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Failure of the EPA marked by honey bee decline
By PF Louis
Monday, July 07, 2014
(NaturalNews) There have been suspicions about pesticides causing colony collapse disorder (CCD) where suddenly many bees die or disappear from their hives and never return. In particular, many scientists have been suspecting a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids.
After several large scale bee keeper and organic farmer protests and petitions in France, Italy, Germany, and Slovenia, their governments banned or heavily restricted neonicotinoids a few years ago. Surprise, the greatly diminished bee populations immediately rebounded. Consequently, after conducting its own study, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) banned three neonicotinoids (clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam).
The ban went into effect December 1, 2013 for a period of two years for further study and would only be repealed after sufficient scientific data is accumulated to provide sufficient evidence that those pesticides are safe for bees. Evidently, the EU countries' bee colony surge after restricting or eliminating neonicotinoids is not proof enough.
But it's more likely that sufficient pesticide industry influence and pressure got the two-year period installed so they could find ways to get around or through the ban - "scientifically". But at least the precautionary principle was applied for now.
That's a principle which the EPA and USDA don't understand or appreciate, both of which are heavily infiltrated by industry insiders and lobbyists via the revolving doors between industry and government.
The managers and executives of these supposed protective agencies call the shots, not scientists with integrity. Sometimes those scientists are threatened for whistle blowing after their efforts at stopping toxic chemical approvals fail.
Disturbing quotes and memos within the EPA
It's ironic that the EU ban on neonicotinoids was announced on the EPA's website with some interesting comments, copied here in italics.
First: Based on currently available data, the EPA's scientific conclusions are similar to those expressed in the EFSA report with regard to the potential for acute effects and uncertainty about chronic risk. That's nice, so maybe the ban is on its way?
Then: The EPA is not currently banning or severely restricting the use of the neonicotinoid pesticides. What? Even though the EPA agrees with EFSA scientific findings and conclusion they remain approved? Even after a recent Harvard study definitely linked imidacloprid, a widely used neonicotinoid, to bee colony collapse disorder? Article on that study here (http://news.harvard.edu).
Now for the obligatory public relations boiler plate "official" response to cover their obvious double speak that the mainstream media swallows whole without questioning and passes on to readers as the way things should be according to corporate America.
The neonicotinoid pesticides are currently being re-evaluated through registration review, the EPA's periodic re-evaluation of registered pesticides to ensure they meet current health and safety standards. The EPA bases its pesticide regulatory decisions on the entire body of scientific literature, including studies submitted by the registrant, journal articles and other sources of peer-reviewed data. (Emphasis added)
Imidacloprid was registered in 1993, but there's still not enough scientific data? Since then, the EPA has even approved expanded use of imidacloprid.
Translation: We have a cozy relationship with our registrants, the pesticide people at Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Syngenta, and Bayer. We take in enough of their people to guide our agency and those of us who influence policies enough to protect their interests are allowed to take lucrative corporate positions after demonstrating our true allegiance to them.
A Natural News article posted on January 5, 2011, "Leaked document: EPA knowingly approved bee-killing pesticide" explained how despite protests from their EPA scientists, the EPA approved Bayer's clothianidin, a neonicotinoid compound in 1993.
What made their approval even more egregious were leaked internal memos that demonstrated EPA officials knew there were serious non-targeted bee safety problems with clothianidin (http://www.naturalnews.com/030921_EPA_pesticides.html).
That chemical is a primary neonicotinoid that some EU nations banned even before the EUFS stepped in. Yes, the EPA and toxic chemical companies have a cozy relationship.
Sources for this article include:
EPA site page disclosing EUFS recent pesticides ban decision
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/about/intheworks/ccd-european-ban.html
Good explanation of neonicotinoid pesticides http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/imidagen.html
Opinion piece that inspired this article http://thehill.com
Article heralding EU nations' bee colony revival after neonicotinoid bans
http://www.guerillahealthreport.com/post.php?id=435
http://www.naturalnews.com/045883_colony_collapse_disorder_neonicotinoids_honey_bees.html
Pesticides linked to honeybee decline are affecting other species, scientists say
Published time: June 24, 2014 19:50
Edited time: June 26, 2014 14:42
http://rt.com/news/168108-pesticides-harm-bees-birds-fish/
The Government Is Breeding a Super-Honeybee. Really.
By Pete Kasperowicz
May. 16, 2014 3:37pm
(h/t EarlyOne)
The Obama administration’s Department of Agriculture is trying to breed a new kind of bee that is resistant to mites that are killing off the U.S. bee population, and is looking for millions of dollars in new money to help the project.
The USDA said this week that its Agricultural Research Service has started the program, which involves breeding bees that have a natural tendency to resist the “varroa destructor” mite. The USDA says the varroa mite is a “modern honeybee plague” that threatens U.S. agricultural production by killing bees that pollinate U.S. crops.
Pollinator bees are suffering huge losses, in part due to a destructive pest, but the government is trying to breed stronger bees. (AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch, Eric Albrecht)
Government researchers are looking for bees that tend to clean up their hives more effectively and sweep out infestations of the mite.
“The idea is to breed bees specifically to intensify such traits,” USDA explained.
But the department said it is also looking for more money for the effort. On Friday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Obama administration’s proposed budget for USDA in 2015 seeks a total of $71 million to support the recovery of the honey bee.
He said honeybee colonies saw a 23.2 percent loss over the last winter — down from 30.5 percent last year, but still too high. The USDA says bees are the main method of pollination for about 90 different agricultural crops.
“There is still more work to be done to stabilize honey bee populations and ensure the health of pollinator populations and the health of the American population — nearly one third of our diet, including many berries, nuts, fruits and vegetables, comes from plants pollinated by honey bees and other pollinators,” Vilsack said.
Next week, a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will meet to consider the agriculture appropriations bill, which could decide the fate of the administration’s request.
USDA has also set up a “bee cam” that broadcasts honey bee hive activity at USDA’s 40,000 hives of honey bees, which are kept on the roof of USDA’s headquarters in Washington.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/16/the-government-is-breeding-a-super-honeybee-really/
Rate of US honeybee deaths 'too high for long-term survival'
US government says 2013-14 hive honeybee losses not as bad as previous winter but still 'too high'
Suzanne Goldenberg
theguardian.com, Thursday 15 May 2014 10.59 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/15/honeybee-deaths-too-high-longterm-survival
Wild bees are recycling plastic, study finds
Two bee species in Canada have begun using plastic waste to build their nests, hinting at the extent of plastic pollution as well as nature's limited ability to adapt.
Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 9:24 AM
An alfalfa leafcutter bee on an alfalfa flower. (Photo: Peggy Greb/USDA)
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/recycling/blogs/wild-bees-are-recycling-plastic-study-finds
Can honey bees really be trained to detect cancer in ten minutes?
• The bees are placed in a glass chamber which the patient exhales from
• If bees fly into a secondary chamber then 'the disease has been detected'
• The inventor Susana Soares says bees can be trained in 10 minutes
By Daily Mail Reporter
18:08 EST, 20 November 2013
A Portuguese designer has created a contraption which she says can detect cancer using trained bees.
The bees are placed in a glass chamber which the patient exhales from.
If the bees fly into a secondary chamber, then that means the bees have detected the disease, according to Susana Soares.
A Portuguese designer has developed a device for detecting cancer using trained bees
Miss Soares, who presented her Bee's project at Dutch Design Week, in Eindhoven last month, said: 'Trained bees only rush into the smaller chamber if they detect the odour on the patient's breath that they have been trained to target.
'The bees can be trained within 10 minutes.'
Scientists have discovered that honey bees have an excellent sense of smell which is better than a sniffer dog.
Bees can be trained to detect bombs and one company called Insectinel is training 'sniffer bees' to work in counter-terrorist operations.
If the bees fly into the secondary chamber, the designer says that means they have detected cancer
A bee is trained by exposing it to certain odours before feeding them a solution of water and sugar.
The bees then remember the smell for the rest of their lives if they are always rewarded with sugar.
The glass object has a big chamber and a small chamber where the bees go if they detect the disease.
Research carried out by scientists has suggested that bees can accurately diagnose diseases such as tuberculosis, lung and skin cancer as well as diabetes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2510800/Can-honey-bees-really-trained-detect-cancer-minutes.html
Swedes develop drug to combat bee deaths
AFP/The Local/pvs
Published: 28 Sep 2013 08:42 CET
Researchers in Sweden said Friday they had developed a new medicine to protect bees from diseases that kill entire populations of the insect in the US and Europe.
A team of microbiologists at Lund University have patented the treatment, known as SymBeeotic -- made from lactic acid bacteria from the stomachs of healthy bees -- which they described as a major "boost" to bees' immune system and are hopeful that it could slow down the rate at which bees are dying.
"The bacteria in this product is active against both American and European foulbrood disease," Dr Alejandra Vasquez, who co-developed the product, told AFP. Foulbrood is the fatal bacterial disease which threatens bees.
"We hope that beekeepers will see this as a good preventative medicine so that they can avoid using antibiotics."
The researchers, who worked on the medicine for nearly ten years, planned to launch it at an annual conference of beekeepers in Russia on Saturday.
In a statement from the university, co-researcher Dr Tobias Olofsson said it was "the only existing product that boosts bees' natural immune system", as resistance to antibiotics grows.
Pesticides, parasites, stress and poor nutrition are believed to be some of the factors causing a deterioration of the immune systems of bees around the world, making them more susceptible to disease.
AFP/The Local/pvs
(120 comments)
http://www.thelocal.se/50494/20130928/#
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IN PICTURES: See when Stockholm was plagued by bees
http://www.thelocal.se/gallery/news/2500/3/
The Plight of the Honeybee
Billions of dollars—and a way of life—ride on saving pollinators.
A beekeeper pulls a section of honeycomb from a hive.
Jennifer S. Holland
National Geographic News
Published May 10, 2013
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
Bees are back in the news this spring, if not back in fields pollinating this summer's crops. The European Union (EU) has announced that it will ban, for two years, the use of neonicotinoids, the much-maligned pesticide group often fingered in honeybee declines. The U.S. hasn't followed suit, though this year a group of beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups sued the EPA for not doing enough to protect bees from the pesticide onslaught.
For the last several years scientists have fretted over the future of bees, and although research has shed much light on the crisis, those in the bee business—from hive keepers to commercial farmers—say the insects remain in deep trouble as their colonies continue to struggle.
The current crisis arose during the fall of 2006 as beekeepers around the country reported massive losses—more than a third of hives on average and up to 90 percent in some cases. Bees were flying away and simply not coming back; keepers would find boxes empty of adult bees except for a live queen. No bee corpses remained to tell the tale. The losses were unprecedented and fast.
Now it's five years later, and though colony collapse disorder (CCD)—the name given to the mysterious killer condition—has dwindled in the manner of cyclical diseases, bees are still battling for their lives and their colonies are weaker than ever. The latest data, from the 2012-2013 winter, indicate an average loss of 45.1 percent of hives across all U.S. beekeepers, up 78.2 percent from the previous winter, and a total loss of 31.1 percent of commercial hives, on par with the last six years. (Most keepers now consider a 15 percent loss "acceptable.")
Unprecedented Pollinator Crisis
Why keep worrying over the fate of a bunch of pesky stinging insects? Bees in their crucial role as pollinators are paramount. Western nations rely heavily on managed honeybees—the "moveable force" of bees that ride in trucks from farm to farm—to keep commercial agriculture productive. About a third of our foods (some 100 key crops) rely on these insects, including apples, nuts, all the favorite summer fruits (like blueberries and strawberries), alfalfa (which cows eat), and guar bean (used in all kinds of products). In total, bees contribute more than $15 billion to U.S. crop production, hardly small potatoes.
No, we wouldn't starve without their services—much of the world lives without managed pollinators. But we'd lose an awful lot of good, healthy food, from cherries and broccoli to onions and almonds. Or we'd pay exorbitant costs for farmers to use some other, less efficient pollination technique to supplement the work that healthy natural pollinators could do. Plus, bee health can tell us a lot about environmental health, and thus about our own well-being.
A man uses smoke to harvest honey from a honeycomb
Today's pollinator crisis, which has also hit Europe and now parts of Asia, is unprecedented. But honeybees have done disappearing acts on and off for more than a century, possibly since humans began domesticating them 4,500 years ago in Egypt. In the United States, unexplained colony declines in the 1880s, the 1920s, and the 1960s baffled farmers, and in 1995-1996 Pennsylvania keepers lost more than half of their colonies without a clear cause. The 1980s and 1990s saw various new parasites that hit bees hard; Varroa and tracheal mites became major killers, and they continue to plague hives and keep beekeepers up at night.
When CCD appeared, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture joined forces to study and fight the assailant, but a half-dozen years later they still lack a smoking gun. Recent work reveals higher loads of pathogens in the guts of bees from collapsed colonies versus healthy ones—making viral infections a likely culprit.
But this isn't a case of one cause, one effect. Bee expert Dennis vanEngelsdorp of the University of Maryland likens the situation to HIV/AIDS in humans. "You don't die of AIDS; you die of pneumonia or some other condition that hits when your immunity is down," he says. Today's bee mortalities may be behaving slightly differently. "But we're pretty sure in all these cases, diseases are the tipping point" after bees' immune systems are compromised.
So what makes bees vulnerable to those diseases, what's killing their immunity, continues to be the $15-billion question.
Problems Piling Up
Zac Browning is a fourth-generation beekeeper based in North Dakota. His mostly migratory commercial operation runs about 22,000 hives in three states—meaning he trucks his bees to different locations at different times of year, renting out their pollination services to big farms like those producing almonds in California and canola in Idaho.
CCD devastated his hives a few years back, but "we've seen losses more recently from everything imaginable," he says. "Pests, parasites, pesticide exposure, starvation, queen failures, you name it."
In addition to these problems piling up, "our inputs have gone up one-and-a-half times in the last decade," he says. "We now have to try to sustain bees [with extra food] when natural food is scarce, dearth periods that didn't exist before."
Part of the problem is keepers have to boost hive numbers to meet demand, "but the carrying capacity of the environment hasn't changed." In fact, it's gone down. The amount of undeveloped land with good bee forage just isn't enough to sustain the masses, he says.
Meanwhile, studies have shown that colonies with access to the best pollens (with more than 25 percent protein plus essential amino acids), which occur in diverse plant habitats once common across the landscape, are more robust and more resistant to disease than those in pollen-poor environments.
The Threat From Pesticides
Another adversary in the bees' battle, as the EU reminds us, is pesticides. Pesticides themselves aren't necessarily a death sentence for bees—and debate rages over whether, when properly applied, these chemicals can be used safely among pollinators. But exposure to them seems to open the door to other killers.
For example, bees exposed to sublethal doses of neonicotinoids—the type the EU is banning and that are used routinely in the U.S. on wheat, corn, soy, and cotton crops—become more easily infected by the gut parasite Nosema.
Meanwhile, last year a French study indicated that this same class of chemicals can fog honeybee brains and alter behavior. And a British study on bumblebees, a natural pollinator in decline in many places, reported neonicotinoids keep bees from supplying their hives with enough food for queen production.
A man shows his hive's queen bee.
"Honeybees are complex," says Browning. "If you reduce their lives by even just a few days, the colony itself never thrives, never reaches its maximum potential. Sublethal effects that don't kill adults outright may still render hives weak and lethargic. And those hives might not survive the winter."
What takes down the individual bee doesn't necessarily wipe out the colony, vanEngelsdorp explains. And pesticides, like other factors, do their worst when combined with other chemicals or stressors, not necessarily all by themselves. "It's synergism," he says. "One plus one may equal 10 with the right two products or insults together." (Samples of bee-collected pollen typically contain residue from numerous pesticides.) In the end, then, an immune-suppressed colony faces a downward spiral, unable to cope with stressors that weren't a problem during healthier years.
The chemicals of modern agriculture have long been vilified, and they certainly represent a vital and active line of inquiry: The number registered for use in the U.S. exceeds 1,200 active ingredients distributed among some 18,000 products, and state pesticide use records are mostly unavailable, leaving a lot of question marks. No one knows much about how low-level exposure to various chemicals over time or how various combinations affect the insects. Meanwhile, migratory colonies likely have very different chemical exposure than those who stay put. The landscape is messy.
A New Concern
In newly worrisome findings, a study from a team at Penn State has revealed that "inert" ingredients (adjuvants) used regularly to boost the effectiveness of pesticides do as much or more harm than the active "toxic" ingredients. In one study adjuvants were shown to impair adult bees' smelling and navigation abilities, and in a separate study they killed bee larvae outright.
The formulas for these other ingredients "are often proprietary information and not disclosed by the companies," says Penn State's Maryann Frazier, who wasn't an author on the study, "so they cannot be independently tested and assessed for toxicity. When [the] EPA screens pesticides for registration, they only consider the active ingredient," she says.
In addition, "there are no requirements by [the] EPA for companies to test the impacts of pesticides on immature stages of pollinators," she says, "only adults."
The EPA participated in a stakeholder conference last year to discuss honeybee health (a report is just out from that event). An EPA spokesperson declined to comment on the pending lawsuit but noted that the agency has been working to speed up its review of research related to neonicotinoids and their effect on honeybees. It is also tweaking existing regulatory practices to address various concerns including pesticide dust drift, product label warnings, and enforcement of bee-kill investigations.
Barrage of Stressors
So in addition to a changing climate and bizarre local weather systems, bees are threatened by chemical exposure in untested and unregulated combinations, disappearing foraging habitat with increasing monoculture that requires trucking bees from place to place, and fungal and viral intruders, plus the dreaded Varroa mite.
Meanwhile, nature is not sitting still. The diseases that are taking out immune-suppressed bees are quick to evolve resistance to farmers' attempts to protect their bees. "Based on our management surveys last year, not one commercial product against Varroa worked consistently," says vanEngelsdorp, citing numerous examples.
With the barrage of stressors bees face, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that they're no longer as resilient as they once were. And honeybees, vanEngelsdorp points out, are among the most robust pollinators. The native insects, such as bumblebees, stingless bees, and flies, may be in worse shape, though their plights—and role in the ecosystem—are far less well known.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit against the EPA is just revving up (the first hearing was March 15), and scientists continue to push hard to get more information on the unregulated ingredients in agrochemicals that are proving harmful. "Unless we can get at what's actually being used on fields, we can't analyze their effects," says toxicologist Chris Mullin, a co-author of the Penn State adjuvant study. And some products, he says, "are nearly 100 percent adjuvant. Illogically, they are considered safe until proven otherwise."
Other voices have risen strongly against current land use practices. "Honeybees need habitat," Browning says. "That's any floral source with good nutrition. And that's not wheat, corn, or soy, crops that take up well over 60 percent of U.S. farmland." We've traded bee needs for biofuel, he laments, and we're paying the price.
"We also need good cooperation from [the] EPA—and from farmers and pesticide applicators—to implement and enforce best management practices," he says. Also on his wish list: a better battery of tools to effectively combat the Varroa mite, the bane of all beekeepers.
"Bee culture has adapted to fit monoculture, and that's not healthy," says Browning. "If we can instead invest in good sustainable practices in agriculture, we can still thrive."
But his confidence in the future, along with that of many of his fellow beekeepers, is declining with his hives. "We're just about tapped out," he says. "Without some real action we'll see this industry dwindle away." And as the industry goes, so go the little yellow insects that put so much good food on our plates.
Jennifer S. Holland, a contributing writer to National Geographic, wrote about pollinators in the March 2011 issue of National Geographic.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130510-honeybee-bee-science-european-union-pesticides-colony-collapse-epa-science/
"Bee-friendly" plants? Think again.
Paul Towers's picture
Wed, 2013-08-14 11:08
Paul Towers
http://www.panna.org/blog/bee-friendly-plants-think-again
The Plight of the Honeybee
Mass deaths in bee colonies may mean disaster for farmers--and your favorite foods
By Bryan Walsh Monday, Aug. 19, 2013
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2149141,00.html
New Study on Bee Colony Collapse
By Paul Deaton
July 26, 2013
A new study ( http://tinyurl.com/k33puzd ) indicates that identifying and resolving the environmental issues surrounding bee colony collapse disorder ( http://tinyurl.com/83m29c2 ) in the United States is more complicated than banning a class of insecticides (neonicotinoids) as has been suggested in social media ( http://tinyurl.com/nkh83t4 ) and elsewhere.
What researchers found when studying pollen collected from bee hives near seven major crops was that pesticides and pathogens may interact to have strong negative effects on managed honey bee colonies. What was surprising about the study was there were high concentrations of fungicides in the pollen samples. While fungicides are typically seen as safe for honey bees, the study found an increased incidence of Nosema infection ( http://tinyurl.com/p4yx2sc ) in bees that collected pollen with a higher fungicide load. In layperson’s terms, a witches brew of pesticides and fungicides is forming, in and surrounding fields targeted for pollination, and the chemicals are interacting. When exposed, it weakens bee resistance to a parasite that contributes to bee colony collapse.
To learn more about the study, read the general article, “Scientists Discover What’s Killing the Bees and It’s Worse Than You Thought” ( http://tinyurl.com/nx4drtg ) by Todd Woody, or dive into the study, “Crop Pollination Exposes Honey Bees to Pesticides Which Alters Their Susceptibility to the Gut Pathogen Nosema ceranae” replete with charts, graphs and PowerPoint slides here ( http://tinyurl.com/k33puzd ).
http://www.blogforiowa.com/2013/07/26/new-study-on-bee-colony-collapse/
Worldwide Honey Bee Collapse: A Lesson In Ecology
By Rex Weyler
Published: Wednesday 12 June 2013
To reverse the world bees decline, we need to fix our dysfunctional and destructive agricultural system.
Over 30 Million Bees Found Dead In Elmwood Canada
by Arjun
Collective Evolution
July 1, 2013
Shortly after 50,000 bees were found dead in an Oregon parking lot (read more here), a staggering 37 million bees have been found dead in Elmwood, Ontario, Canada. Dave Schuit, who runs a honey operation in Elmwood has lost 600 hives. He is pointing the finger at the insecticides known as neonicotinoids, which are manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. This also comes after a recent report released by the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) that recorded its largest loss of honeybees ever. You can read more about that here ( http://tinyurl.com/kh2a7lj ). The European Union has stepped forward, having banned multiple pesticides that have been linked to killing millions of bees. You can view the studies and read more about that here ( http://tinyurl.com/o5297yx ).
The loss comes after the planting of corn. Neonicotinoid pesticides are used to coat corn seed with air seeders. This results in having the pesticide dust blown into the air when planted. The death of millions of pollinators was studied by Purdue University. They discovered that Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms. They analyzed dead bees and found that traces of thiamethoxam/clothiandin were present in each case. The only major source of these compounds are seed treatments of field crops. You can view that study below (1).
Bee deaths are increasing exponentially. An international team of scientists led by Holland’s Utrecht University has concluded that, “large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinators at risk. This is some of the research that led to the European Unions ban of the pesticides, as mentioned and referenced earlier.
Can we really debate this much longer? The evidence linking pesticides to bee deaths is overwhelming. It’s not only bees, but an array of other insects as well. The last thing we need is more events to occur that companies can use to push the manufacturing and development or more genetically modified foods. One reason that has been used for justification of GMO’s is a food shortage, and we all know how critical bees are to our food supply. There is a huge conflict of interest here, the pesticides used to spray the crops that are killing the bees are developed by biotech corporations such as Monsanto.
Time to make the connections, time to speak up!
Sources:
http://www.thepost.on.ca/2013/06/19/bees-dying-by-the-millions
(1) http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publications/E-53.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3250423/?tool=pubmed
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11585.html
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/07/01/over-30-million-bees-found-dead-in-elmwood-canada/#_
City Bees, Country Bees
by Adrian Ayres Fisher, originally published by Ecological Gardening
Jun 19, 2013
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-06-19/city-bees-country-bees
Insanity: US Approves Bee Death Pesticide as EU Bans It
by Anthony Gucciardi
05/12/2013 at 5:25 am
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
Corporate politics is business as usual inside the United States, as I am once again shocked to report the EPA has sided with industry lobbyists over public health in approving a highly dangerous pesticide that the European Union recently decided to ban over fears of environmental devastation. Not only have neonicotinoid pesticides been linked repeatedly to mass bee deaths, also known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), but the continued use of such pesticides threatens other aspects of nature (and humans) as well.
What’s even more amazing is that the decision not only comes after the EU publicly discussed the major dangers surrounding the use of the pesticides, but after the USDA released a report surrounding the continued honeybee deaths and the related effects — a report in which they detailed pesticides to be a contributing factor. Just the impact on the honeybees alone, and we now know that these pesticides are killing aquatic life and subsequently the birds that feed upon them, amounts to a potential $200 billion in global damages per year. We’re talking about the devastation of over 100 crops, from apples to avocados and plums.
And there’s countless scientists and a large number of environmental science groups speaking out on this. The EPA has no lack of information the subject. And sure, there are other contributing factors to bee deaths, there’s no question about that. We have an environment right now being hit with Monsanto’s Roundup even in residential areas, we have chemical rain, we have insane amounts of EMF — but it’s pretty clear that neonicotinoid pesticides are at least a major contributing factor. And beyond that, they have no place in the food supply to begin with.
The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) details the EU ban that came right before the EPA acceptance of the death-linked pesticide:
“The EU vote comes after significant findings by the European Food Safety Agency that these pesticides pose an unacceptable risk to bees and their use should be restricted. Along with habitat loss and pathogens, a growing body of science points to neonicotinoid pesticides as a key factor in drastically declining bee populations.”
So why are they approving this pesticide to now pollute the United States in what potentially amounts to an even larger capacity than the EU? A move that will ultimately escalate the price of food worldwide due to the likely nature of continued bee deaths and subsequent crop impact? That’s the power of phony corporate science.
http://naturalsociety.com/us-approves-bee-deathpesticide-as-eu-bans/
Study Finds No Single Cause of Honeybee Deaths
A California beekeeper used smoke to calm bees in hives being divided. Honeybees pollinate hundreds of crops, and many farmers are worried.
By JOHN M. BRODER
May 2, 2013
WASHINGTON — The devastation of American honeybee colonies is the result of a complex stew of factors, including pesticides, parasites, poor nutrition and a lack of genetic diversity, according to a comprehensive federal study published on Thursday. The problems affect pollination of American agricultural products worth tens of billions of dollars a year.
The report does not place more weight on one factor over another, and recommends a range of actions and further research.
Honeybees are used to pollinate hundreds of crops, from almonds to strawberries to soybeans. Since 2006, millions of bees have been dying in a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder. The cause or causes have been the subject of much study and speculation.
The federal report appears the same week that European officials took steps toward banning a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, derived from nicotine, that they consider a critical factor in the mass deaths of bees there.
But officials in the United States Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and others involved in the bee study said that there was not enough evidence to support a ban on one group of pesticides, and that the costs of such action might exceed the benefits.
“At E.P.A. we let science drive the outcome of decision making,” said Jim Jones, the agency’s acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention. “There are non-trivial costs to society if we get this wrong. There are meaningful benefits from these pesticides to farmers and to consumers, as well as for affordable food.”
May R. Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a participant in the study, said that examination of dead bees had found residues of more than 100 chemicals, insecticides and pesticides, including some used to control parasites in bee hives.
Like Mr. Jones, she rejected the idea of an immediate ban on the use of neonicotinoids or any other single pesticide.
“It’s not a simple matter of just removing pesticides,” she said in a conference call for reporters Thursday. “It is difficult to predict the effect of removing one of 100 different contaminants.”
“There is no quick fix,” she said. “Patching one hole in a boat that leaks everywhere is not going to keep it from sinking.”
One of the most fatal afflictions in bee colonies is the parasitic mite Varroa destructor, which infests beehives and is thought to be responsible for numerous die-offs. Another factor is the planting of vast areas in a single crop like corn, limiting the forage supplies for bees.
Zac Browning, a fourth-generation commercial beekeeper who operates more than 20,000 hives for honey production and pollination in California, Idaho and North Dakota, said the solution to the bee crisis will require a broad approach and many players.
He said that the supply of bees is falling short of the need, citing difficulty rounding up enough bees to pollinate the winter almond crop in California and blueberry bushes in Maine this spring.
“We’re on the brink,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ve crossed that threshold yet, but we’re getting there fast.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/science/earth/government-study-cites-mix-of-factors-in-death-of-honeybees.html?
'Victory for bees' as European Union bans neonicotinoid pesticides blamed for destroying bee population
15 of the 27 member states voted for a two-year restriction on neonicotinoids despite opposition by countries including Britain
Charlotte McDonald-Gibson
Monday, 29 April 2013
Environmentalists hailed a "victory for bees" today after the European Union voted for a ban on the nerve-agent pesticides blamed for the dramatic decline global bee populations.
Despite fierce lobbying by the chemicals industry and opposition by countries including Britain, 15 of the 27 member states voted for a two-year restriction on neonicotinoid insecticides. That gave the European Commission the support it needed to push through an EU-wide ban on using three neonicotinoids on crops attractive to bees.
Tonio Borg, the EC's top health official, said they planned to implement the landmark ban from December. "I pledge to do my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our ecosystem and contribute over €22bn annually to European agriculture, are protected," he said.
Britain was among eight nations which voted against the motion, despite a petition signed by 300,000 people presented to Downing Street last week by fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and Katharine Hamnett. The Independent has also campaigned to save Britain's bee population.
Four nations abstained from the moratorium, which will restrict the use of imidacloprid and clothianidin, made by Germany's Bayer, and thiamethoxam, made by the Swiss company, Syngenta. The ban on use on flowering crops will remain in place throughout the EU for two years unless compelling scientific evidence to the contrary becomes available.
More than 30 separate scientific studies have found a link between the neonicotinoids, which attack insects' nerve systems, and falling bee numbers. The proposal by European Commission - the EU's legislative body - to ban the insecticides was based on a study by the European Food Safety Authority, which found in January that the pesticides did pose a risk to bees' health.
But the British government argued that the science was incomplete and said the ban could impact food production. Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, said that they wanted to wait for the results of more trials before committing to the Europe-wide policy. The UK will not, however, be able to opt out of the ban.
Environment Minister Lord de Mauley said: “Having a healthy bee population is a top priority for us, but we did not support the proposal for a ban because our scientific evidence doesn’t support it. Significant countries agree with us that a ban is not the right action to take and we will work with them to get much better evidence. We will now work with farmers to cope with the consequences as a ban will carry significant costs for them.”
Green groups hailed Monday's vote as a victory for science. "This decision is a significant victory for common sense and our beleaguered bee populations," said Andrew Pendleton of Friends of the Earth. Marco Contiero, EU agriculture policy director for Greenpeace, said the vote "makes it crystal clear that there is overwhelming scientific, political and public support for a ban.".
Syngenta, however, painted a different picture of the vote, with Luke Gibbs, head of corporate affairs in North Europe, saying the EC had failed again to convince all member states.
"The ban has been wrongly presented as a silver bullet for solving the bee health problem," he told The Independent. "The proposal is based on poor science and ignores a wealth of evidence from the field that these pesticides do not damage the health of bees. Instead of banning these products, the Commission should now take the opportunity to address the real reasons for bee health decline: disease, viruses and loss of habitat and nutrition."
The issue has fiercely divided the scientific community. Green groups and some scientists say the effects of the neonicotinoids are particularly devastating as the pesticide is applied to the seeds. That means it is present not only in the leaves which the insects eat, but also the pollen. Farmers, however, say the insecticides are vital to prevent crops being destroyed by pests including beetles and aphids.
Reaction from the scientists reflected this divide. Professor Lin Field, head of biological chemistry and crop protection at Rothamsted Research, said he feared the decision was based on "political lobbying" and could cause governments to overlook other factors contributing to declining bee numbers, such as climate change and viruses spread by mites.
But Dr Lynn Dicks, a research associate at the University of Cambridge, said that despite the contradictory studies, the EU was right to err on the side of caution. "This is a victory for the precautionary principle, which is supposed to underlie environmental regulation," she said.
Friends of the Earth: The Bee Cause - Get Your Bee Saver Kit http://tinyurl.com/bvzsqxd
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/victory-for-bees-as-european-union-bans-neonicotinoid-pesticides-blamed-for-destroying-bee-population-8595408.html?
Pesticide Lobby Spends Millions To Defend Chemicals Tied To Bee Deaths
Posted: 03/29/2013 4:24 pm EDT | Updated: 03/29/2013 6:48 pm EDT
A crop duster plane spraying fungicide in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. In the U.S., the pesticide lobby is spending billions to prevent regulation of certain chemicals. (AFP PHOTO/ROMEO GACAD)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/29/pesticide-lobby-bees_n_2980870.html
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"Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) or sometimes honey bee depopulation syndrome (HBDS)[1] is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear."
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