Morgan Freeman Converts His 124-Acre Ranch into a Giant Bee Sanctuary

https://life.gomcgill.com/morgan-freeman-converted-giant-ranch-bee-sanctuary-protection

by gscott • 7 years ago

353 115 7 years ago

life.gomcgill.com

sdrothrock• 7 years ago

I've seen people calling him out the use of the word "sanctuary" and suggesting that this is really just sanctuary for taxes, not bees.

As a pre-emptive counterargument, there's nothing saying that all 124 acres of his ranch can or should host bees. There are tons of arguments for not wanting the hives near the house, other outbuildings, or anywhere animals are kept, for example. It may be that only 26 acres or so (assuming a 1:1 hive:acreage ratio) have flowering plants etc. that are hospitable to bees, even.

weego• 7 years ago

I've yet to see an argument for why using tax incentives to coerce good outcomes from people is even a bad thing

Radim2• 7 years ago

The typical argument is that "tax incentives", whether positive or negative, ultimately come from other people's hard work and money. And those people may not agree with you (the benevolent distributor of incentives) on what "good outcomes" are.

TL;DR: People have their own, often highly idiosyncratic ideas about what's worthwhile and how they want to spend their money.

lotsofpulp4• 7 years ago

Because it can easily be corrupted since you can’t define “good outcome”, and it’s impossible to prosecute quid pro quo for a wink and nod deal since there isn’t sufficient evidence.

In a democracy, the government exists to provide a set of services agreed upon by the people for the benefit of all the people, many times via their elected representatives. Roads, educational facilities, welfare, military, all of those expenses don’t disappear because someone decided to donate something.

If you want tax dollars to support a cause, then vote for it. And there’s no reason tax deductions should be given to support your own little tribe.

ethagknight• 7 years ago

Maybe, in this scenario, if there were a tax on the insecticides that are killing off the bees in the first place, I would be more excited. Instead we have insecticides being made for profit killing bees, and I’m paying for the privilege as a spectator.

RickJWagner• 7 years ago

I remember a similar item about Bruce Springsteen calling his mansion a farm (to get lower tax rates.)

The stories about Springsteen seemed credible. I hope Morgan Freeman is on the level, though.

mikeyouse• 7 years ago

Michael Dell has a 'nature preserve' for deer that just so happens to be the few hundred acres surrounding his house.

This of course qualifies for the agriculture exemption on Texas property taxes, so a piece of property that he spent $70M purchasing is paying taxes as if it's worth $290,000. Quite the system we have when the public subsidizes people like Michael Dell for $1m/year on this property alone:

https://www.thenation.com/article/tax-day-farms-owned-rich-p...

mastazi• 7 years ago

Is this website a source we can trust? I've looked at a couple other articles and it looked a bit sketchy.

lemoncurd• 7 years ago

You can just google the headline and you will find a Forbes article about it.

haasted• 7 years ago

It's an article on "Forbes sites", though. It's the equivalent of sort-of-trusted bloggers. Seems Forbes really don't care about their online brand anymore.

esemor• 7 years ago

Near my house there is what you could call a insect ”sanctuary”. When it was established a few tears ago we kind of shrug our shoulders and did not think much of it. But the amount of new flowers and insects popping up, not only inside but also around the area is astonishing.

I almost see it as a positive feedback loop with more insects, better pollination, more diverse flowers, more insects...

Just as pesticides could create a negative feedback loop.

forkandwait2• 7 years ago

Could you describe the sanctuary nearby? We live on a typical city lot, and I am going to try to become a mini-sanctuary over the next few years and would love working examples.

mikekchar3• 7 years ago

Be careful of your city bylaws. I grew a wildflower garden in my backyard in Canada and got a complaint once. Given that the neighbour to one side asked be to do it makes me think it might have been the neighbour on the other side :-) I actually didn't mind cutting it down because I was moving that year anyway, but it pays to talk with your neighbours and find out what the city requires. It is especially important to understand what is and is not a noxious weed and to be on top of keeping them out of your sanctuary.

MisterOctober• 7 years ago

Not the parent, but my situation is similar to yours and so I'll offer my experience :

First, raked out [thinned / dethatched bermudagrass rhizomes] an area roughly 100 square feet. Broadcast region-appropriate wildflower and herb seed mixes [I'm in the southwest, but regional mixes are available everywhere].

Planted lots and lots of herbs in containers - mints, basils, and every kind of kitchen herb. Herbs tend to attract masses of bees with their yummy inflorescences. Had the added benefit of creating a supply of fresh kitchen herbs. I started out with probably two dozen herbs in containers the first year.

Planted lots of sunflowers in borders and pre-existing beds. Bulletproof plants that attract an alarming number of bees. Also had the side benefit of attracting a flock of feral lovebirds [!], who ate not only the seeds but the flesh of the plant [!!]

Planted a goodly number of squash and pumpkins all around, wherever space permitted

^ that was the first year, and boy I tell you, did the bees ever come! I was amazed to see mobs of bees on the sunflowers and gangs of bees fighting to occupy the pumpkin blossoms. They teemed on the spikes of mint flowers and buzzed in the chicory. All this with very little effort -- the above plants require very little maintenance beyond judicious watering. The one 'trick' is to water with a fine spray wand while the seeds are getting established, so as not to dislodge them.

The second year, I planted sweet clover [Melliotus altissumus] and flowering fruit trees [peach, citrus, apple] and spread more wildflower seeds around. The sweet clover grows tall but pays off with just ridiculous amounts of bee action and great aroma.

The original wildflower planting had already 'established' and a lot of the annuals in there self-seeded. Same goes for herbs like basil. I planted even more herbs in pots the second year, going for more variety, and carrots which if allowed to flower are massive pollinator attractors.

The bees came in droves -- all kinds of bees, not only honey bees -- I mean big black carpenter bees, little shiny orchard mason bees, black-and-white-striped bees, bees that live in the ground, all kinds. Plus a great many other insect and bird pollinators. Plus more dragonflies!

And it just kept building like that, with the plants doing most of the work themselves. Now the place is like 'The Secret Garden" or something, always abuzz with bees and I'm quite sure that it's the nexus of bee activity in the neighborhood. In fact, it worked a little too well, with one colony of bees establishing itself inside my laundry room wall, haha! [but that was an anomaly]

We don't have an HOA, but an annoying neighbor did complain about the wildflowers one year, citing a dumb city ordnance prohibiting grass over six inches in height. The city came to inspect and basically said "uh yeah, we're not gonna issue a citation against a wildflower garden."

Lot size in my case is a quarter-acre, but I think based on observed results that a real impact can be made with almost any lot size. For reference, I broadcast about two pounds of seeds in total the first year, and usually "re-up" with a pound or so annually, depending on how things are looking. Overall, one of the most satisfying endeavors I've undertaken.

steve_adams_86• 7 years ago

This happens in the ocean, too. There are places around my island which were turned into ecological reserves, and the result for surrounding habitats was incredibly positive. Not only does it help stabilize the ecosystem in the reserve, but it results in overflow for crowded species looking for new habitats, improves feeding opportunities for roaming predators, results in better vegetation growth in the general area, and more.

Recreational fishermen still get very upset about it despite how positive it is for fishing in waters that are still open. It seems like a decrease in fishing opportunities, but in reality the reserves function like wells of life for the surrounding ocean to draw upon. I'd love to see even more reserved established.

designtofly• 7 years ago

I think that humanity is going to look back and see pesticides and herbicides as one of the worst mistakes in history. It's slowly becoming clear just how damaging they are to the world's ecosystem. I urge everyone to stop using them, especially for absolutely needless things like killing dandelions and other vanity uses.

6nf• 7 years ago

This website ... Normally I wouldn't complain but really isn't there a better source?

azeotropic4• 7 years ago

That's nice, but the honeybee population is not declining.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88117/err-246.... http://time.com/4885569/honeybee-population-increase/ https://www.agprofessional.com/article/bee-population-rising...

andyjohnson0• 7 years ago

Is the wild bee population also increasing, or is the increase due to the beekeeping "industry" (as it is termed in your [1])?

azeotropic4• 7 years ago

Nobody knows. But most crop pollination is performed by wild bee species that are common, not threatened or endangered.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8414

For an acerbic look at the "... but wild bees" argument, see:

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_8913974

pixel_• 7 years ago

That's nice, but none of those articles address wild populations.

ada19814• 7 years ago

Nice people on all sides.

azeotropic4• 7 years ago

The original article is about Morgan Freeman keeping honeybees, in case you didn't read it.

lostlogin8• 7 years ago

Hive numbers are on a steep increase in New Zealand. In 10 years we have more than doubled the number. Honey prices are falling for beekeepers though, so many are expecting a bit of an industry crash.

Our wild bees are not doing so well. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/01/31/79714/the-dark-side-of... https://www.airborne.co.nz/statistics/new-zealand.shtml

pvdebbe• 7 years ago

Get beesy living or get busy dying.

labster• 7 years ago

124 acres doesn't seem all that giant, not even a half mile squared. Maybe I'm reading "Giant Bee Sanctuary" wrong. Is it a sanctuary for Giant Bees[0]?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19221337

dagw• 7 years ago

Without knowing the median size of current bee sanctuaries it's impossible to say how 124 acres ranks. Perhaps the typical bee sanctuary is less than an acre.

dnate• 7 years ago

For those who were wondering:

124 acres =~ 0.5 square km or 50 hectar

so pretty big

ghaff3• 7 years ago

Pretty big is relative. Sure, that's pretty big relative to suburban plots that are more likely to be in the 1/2 to 2 acre range. But it's not huge once you get even moderately rural; my two neighbors and I are on about 75 acres collectively. And it's actually pretty small relative to, say, many ranches out West.

lostlogin8• 7 years ago

Bees can forage up to about 5km but generally stay within about 3km, in case that interests anyone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forage_(honey_bee)

peteradio2• 7 years ago

Is this for honeybees?? I hope its for native bees because why would you create a sanctuary for what is basically an agricultural animal like cow or sheep.

azeotropic4• 7 years ago

It is for his honeybees

SmellyGeekBoy2• 7 years ago

Why not both? Native bees can live alongside honeybees quite happily.

lostlogin8• 7 years ago

You need to look after the honey bee. You’ll go hungry without it.

platz• 7 years ago

It's up to the wealthy to save us helpless souls now

FilterSweep• 7 years ago

That’s the end result of crony capitalism, baby.

sagebird• 7 years ago

This article is a bit superficial. CCD is more than just pesticides killing bees. The invasive varroa mite is likely a big factor. It’s a good thing that he is taking care of bees. The solution might be more complex than sanctuaries though— IE how can we reduce the mite population?

Potential CCD Causes According to EPA:

... researchers who are leading the effort to find out why are now focused on these factors: Increased losses due to the invasive varroa mite (a pest of honey bees). New or emerging diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema. Pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides applied to crops or for in-hive insect or mite control. Stress bees experience due to management practices such as transportation to multiple locations across the country for providing pollination services. Changes to the habitat where bees forage. Inadequate forage/poor nutrition. Potential immune-suppressing stress on bees caused by one or a combination of factors identified above.

rob74• 7 years ago

Well, one of the theories is that pesticides weaken bees and make them more vulnerable to varroa mites and other parasites, diseases etc. (the "potential immune-suppressing stress" in your quote).

lostlogin8• 7 years ago

Once you get on top of varroa it is amazing how fast a hive grows. It seems to take a while for other problems to subside (sac brood, deformed wing virus etc) and a requeening seems to be required sometimes. I’ve been using a variation on the Randy Oliver method with oxalic acid and it’s bring the varroa down fast when used. Weekly counts of varroa on a cup of bees has been (averaged) 15, 12, 8, 4, then 1 or 2 last weekend. The behaviour of the hives has changed too, and they are more settled (or as settled as can be, mid robbing season).

adolph• 7 years ago

I like bees, but aren't they effectively an invasive species too?

When temperatures increased, fauna and habitat changed drastically, causing the extinction of Apis in the New World until they were reintroduced by European settlers in 1622 (Engel et al. 2009).

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/9700...

exfed• 7 years ago

Depends upon what bee specific species and where. "Honey bees" (genus Apis) alone comprise several species which may or may not be considered invasive. In the particular case of the linked UMich paper, Apis mellifera (note: species mellifera, the Western/European Honey Bee) is definitely an invasive species to North America.

This says nothing of the, arguably more important, wild bee population, e.g. bumble bees (genus Bombus) ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_honey_bee#Claims_of_hu...

nkurz• 7 years ago

European honey bees are an "introduced species"[1], but this doesn't in itself make them an "invasive species"[2]. To be labeled invasive, they also have to be causing harm to their new ecosystem. While there might be some ways that honey bees are harmful[3], they aren't usually considered invasive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduced_species

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species

[3] https://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/16-067_02_...

mixmastamyk3• 7 years ago

What about those "africanized" honey bees in the news a decade or so back?

pault• 7 years ago

Is it safe to live in a sanctuary for giant bees?

RankingMember• 7 years ago

In my experience bees don't really mess with you unless you try to (or accidentally) mess with their nest.

SmellyGeekBoy2• 7 years ago

I think GP was making a joke based on the ambiguous wording of the headline. ;)

FWIW though, we have a hive in our back garden and the bees don't bother us or the neighbours at all.

ada19814• 7 years ago

🇺🇸 I met Morgan Freeman at a screening of Bucket List in DC.

I asked him if we could play Rock Paper Scissors.

He said he didn’t know how. So I taught him.

He then told me what he was going to throw. I told him he shouldn’t do that.

Then I beat him.

So I both taught and beat Morgan Freeman at Rock Paper Sissors.

mixmastamyk3• 7 years ago

Fun story. Btw, is that an emoji? Thought they were stripped from input.

ada19814• 7 years ago

I thought so too, but for some reason a few aren’t. I posted about it yesterday.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19482991

droobles• 7 years ago

First time seeing an emoji here. Nice.

wsc981• 7 years ago

James Hetfield (singer of Metallica) has also become a part-time beekeeper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrFdI8U9Ri4

partiallypro• 7 years ago

One glaring problem I see with this is that anyone who has ever had hives (which my family has) knows how quickly Varroa mites can spread (the #1 killer of bees.) If all the bees are in a single location, that could wipe out every hive there. Would make more sense to me if you made sanctuaries that were spread on ~1 acre plots around a wide area (thinking several cities/town in a clustered area.)

Anyone with more expertise is free to correct me, but I feel like clustering bees on single plots, even 124 acres (which seems big, but is not really that big,) really has some risk if your end goal is to preserve the species.

beardicus• 7 years ago

Spreading bees out would not make a difference here. All hives have some level of varroa nowadays. The level depends on management techniques and not so much proximity to other hives with mites. Spreading hives out into 1 acre plots wouldn't do much when bees are foraging miles away from the hive, and would make it more difficult to visit each hive for maintenance.

lostlogin8• 7 years ago

There are worse diseases too - like American foul brood. The cure (by law) here in New Zealand is to pour petrol in the hive then burn it, even if it is in just one cell. It goes through an apiary fast, as bees rob out dead hives. The dream scenario is to have apiarys completly isolated from one another, but we are so overstocked here that this isn’t possible.

tptacek4• 7 years ago

Your periodic reminders that:

1. Honey bees in North America are a non-native invasive species.

2. Virtually all honey bees in the United States are livestock.

3. Colony collapse disorder is an economic issue for commercial beekeepers, and apparently not much of a problem.

4. The true threat to honey bees in the United States isn't environment, but rather the introduction of the Varroa destructor mite in 1987 (which eradicated feral honey bees).

A "honey bee sanctuary" in the continental US is a weird idea.

wodenokoto2• 7 years ago

About number 3, according to wikipedia [1]

the total U.S. crop value that was wholly dependent on honey bee pollination was estimated to exceed $15 billion.

and

honeybees perform some level of pollination of nearly 75% of all plant species directly used for human food worldwide.

Which sounds like a bit more than just beekeeping.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder#Econo...

tptacek4• 7 years ago

Honey bees in the US are economically important despite not being a natural part of our ecosystem. But they're no more threatened in that role than CAFO pigs are. At its peak, "colony collapse" was (apparently; there are experts on HN who can break this out with precision) associated with low double digit overwintering losses, no meaningful increase in the price of new queens, and normal fluctuations in the price of pollination services.

It's also worth remembering that if your concern over bees is environmental and not economic, honey bees compete with native bees and also transmit pathogens to them. They're not entirely benign.

Not_a_pizza• 7 years ago

Is there some real figure which would give truth to the amount other insects would pollinate, if not honey bees? It seems like we have way too many insects in the world for the honey bee to be the only reliable pollinator.

Besides, aren't solitary bees supposed to be better pollinators?

As much as I like honey, I can't help but thinking there is a huge gap in logic with all of these people waving and screaming we aren't going to have food because of dwindling honey bee populations.

likpok2• 7 years ago

honeybees perform some level of pollination of nearly 75% of all plant species directly used for human food worldwide.

Bees pollinate 75% of species, but not 75% of calories. The major cereals (wheat, corn, rice) are all self or wind pollinating, as are number of other staples (e.g. potatoes, peas).

mceoin2• 7 years ago

A number of people have mentioned varroa mites and the problems they cause for domestic and wild bee populations. For those interested mycologist Paul Stamets has been trialing the addition of polypore extract to bee food (water / sugar water) to boost their immune system. Results on smaller sample set (~100 hives) was near total eradication of the mites (I think broken wing disorder was diminished too). Next trial is on sample size of 10k+ hives.

Since domestic and wild bees comingle this should reduce transmission from domestic to wild bee populations, and hopefully give wild bees a chance to recover.

For those interested you’ll be able to find Stamets talking about this on YouTube in his talk “Into The Mycoverse”, and elsewhere, I’m sure.

kurthr• 7 years ago

The first article I found discussed fungus extracts for virus treatment... I didn't see anything about mite eradication, but that would be a really big deal!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8#ref-CR20

jandrese• 7 years ago

This may be a case where the mites are more of a symptom than a cause. Once the hive is healthy they may be able to deal with the mites on their own.

ac29• 7 years ago

Ha, I could have sworn this was a carefully worded joke -- Paul Stamets is the name of the mycologist on the new Star Trek series. Coincidence?

tutuca• 7 years ago

Not coincidence but a homage, and not the first one in the series. Hi, Dr. Spock.

scrumbledober• 7 years ago

Calling the Star Trek Stamets a mycologist is almost an understatement.

powerset• 7 years ago

Not a coincidence, the Star Trek character is named after the real life Paul.

r00fus• 7 years ago

In this case art imitates life, not the other way around. I heard of Paul Stamets through Michael Pollen's book "how to change your mind" - Paul gave Michael his first psilocybin trip.

MagicPropmaker• 7 years ago

Giant Bees!

KorematsuFred• 7 years ago

I believe that is to get the tax break by classifying the land as agricultural ? Scarlet Johnson, Bon Jovi and many have been doing this for years.

Of course I wouldn't care about motives, if it ends up protecting bees why not.

Morgan Freeman Converts His 124-Acre Ranch into a Giant Bee Sanctuary

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