones being talked about in the media and the ones turning Earth into a shitty place because of their enormous greed and lust for power.
I doubt we can remove the neurological component, let alone without it fucking up. Greed is an abstraction of our old survival instincts since as a general rule the tribe, clan, village or whatever would counter the worst effects. The end goal should be to reimplement those social control mechanisms, what that looks like is probably regulation’s and maybe beating some folks over the head with a 2x4.
Maybe we can steer the neurological component to focus on activity that offers positive benefits to society, like art. Substitute something good for something bad. It just takes a bit of time for the brain to find the satisfaction it used to get from greed in a different behavior, like music, or exercise.
We can always gun for glory through selfless action, still selfish reasons but good results.
explain how one would we or us stop it with the greed
It’s a bit extreme, but I say we kill all billionaires and then fairly redistribute their cash and see what happens.
If there’s no real change in greed then kill the top 0.1% of wealth hoarders and see what happens.At some point the greed will have to stop.
Bioengineer some humans to not be greedy.
Some humans because you can opt out, or you can choose it for your designer baby. Then there is a control and an experimental group.
The mad scientist in me is dying to see whether behaviors with moral connotations (greed) confer an advantage for survival.
Eugenics, btw
licks fingers and wets eyebrows
Hahah! An unethical study to quantify the survival value of ethics! Isaac Newton would agree that experiments are a necessity!
An economst’s natural experiment, hehe! oh Adam Smith, when does self interest become greed?
Are you okay?
waow
So they solved a problem we create ourselves, by destroying nature, by making a product that now increases the cost of food and makes farmers even more dependent on corporate chemical companies to grow it.
Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland will be demanding a percentage of the farmer’s crop because they saved the bees that pollinated it.
The GOOD news is that yeast doesn’t really respect property lines. Or quarantines. Or much of anything. That shit will spread organically easily enough. It will be a while, but now that the strain exists (and is being constantly refreshed with the corpro product) it should help all beast everywhere. Maybe beast will start farming it like ants do. Would be fun
So does Monsanto with their GMO crops and they successfully sue farmers for having it, whose farms were invaded by it. I don’t see it as good news when a company can’t control their IP. They’ll criminalize possession and use that to drive weak competitors out all together. These people are psychopaths.
That’s a lot easier to do with plants than single celled organisms.
Yep, you can’t charge money in perpetuity if you solve the actual problem. Not only that, but bees will eventually become reliant on the product. This is how the US Healthcare system works as well.
Hell they might even genetically engineer them to be dependent on it.
Jem’Hadar bees, wonderful /s
I bet the bastards have already wondered
"Hmm, if this works maybe we can do all life on earth next . . ?
“We’ll make all the money!”
It’s exactly the way they said drug dealers would work
Yes but you see, now the solution is a product, and shareholders shall profit from its sale. Value where no value was before. Blessed be the capitalists.
The solution is so simple. Crop/pollen diversity. Instead of letting fields lay fallow for crop rotation, they could plant diverse wildflower meadows to improve quality of bee health for the traveling bees that get shipped around for crop rotation. Or the bee keepers themselves that sell the services of their bees, could ensure diverse flower and pollen options when their bees aren’t traveling.
Instead of letting fields lay fallow for crop rotation, they could plant diverse wildflower meadows to improve quality of bee health for the traveling bees that get shipped around for crop rotation.
I can see a potential problem with this suggestion. How many of those wildflowers are net nitrogen fixers? If they are net-negative this approach could be draining all the nitrogen out of the soil during off-rotation years meaning large amounts of petrochemical fertilizer would have to be used to make the field productive again for nitrogen consuming crops (like wheat and corn).
Key Native Nitrogen-Fixing Wildflowers:
- Lupines (Lupinus spp.): Includes Texas Bluebonnet and various perennial species; they thrive in poor soil and are loved by pollinators.
- Prairie Clover (Dalea spp.): Purple (Dalea purpurea) and White (Dalea candida) are drought-tolerant perennials that fix high levels of nitrogen.
- False Indigo (Baptisia spp.): Sturdy perennials with showy, pea-like flower spikes (e.g., Blue False Indigo).
- Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata): An annual that grows rapidly, making it excellent for disturbed soils.
- Wild Senna (Senna hebecarpa): A tall perennial that produces yellow flowers.
- Canada Milkvetch (Astragalus canadensis): A hardy, native perennial.
- Groundnut (Apios americana): A vine-like wildflower with edible tubers.
https://edgeofthewoodsnursery.com/wp-content/uploads/Native-Plants-for-Nitrogen-Fixation.pdf
Cheers
Several of those are going to be perennial and end up competing with mono-culture crops the following year(s) (not that I’m trying to defend mono-culture crops, but that’s what they’re planting). It’s a good idea, but not necessarily as simple as you’re implying. Still it’s an idea that’s not without some merit. The biggest obstacle to adoption is no one is making a significant profit off of it, so it’s unlikely to see much uptake.
You aren’t wrong, but soil can be turned over, and the wildflowers can be removed.
What about the seeds they dropped the year prior
Bees went fucking nuts for my lupine, even while living in an urban environment. Only problem was that the aphids did too. So many that it was revolting. I had to aggressively remove them every single day of the colonies would explode and destroy my lupine within a very short time. They’d suck it dry.
I don’t mean to argue against flowers, but why specifically Pennsylvania? What about everywhere else?
Get outta here with your sensible, practical solutions! ;-)
Seems easier than engineering edible yeast to get them the sterols they need.
In the end, it probably isn’t easier at all. Once the yeast is created, yeast is dirt cheap and easy as hell to grow, and wouldn’t require managing a field of wildflowers that are going to drop seeds for the following year when you intend to plant crops there. I’m not saying it’s a good or ethical choice, but the yeast definitely has the potential to be easier and cheaper
But you see they can sell this! Can’t sell “fallow fields”…
Yes well known fact we shouldn’t research any technology to reverse the collapse of our biosphere or to alleviate climate change. Wouldn’t want anyone being able to sell that tech. Best we just turn off the lights and plant some flowers.
I love planting some flowers, but we’re going to need technology to undo the mess we created.
“They” being the University of Oxford?
Fellows can sell seeds for fallow fields, my friend. never fear for they will forage, and be fine.
Didn’t use fertile or follow or falter. Fine folly.
V, is that you?
But Brawndo has the electrolites that plants crave!
Just in case the joke is too far of a stretch to make the connection, what I’m saying is the obvious simple solution isn’t profitable.
They’d rather sell you a solution that doesn’t actually work, then give you a solution that works that they can’t make profit on.
So Brawndo for bees too? Done!
Who is “they” in this case
It also doesn’t degrade ecosystems further.
Bees aren’t just the domesticated honey bees.
Yeah, I found that pretty weird, too. Not only that, but you can’t get that yeast for the next two years. Your method works yesterday haha.
Note for those passing through and not reading articles:
This is not a summary of the article, but OP’s suggestion for a solution. The article talks about creating a yeast product that’s lacking in bees’ diet due to climate change and a lack of diversity in flowers.
OP suggests combatting the effects climate change has on biodiversity by planting your own diverse flowers. Which may work, or climate change may just kill those too.
I re call watching Clarkson’s Farm and he was paid to grow wildflowers in one of the fields for these very reasons.
Yeah, the government subsidy for that was so high that it was more profitable than growing grain on the field (which is admittedly not hard, since he made a loss on his grain fields)
I’m sure things are different in different parts of the world, but where I’m from, pretty much none of the big crop farms let fields lay truly fallow. Most of them plant various cold season cover crops that include things like clover, brassicas, and legumes like vetch. Those all produce lots of flowers that feed the bees in the off season.
The issue with wildflower meadows, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that most of those wildflowers bloom at times when the fields would otherwise be needed for crop production. Of course, there are farmers who skip planting at all some years, but in my neck of the woods, nobody does that. They plant every year, at least once, they just rotate different crops in and out. Corn one year. Hay then soy, the next. And so on.
Bee extinction means no polination, no polination means no crops; penny wise and pound foolish.
Bee extinction means drastically fewer crops and less pollination, but not no crops. It would be devastating, but there would still be agriculture. Lots of staple crops are wind pollinated and don’t rely on insects at all. But for the rest of our food, that would all become very expensive and widely unavailable.
I learned during COVID about planting diverse local wildflowers to help with pollination in my small little garden I used to have. I ended up dedicating like an 8x6 planter just for wildflowers every year. Always had tons of bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. I honestly never realized how many species of bees there were. The first year I did it I tripled my veggie yield, never looked back.
True but at the same time bees help spread pollinating plants - it’s a two way relationship. They may be commercialised for crops, but they will go to any plants in range and contribute to their spread.
So a method of increasing bee populations may also be helpful in spreading wildflowers and speeding up rewilding efforts.
In addition dramatically increasing bee populations may help resolve issues with pollination such as in some regions of China where damage is so bad that hand pollination is needed for crops. Restoring bee pollinators in those areas may increase crop yields, which in turn reduces the general pressure globally on expanding the use of fertile land for farming.
So while crop/pollen diversity is certainly very important, this kind of research still has potentially big benefits for the environment both in the fight to rewild and slow the spread of land use being moved to farming.
nah man. bees just crave brawndo.
Do you want fat bees? Because this is how you get fat bees.
Ok~maybe I want fat bees.~
(courtesy of Murvyn)
Though what if honey bees are only so docile because they don’t have the energy to be assholes and this is the first step in a total bee world takeover?
Wonder if I would grow some extra inches, if I made bread out of this yeast?
This is both great and terrible. Great because “yay bees”, terrible because now they have a synthetic stand in for a natural process which will almost certainly be misused
Instead of just PLANTING SOME FUCKING FLOWERS
In a couple years we’ll be saying honey “doesn’t taste like it used to”
Where I live, honey is labeled with the types of flowers that the bees were feeding on. I doubt that “yeast honey” is going to replace the “chestnut honey” any time soon.
But what flowers do we let growth that will make money ?
Its simple economics. No matter how beneficial it is to the environment, people, or the economy, its bad for the economy to do anything without a direct profit motive
(god I hope the sarcasm was thick enough)
Well, domestic bees are intrusive. I wonder if they are going to try to feed this to wild bees… Probably not. Still, I want domestic bees to flourish, because I like honey, so I’m not that mad.
I don’t like honey so the things I do will be 100% to support non-honey bees because they are far far far more valuable than invasive honey bees ever could be…e.
I love my native bees. Especially mason bees. I love that they can’t be commercialized. I hate that people don’t care about them because they can’t be commercialized and that’s the whole reason my yard is mostly wild.
Fuuuuuuuck honey and the damage it causes the natural ecosystem. Fuck importing plants and making them work through invasive agriculture. If something can’t grow because we can’t keep the bees here because they aren’t native here…. TOO FUCKING BAD! Import it, don’t ruin the ecosystem trying to make it work.
I’d bet my life savings you don’t actually feel this strongly about honey bees. And secondly, honey bees don’t need “invasive agriculture” to survive or produce honey. They produce honey just fine from natural wildflowers and wildflowers benefit all the same from pollination.
I feel that strongly about native bees and honey bees cause problems for them so… yeah. I’m big on native wildlife. Fuck invasive species.
Honeybees are not native where I am, and somehow we have so many crops that supposedly rely on them or they would fail entirely, how is that not invasive agriculture? People truck bees across the country to support these crops.
I’m not saying they can’t produce honey from native flowers, they can but that’s entirely beside the point, and that’s also competing with native bees, of which there are hundreds of species.
Once we replace free ecosystem production with manmade solutions, the roi on life simply won’t be worth investing in. Capitalism is a death cult.
Abstract: Scientists have developed a breakthrough “superfood” for honeybees by engineering yeast to produce the essential nutrients normally found in pollen. In controlled trials, colonies fed this specially designed diet produced up to 15 times more young, showing a dramatic boost in reproduction and overall health. As climate change and modern agriculture reduce the availability of natural pollen, this innovation could offer a practical way to support struggling bee populations.
Does it work for all bee species or only the honeybee species we usually use for producing honey? Wild populations are getting fucked and, last I checked, outcompeted by invasive honeybees we keep introducing to new areas for increased honey production…
The article suggests that if the farmed honey bees get this engineered food, that would leave more wild forrage for native bees.
I suspect native bees would also benefit from eating it too.
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