[ExI] bees

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] bees

 

Just came across this paper, which is mildly hopeful in the sense that there
is a backup for many (but not all) plants:

Non-bee insects are important contributors to global crop pollination
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/24/1517092112.full.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/24/1517092112.abstract



Wild and managed bees are well documented as effective pollinators of global
crops .

-- 
Anders Sandberg
 
 
Thanks Anders.
 
I have been watching closely these last several years.  My best description
of my findings: the local bees seem to act as if they just don't feel good.
It isn't a full-on sick, more like the kind you get where you go ahead and
go into the office and put in a full day.  But it isn't your best day, or
even in the top 90%.  The bees act like a feeling-crummy day at the office.
 
Now of course I start thinking of ways to measure how bees are feeling.
Perhaps they fly a little differently when well-fed and fully healthy.  We
could raise some in isolation and feed them all the best pollen, try to
create a control group.  Then make some kind of optical measurement device,
a camera which measures flight speed, oscillation rates, hover times, and
anything else we can figure out how to reduce to a matrix of data using
optical data.  Then we compare to domestic bees and wild bees.  
 
I don't know how else to determine if bees feel healthy.
 
spike
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20151202/43fe6dd9/attachment.html>