Odds are, insect populations would also adapt to their disappearance.
I’d imagine from what I’ve read that a significant chunk of bees are already artificially produced and distributed for crops.
That plus of course combined with a general ongoing attempt at eradication of the hornets. Or at least significant population control.
Or is agriculture simply too widespread and complicated (or ‘naturally’ dependent) for such a thing?
We could make lasers driven by ML to identify the hornets and shoot them down as they approach a hive, but that would be really expensive :)
It would be an excellent grad CSS project. Identifying the Giant Wasps with 99.9% or whatever accuracy and deploying some defensive mechanism.
The problem like you said would be(e) infinitely expensive to deploy to all of the many thousands of randomly placed hives. But maybe useful for the industrial pollinator companies, which is a big thriving industry.
Anyway, I just like these sort of clever tech solutions.
There has to be plenty of solutions to this (major) problem we haven't thought of yet.
I don't think the bees really have any input.
For instance, if you were trying to reestablish some some native pollinator, reducing honey bee pressure might be part of that plan. Even possible a critical one. But just killing them and walking away? That probably won’t end well. It would be irresponsible to do so.
Even removing invasive species of plants involves a succession plan, so the same thing doesn’t happen again, or something worse moves into the vacuum. I know a couple people who could fill a whole workshop on what people often get wrong here (and I’ve encouraged one of them to do so, but no luck), but they would both agree that what gets done, flawed as it can be (especially in walking away too soon) is better than the status quo, or removal and neglect.