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'It's Outrageous': EPA Acknowledges Proven Dangers of Bee-Killing Pesticides But Refuses to Restrict Them
Dead bees in the beehives at Ochlenberg. © Greenpeace / Mike Krishnatreya
EcoWatch.com
Jan. 13, 2017 02:36PM EST
(h/t to Past and present)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that three of the nation's most-used neonicotinoid pesticides pose significant risks to commercial honey bees. But in a second decision ( http://tinyurl.com/jp3gqux ), which represents a deep bow to the pesticide industry, the agency refused to restrict the use of any leading bee-killing pesticides despite broad evidence of their well-established role in alarming declines of pollinators.
The EPA analysis indicates that honey bees can be harmed by the widely-used pesticides clothianidin, thiamethoxam and dinetofuran. The agency also released an updated assessment for a fourth leading neonicotinoid—imidacloprid—showing that in addition to harms to pollinators identified last year, the pesticide can also harm aquatic insects.
Yet on the same day the EPA revealed the dangers these pesticides pose to pollinators, it reversed course and backed away from a proposed rule to place limited restrictions on use of the bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides when commercial honey bees are present in a field. Instead, the agency announced voluntary guidelines that impose no mandatory use restrictions.
"It's outrageous that on the same day the EPA acknowledged these dangerous pesticides are killing bees it also reversed course on mandating restrictions on their use," said Lori Ann Burd, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Environmental Health program. "This is like a doctor diagnosing your illness but then deciding to withhold the medicine you need to cure it."
Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides known to have both acute and chronic effects on honey bees, birds, butterflies and other pollinator species, and they are a major factor in overall pollinator declines. These systemic insecticides cause entire plants, including their pollen and nectar, to become toxic to pollinators. These chemicals are also slow to break down and they build up in soil, where they pose an especially grave threat to thousands of species of ground-nesting native bees. In November the largest and most comprehensive ever global assessment of pollinators found that 40 percent of pollinating insects are threatened with extinction, naming neonicotinoids as a significant driver of wild pollinator declines.
"The new policy does virtually nothing to protect America's thousands of declining native bee species or to curb the escalating use of these harmful neonicotinoid pesticides across hundreds of millions of acres in the United States," said Burd. "It's shocked that the EPA's response to the crisis of declining pollinators and the abundant science linking that decline to neonicotinoid insecticides is to meekly offer a policy encouraging industry to consider restricting pesticide use in limited situations where plants are blooming while commercial honey bees have been brought in to work the fields. This is a rejection of science that should be deeply troubling to all Americans as we move into a Trump administration."
Neonicotinoids have already been banned by the European Union and in 2016 they were banned on all U.S. national wildlife refuges due to their harmful impacts on wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. Canada has also proposed a ban on a neonicotinoid because of its unacceptable threats.
http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-neonicotinoid-pesticides-2191476291.html
7 Bees Facing Extinction Added to Endangered Species List for First Time
Dan Zukowski
Oct. 03, 2016 09:37AM EST
http://www.ecowatch.com/bees-endangered-species-list-2028775271.html
Great article, Dan! I ran out of time in the garden for a Mason Bee project this year.
About Mason Bees
By Kathy LaLiberte
http://www.gardeners.com/how-to/about-mason-bees/8198.html
Buzzy accommodations: luxury hotels give bees a boost
By Jordi Lippe
9 Jun 2016
Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa created a wine barrel ‘hotel’ for bees
Fairmont is upping the buzz at ten of its hotels, by working with Pollinator Partnership to create rooftop beehives—which they're calling bee hotels—to help increase the wild bee population. Fairmont is not the first to do so (the Waldorf Astoria New York and Peninsula Paris also have beehives on their rooftops), but they might just be the first to do so on a brand level.
And these insects are getting some pretty sweet digs. The bee hotels were designed with their luxury home base in mind, including a wine barrel bee hotel at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa and a miniature version of the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, to a design that features the Washington monument at the Fairmont in DC.
A bee hotel is also coming to the Plaza in New York: It will be French-inspired, like the hotel itself, and was developed in partnership with the Central Park Conservancy and Fairmont’s international Bee Sustainable partner, River of Flowers.
To make things a little sweeter for guests, executive chefs at participating Fairmont Hotels & Resorts have developed special menu items with ingredients that rely on bees for pollination. ‘It is critical that we find ways to protect the bee community and give them a place to nest,’ said chef Todd English, who runs the food hall at the Plaza. “Some of my favorite ingredients, such as tomatoes and eggplant, only exist due to pollinator bees.”
A series of Bee Sustainable packages will also be available throughout the summer with participating hotels offering 10 percent off the daily rate and a $50 (£34) dining credit per stay. Ten dollars (£7) from each stay will also be donated to Pollinator Partnership to support important bee research and programming.
http://www.wallpaper.com/travel/fairmont-bee-hotels#
Thanks, Dan. I was just about to post this one! DISGUSTING!!
‘Like it’s been nuked': Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes
By Ben Guarino
September 1, 2016
(h/t to Bertsllc)
‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/01/like-its-been-nuked-millions-of-bees-dead-after-south-carolina-sprays-for-zika-mosquitoes/
An 18-year study of bees finally sheds light on something that may be wiping them out
By Meghan Bartels
August 16, 2016
nomada marshamella uk bee (Nomada marshamella, one of the UK bee species studied.S. Rae/Flickr)
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
For years, there's been suspicion that a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids are bad for bees. The chemicals, which farmers apply to their crops to keep away insects that munch through their harvests, are among the most used bug-killers out there.
But ecologists have worried the chemicals also affect the insects that help support harvests.
Bees have been mysteriously disappearing in what's called colony collapse disorder, which some scientists believe neonicotinoids are contributing to.
That's a problem because the pollination work bees do is hugely valuable. Commercially managed honeybees produce about $15 billion in value for the US alone and wild American bees another $9 billion.
There's finally a study that tries to actually parse out the effects neonicotinoids have on bees in the wild. It looks at 62 different wild bee species in the UK.
That's important because while only three species of bees and bumblebees are kept by beekeepers and used commercially, experts believe there are closer to 250 wild species in the UK and 4,000 in the US. And while we don't manage them, we do benefit from their pollination.
The new study, which was published August 16 in the journal Nature Communications, also looks at an 18-year timespan that begins before neonicotinoids were introduced in 2002. That means the researchers could actually establish a baseline for how bees were doing before farmers began widely using the chemicals.
Oilseed rape rapeseed yellow flower (Stewart Black/Flickr)
Neonicotinoids are used particularly on rapeseed, one variety of which is turned into canola oil. During the month or two they bloom, the flowers turn swaths of the British countryside a shocking yellow.
Some bees like the flowers; some don't. So the scientists were able to divvy bees up by their taste for rapeseed, then look at how their populations changed over almost two decades of surveys.
For a few bees, the scientists estimate about a fifth of their population declines was due to neonicotinoids.
That's not enough to kill off bees taken by itself. But pesticides aren't the only challenge bees are facing. Climate change, differences in how we use the land and what plants they can feed on, and parasites and diseases that infect bees are also putting a dent in populations.
And it doesn't necessarily mean we should stop using neonicotinoids cold turkey. "It needs to be taken in a very holistic perspective, you can't just say as long as we can save the bees everything else can go to hell, that's not where you want to be at," lead scientist Ben Woodcock told the BBC.
Both the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticides in the US, and the European equivalent are already in the process of re-evaluating their rules for neonicotinoids.
The study isn't quite the gold standard of science, since the researchers were just watching what happened from changes already in place rather than carefully controlling circumstances so that pesticide exposure was the only difference between groups.
But that kind of study is really hard to do in ecology — and getting a long-term, large-scale look at a range of species is better information than we've had before.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/18-study-bees-finally-sheds-184100396.html
Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought
Outlawing a type of insecticides is not a panacea. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
by Todd Woody
July 24, 2013
As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow ( http://tinyurl.com/crq3gnk ). Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought.
Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE ( http://tinyurl.com/k33puzd ), scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.
When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.
Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples.
“There’s growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz.
Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions have not applied to fungicides.
Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.
In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years ( http://tinyurl.com/ctvkpo2 ) in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But vanEngelsdorp, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, says the new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting bee health.
“The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex than we have led to be believe,” he says. “It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product.”
The study found another complication in efforts to save the bees: US honey bees, which are descendants of European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen, however, was also contaminated with pesticides even though those plants were not the target of spraying.
“It’s not clear whether the pesticides are drifting over to those plants but we need take a new look at agricultural spraying practices,” says vanEngelsdorp.
http://qz.com/107970/scientists-discover-whats-killing-the-bees-and-its-worse-than-you-thought/
Comment: Study co-author Peter Neumann said in a statement that the results “highlight the need for stringent environmental risk assessments of agricultural chemicals to protect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.”
Risk assessments might be done, laws will be passed to protect the bees, but enforcement of such laws may never be enforced. That is a sad reality.
Thanks, Dan!
Our Chemicals Are Killing Honey Bees’ Sex Lives
The birds may be fine, but a new study shows the bees are having some serious fertility issues.
By Chris D’Angelo
07/28/2016 08:43 pm ET
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
If there’s a species that doesn’t need an unintentional dose of birth control, it’s the honey bee.
A new study, however, suggests two common neonicotinoid insecticides are not only shortening the overall lifespan of male honey bees, known as drones, but also inhibiting their ability to produce viable sperm.
The chemicals’ contraceptive effects, warn researchers from Switzerland’s University of Bern, could have “profound consequences for the health of the queen, as well as the entire colony.”
A male drone bee cleans his legs atop a hive. (Getty Images)
The study, led by Bern doctoral student Lars Straub and published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is the latest bit of bad news for the planet’s most important pollinators, which are facing an onslaught of threats.
“We know multiple stressors can affect honey bee health, including parasites and poor nutrition,” senior author Geoff Williams of the University of Bern and Agroscope said in a statement. “It is possible that agricultural chemicals may also play an important role.”
Male honey bees obtained from colonies exposed to thiamethoxam and clothianidin were shown to have live sperm counts39 percent lower than those not exposed, according to the study. The findings, the researchers say, “demonstrate for the first time that neonicotinoid insecticides can negatively affect male insect reproductive capacity.”
Additionally, the study found that the lifespans of chemically exposed bees were reduced by roughly 32 percent, from an average 22 days to 15 days.
Fluorescence microscopy revealing living (stained in bluish-green) and dead (stained in red) male honey bee sperm. (Lars Straub, Univ. of Bern)
Despite increased efforts to reverse declining bee populations, U.S beekeepers lost 44 percent of their total colonies from April 2015 to March 2016, an increase of 3.5 percentage points over the previous year, according to the findings of an annual survey released in May. Known threats include the parasitic varroa mite, malnutrition from habitat loss and pesticides.
As the authors note in a press release, the two neonicotinoids involved in the study are partially banned in Europe. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency is currently reviewing neonicotinoids after a study found the chemicals can impair bumblebees’ learning and memory and blunt their ability to forage. Preliminary risk assessments for thiamethoxam and clothianidin are scheduled for release in December.
Scientists are particularly concerned about declining bee populations because of the potential impact on food security. The insects pollinate 75 percent of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the United States, and add at least $15 billion in economic value to the country’s agricultural industry.
Study co-author Peter Neumann said in a statement that the results “highlight the need for stringent environmental risk assessments of agricultural chemicals to protect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/insecticides-honey-bee-sperm-court_us_579a4aaae4b01180b5323dc8
EU Nations Fight to Ban Glyphosate, Monsanto Threatened By EU Decision
By Brandon Turbeville
Posted on June 30, 2016
As the European Union dominates the news headlines across the world, the Brexit is not the only controversy brewing in Europe. Never known for its democratic values, European nations have nevertheless refused to back an extension of the use of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup – a decision that could strike a major blow to the multinational corporation.
EU politicians regulators, researchers, U.S. politicians, corporate representatives, farmers and activists are now embroiled in a debate regarding the continued use of the ubiquitous herbicide. Glyphosate is well known for its adverse effects on human health and the environment, and as a result of greater public awareness of the dangers of the chemical, pressure has been placed on national governments to begin a transition away from it.
The EU executive responsible for licensing glyphosate had attempted to renew the license for up to 15 years, but after two meetings in early 2016, was unable to win enough support from EU nations to do so. The EU then offered to make a limited extension for 12-18 months to allow time for more research and debate. Despite the appearance of compromise, however, the proposal did not win the qualified majority needed for passage.
If the EU is unable to achieve a majority decision, the executive may submit the proposal to an appeal committee made up of political representatives of EU member states. If there is no decision made by this committee, the EU commission will demonstrate its reputation for popular democracy and adopt its own proposal.
Spokesperson Bart Staes, member of the European Parliament and Greens Environment and Food Safety Spokesperson commented on the decision by stating,
“We applaud those EU governments who are sticking to their guns and refusing to authorise this controversial toxic herbicide. There are clear concerns about the health risks with glyphosate, both as regards it being a carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor.
Moreover, glyphosate’s devastating impact on biodiversity should have already led to its ban. Thankfully, the significant public mobilisation and political opposition to re-approving glyphosate has been taken seriously by key EU governments, who have forced the EU Commission to back down. The Commission must stop continuing to try and force through the approval of glyphosate. Such a move would raise major Democrat concerns about the EU’s decision-making process.”
Image created by Naturalblaze via Pixabay
http://www.naturalblaze.com/2016/06/eu-nations-fight-to-ban-glyphosate-monsanto-threatened-by-eu-decision.html
Mysterious 'zombie bee' scourge reaches southern US
By BEN FINLEY
Associated Press
June 23, 2016 1:45PM EDT
NORFOLK (AP) -- The mysterious "zombie bee" parasite that kills honeybees has reached the southern United States after scientists confirmed a case in Virginia about an hour outside Roanoke, researchers announced this week.
The discovery suggests the phenomenon is more widespread than previously thought, although researchers still know little about how many bees it actually kills.
Flies attach themselves to the bees and inject their eggs, causing erratic "zombie-like" behavior in the bees such as flying at night and toward light. The bees often die within hours. Fly larvae burst out of their carcasses days later.
The phenomenon was first discovered in California in 2008 and has spread to states including Oregon, South Dakota and New York. But even as "zombie bees" reach the South, scientists still don't know what role they might play in the pollinator's alarming decline.
"We're trying to answer some of these questions about how important this is," said John Hafernik, a biology professor at San Francisco State University who studies "zombie bees." ''We don't know whether it's a major player in honeybee decline or a minor actor in a B-movie."
Honeybees contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. agriculture industry. They already fall prey to mites, viruses and Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon in which worker bees disappear or abandon their hives.
Hafernik said he turned to the nation's beekeepers to lookout for "zombie bees" and report any noticeable patterns. One of them is Lynn Berry, 50, of Collinsville, Virginia, a receiving manager at a mattress and pillow factory who keeps bees as a hobby with his wife and mother-in-law.
Berry learned about "zombie bees" from presentations at local bee clubs. And some of his bees did indeed hover at night around an outdoor garage light before dying.
He put the carcasses in a jar covered with cheese cloth. After maggots emerged days later, he contacted scientists in California, who confirmed that Berry had discovered Virginia's first case.
"My concern is what is going to happen as this spreads more and more," Berry said. "At this point it's kind of sporadic and here and there. But everything starts somewhere. Bees have enough issues as it is."
In the meantime, like-minded beekeepers across the country are collecting dead bee samples. But Richard Fell, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech's entomology department, said he's not alarmed yet.
For instance, he said, there are flies in other parts of the world that have similarly killed bees without a severe impact on the population.
"At this point, I'm not worried," Fell said. "We don't have enough data to make any kind of conclusion."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ZOMBIE_BEES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-06-23-13-46-54
Glyphosate opposition as Germany, Italy and France refuse to relicense herbicide
By Julie Wilson
staff writer
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
(NaturalNews) Within a matter of weeks, glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, declared a likely human carcinogen by the World Health Organization last spring, may no longer be approved for use in Europe.
As we reported recently, the European Union is scrambling to reach an agreement regarding the relicensing of the world's most widely used herbicide; however, time is running out, and instead of caving to pressure from companies like Monsanto, member countries are standing firm in their decision not to approve glyphosate renewal.
Establishment lawmakers controlled by the special interests of agrochemical companies have expressed outrage regarding EU member countries' reluctance to endorse the renewal of Monsanto's herbicide.
The EU's health chief was reportedly "fuming" last week, after several key nations including Germany, Italy and France abstained from the June 6 vote to temporarily extend market approval of glyphosate for 12 to 18 months pending further scientific review.
Defenders of the chemical industry infuriated by their inability to coerce nations into approving glyphosate
This presents an enormous road block for the European Commission, as it is in desperate need of approval from either Germany, Italy or France. "EU majority rules require at least one of the three big countries to come on side, but they are so far refusing to show their hand," reported Independent, an Irish-based news publication.
Despite failing to receive majority support or 65 percent of the EU's population, the European Commission has decided to push forward with its plan to temporarily renew the glyphosate license through an appeal committee, which has scheduled a hearing for June 24.
If that fails, the European Union can technically adopt its own policy; however, this sort of blatant disregard for the people is far less tolerated in Europe than in other regions, such as in the U.S., where Monsanto is king and the government routinely ignores the American people with impunity. Eighty percent of Monsanto's revenue is generated in the Americas, while Europe makes up less than 13 percent of sales.
Dismissing the rights of citizens is far less tolerated in Europe
"Three strikes must mean the approval of glyphosate is finally ruled out. After the third failed attempt, the Commission must stop continuing to try and force through the approval of glyphosate. Such a move would raise major democratic concerns about the EU's decision-making process," said Bart Staes, spokesman for green environment and food safety.
"The process of phasing out glyphosate and other toxic herbicides and pesticides from agriculture must begin now, and this means reorienting the EU's Common Agricultural Policy towards a more sustainable agricultural model," he adds.
As Staes and many other scientists and environmentalists point out, glyphosate use poses myriad risks, particularly with regard to public health and the environmental resources humans depend on for survival.
Glyphosate – as well as many other pesticides and industrial chemicals such as the plasticizer BPA – is a proven endocrine disruptor, meaning it mimics natural sex hormones in the human body, interfering with a range of important functions related to sexual and reproductive development.
Endocrine disruption in humans and animals adversely impacts the brain and the immune system, as well as causing cancer, according to the National Institute of Health. Other common endocrine disruptors include arsenic, mercury, lead, atrazine, phthalates and perchlorate.
The death of glyphosate in Europe
If the appeal filed by the European Commission is unsuccessful, and it decides not to push forward with its own policy, which would absolutely incite immense anger and backlash among member countries, application of glyphosate could be phased out of Europe over the next six months.
If that happens, it would be the largest market ever to completely reject glyphosate – resulting in a major financial blow for Monsanto, regardless of the fact that it draws a relatively small portion of revenue from Europe. The blow could even affect Bayer's $62 billion bid to take over Monsanto.
Sources:
Independent.ie
IrishTimes.com
Agra-net.com
IrishTimes.com
EWG.org
NIEHS.NIH.gov
NaturalNews.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/054375_glyphosate_herbicide_European_countries.html
To save the bees, mind the household bug spray, study says
A 16-week study in the Midwest found that bees in a variety of landscapes were all exposed to similar pesticide levels, regardless of their proximity to treated crops.
By Christina Beck, Staff June 1, 2016
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0601/To-save-the-bees-mind-the-household-bug-spray-study-says
Brilliant new beehive harnesses solar energy to exterminate the colony’s worst enemy
By Dyllan Furness
May 13, 2016
An innovative new beehive design –launched via an Indiegogo campaign– might just be the solution we need to relieve, or even end, colony collapse disorder in bees. Abandoning chemicals and harnessing the power of Mother Nature herself, the Thermosolar Hive aims to target one of the honeybee’s worst enemies – Varroa destructor mites
Varroa destructor mites are just as devastating as they sound. Many experts claim the Varroa mite is the most significant factor in colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon which has caused honeybee populations to plummet across the globe.
The tiny parasites latch onto both bees and broods, and suck the living life out of them. Infected broods often mature with deformed or missing limbs and wings. Once the mites are attached, they’re nearly impossible to eradicate without also destroying hives, placing infected colonies into quarantine, and delaying seasonal pollination. The Varroa mites’ tendency to transfer from bee to bee and hive to hive makes containment even more complicated.
28% of US bees wiped out this winter, suggesting bigger environmental issues
Oliver Milman
@olliemilman
Wednesday 11 May 2016 14.59 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/11/bee-colony-deaths-environmental-problems?CMP=share_btn_fb
Maryland’s honeybees are being massacred, and the weapon might be in your house
By Darryl Fears March 24 at 12:54 PM
Bees tend to honeycomb cells in a colony in Frederick, Md. (Linda Davidson / The Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/24/marylands-honeybees-are-being-massacred-and-the-weapon-might-be-in-your-house/
The FDA Will Finally Test Food for Traces of the Weed Killer Roundup
http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/02/fda-roundup-testing.html
Great post, dan the man!!!! That imbedded link above is so so important!
U.N. Warns the Declining Bee Population Is Going to Devastate Our Food Supply
By Clint Rainey
February 26, 2016 2:35 p.m.
It's no secret that the world's bees are dying off in alarming numbers ( http://tinyurl.com/ph6bfkw ), but sometimes it's worth remembering what's at stake beyond just hot toddies and a topping for biscuits, and the U.N. Friday has just the thing ( http://tinyurl.com/zfxsk22 ): A new report by the organization warns that if the disturbing trend continues, there will be awful consequences for the world's food supply.
The number of "pollinators" — a group composed of roughly 20,000 flying creatures — is shrinking rapidly worldwide, putting "hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of crops each year" at risk, according to the report, which took two years to compile and is the first of its kind. It says that two out of five species of invertebrate pollinators (primarily bees, but butterflies and other insects, too) now face extinction, and one in six of the vertebrate pollinators (birds) do as well.
The report amounts to a pretty serious downer because it reiterates how baffling these mass die-offs remain, then directly links their existence to food shortages down the road. No one's sure who or what to blame because there are too many options — pesticides, global warming, disease, so-called "habitat loss" caused by deforestation and urban sprawl, even modern farming itself, which is reducing the biodiversity pollinators use for food. One of the authors lays it out: "Everything falls apart if you take pollinators out of the game. If we want to say we can feed the world in 2050, pollinators are going to be part of that."
U.N. researchers suggest making a handful of "relatively simple, relatively inexpensive" moves — common-sense things like not devoting the majority of farmland to corn and soy, and using fewer toxic chemicals to grow crops, a move the FDA seems to be getting behind already ( http://tinyurl.com/ze248he ).
http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/02/bees-and-other-pollinators-going-extinct.html
European Scientists Discover Bee Resurgence After Banning These 3 Pesticides Still Used in The US
By Health Freedoms Organisation
March 7, 2016
Whether or not Einstein equated bee extinction to human extinction has been challenged and perhaps debunked. He may have never said anything close to that. After all, he was a physicist, not a biologist. But no matter. The diversity of our crops is highly dependent on pollinators, predominantly by honey bees and somewhat further by butterflies.
In 1976, retired apiculturist S.E. McGregor, from the USDA’s Agriculture Research Service (ASR), wrote a paper in 1976 entitled “Economics of Plant Pollination”. After mentioning that some plants are wind or self pollinated, McGregor stated, “… it appears that perhaps one-third of our total diet is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon insect-pollinated plants.”
In his 1976 paper, McGregor also points out, “Another value of pollination lies in its effect on quality and efficiency of crop production. Inadequate pollination can result not only in reduced yields but also in delayed yield and a high percentage of culls or inferior fruits. In this connection, Gates (1917) warned the grower that, … ‘without his pollinating agents, chief among which are the honey bees, to transfer the pollen from the stamens to the pistil of the blooms, his crop may fail.’”
Now We Have Colony Collapse Disorder
It’s well known to those who care about our future food supply that bee populations are dying off dramatically, and certain pollinating butterfly species, especially Monarchs, are becoming endangered.
Sometimes the bees simply get confused and don’t return to their hives, and sometimes they simply die in their hives. It’s known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and it has been rampant in North America. Neonicotinoids are the most widely used pesticides in the world and are extremely toxic to bees and other pollinators.
European scientists have discovered that bee populations are experiencing a resurgence after three neonicotinoid insecticides, clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam were banned by the European Commission in 2013. Unfortunately, all three are still used heavily in the USA.
The European Academies Science Advisory Council, an independent body composed of representatives from the national science academies of European Union member states, has a growing body of evidence that shows the widespread use of the pesticides “has severe effects on a range of organisms that provide ecosystem services like pollination and natural pest control, as well as on biodiversity.”
The European ban is up for review this year, and the council’s report, based on the examination of more than 100 peer-reviewed papers that were published since the food safety agency’s finding, was prepared to provide officials with recommendations on how to proceed. Hopefully science will prevail over political influence from agrochemical industries.
Predatory insects like parasitic wasps and ladybugs provide billions of dollars’ worth of insect control, they noted, and organisms like earthworms contribute billions more through improved soil productivity. All are harmed by the pesticides and herbicides as well. Using pesticides is like trying to put out a fire by shooting at firemen as they arrive at the scene.
You can include glyphosate herbicides as well. Dr. Donald Huber, 55 year government plant pathologist and Purdue University professor emeritus suggests strongly that glyphosate herbicides contribute to pollinating bees’ confusion, causing them to not be able to return to their hives. That’s one part of CCD, the other part is when whole hive colonies die in or near their hives.
Despite Huber’s strong background and integrity, he has been ignored and vilified for his attempts at warning the corrupt creeps in the USDA and academia. They are all on the GMO industry’s payroll, directly or indirectly.
Perhaps Big Ag mono-crop farmers are too ignorant of older methods of agroecology insect control or perhaps their farms are too big or they’re too lazy and greedy. Or perhaps they’re simply victims of a failed system known as Big Ag with its handful of large worldwide distributors and a commodity speculative trading system that influences food pricing.
The solution to a sustainable food supply has been determined by several international studies from agricultural experts not attached to specific Big Ag or biotech industries; the largest was assigned to international experts by the United Nations. Their proposed solution to world hunger is small organic agroecological farms that supply food within their regions.
These studies received little or no mainstream media publicity. And the practices they advocate receive no government subsidies. Instead, the loudest and most quoted voices for solving world hunger are from GMO shills.
These two quotes bother me a lot since the bumblebee is the most abundant pollinator in my garden:
'Potts said global warming is "very clearly a real future risk" because pollinators and their plants may not be at the same place at the same time. England has seen one-quarter of its bumblebee species threatened, and those are the type of bees most sensitive to climate change, he said.'
'England has lost two species of wild bumblebees to extinction and the U.S. has lost one, Inouye said.'
Thanks for posting!
A mass extinction of bees and butterflies could threaten world food crops, UN report finds
a bumblebee gathers nectar on a wildflower in Appleton, Maine.
Image: Associated Press / Robert f. Buka
By The Associated Press
February 28, 2016
Many species of wild bees, butterflies and other critters that pollinate plants are shrinking toward extinction, and the world needs to do something about it before our food supply suffers, a new United Nations scientific mega-report warns.
The 20,000 or so species of pollinators are key to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of crops each year — from fruits and vegetables to coffee and chocolate. Yet 2 out of 5 species of invertebrate pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are on the path toward extinction, said the first-of-its-kind report. Pollinators with backbones, such as hummingbirds and bats, are only slightly better off, with 1 in 6 species facing extinction.
"We are in a period of decline and there are going to be increasing consequences," said report lead author Simon Potts, director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research at the University of Reading in England.
And it's not just honeybees. In some aspects they're doing better than many of their wild counterparts, like the bumblebee, despite dramatic long-term declines in the United States and a mysterious disorder that has waned.
The trouble is the report can't point to a single villain. Among the culprits: the way farming has changed so there's not enough diversity and wild flowers for pollinators to use as food; pesticide use, including a controversial one, neonicotinoid, that attacks the nervous system; habitat loss to cities; disease, parasites and pathogens; and global warming.
The report is the result of more than two years of work by scientists across the globe who got together under several different U.N. agencies to come up with an assessment of Earth's biodiversity, starting with the pollinators. It's an effort similar to what the United Nations has done with global warming, putting together an encyclopedic report to tell world leaders what's happening and give them options for what can be done.
The report, which draws from many scientific studies but no new research, was approved by a congress of 124 nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.
"The variety and multiplicity of threats to pollinators and pollination generate risks to people and livelihoods," the report stated. "These risks are largely driven by changes in land cover and agricultural management systems, including pesticide use."
But these are problems that can be fixed, and unlike global warming, the solutions don't require countries to agree on global action — they can act locally, said Robert Watson, a top British ecological scientist and vice chairman of the scientific panel. The solutions offered mostly involve changing the way land and farming is managed.
"There are relatively simple, relatively inexpensive mechanisms for turning the trend around for native pollinators," said David Inouye of the University of Maryland, a co-author of a couple chapters in the report.
One of the biggest problems, especially in the United States, is that giant swaths of farmland are devoted to just one crop, and wildflowers are disappearing, Potts and others said. Wild pollinators especially do well on grasslands, which are usually more than just grass, and 97% of Europe's grasslands have disappeared since World War II, Potts said.
England now pays farmers to plant wildflowers for bees in hedge rows, Watson said.
There are both general and specific problems with some pesticide use, according to the report.
"Pesticides, particularly insecticides, have been demonstrated to have a broad range of lethal and sub-lethal effects on pollinators in controlled experimental conditions," the report said. But it noted more study is needed on the effects on pollinators in the wild. Herbicides kill off weeds, which are useful for wild pollinators, the report added.
The report highlighted recent research that said the widely used insecticide neonicotinoid reduces wild bees' chances for survival and reproduction, but the evidence of effects on honeybees is conflicting.
In a statement, Christian Maus, global pollinator safety manager for Bayer, which makes neonicotinoids, said: "The report confirms the overwhelming majority of the scientific opinion regarding pollinator health — that this is a complex issue affected by many factors. Protecting pollinators and providing a growing population with safe, abundant food will require collaboration."
Potts said global warming is "very clearly a real future risk" because pollinators and their plants may not be at the same place at the same time. England has seen one-quarter of its bumblebee species threatened, and those are the type of bees most sensitive to climate change, he said.
England has lost two species of wild bumblebees to extinction and the U.S. has lost one, Inouye said.
The story of honeybees is a bit mixed. Globally over the last 50 years, the number of managed honeybee hives — ones where humans keep them either as a hobbyists or as professional pollinators — has increased, but it has dropped in North America and Europe, where there is the most data, the report said.
Potts said the number of managed hives in the United States was 5.5 million in 1961 and dropped to a low of 2.5 million in 2012, when colony collapse disorder was causing increased worries. The number of hives is now back up slightly, to 2.7 million.
Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a University of Maryland bee expert who wasn't part of the report, praised it for looking at the big picture beyond honeybees.
Doing something is crucial, he said.
"Everything falls apart if you take pollinators out of the game," vanEngelsdorp said. "If we want to say we can feed the world in 2050, pollinators are going to be part of that."
http://mashable.com/2016/02/27/bees-butterflies-extinct-world-food-crops-un/
Honeybees Face Global Threat: If They Die, So Do We
by Reynard Loki, originally published by Alternet | Oct 7, 2015
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-10-07/honeybees-face-global-threat-if-they-die-so-do-we
Earth is losing its bumblebees
LiveScience
By Tia GhosePublished July 10, 2015
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/07/10/earth-is-losing-its-bumblebees/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_610808
Suicide By Pesticide
What the honey bee die-off means for humanity
by Chris Martenson
Friday, May 22, 2015, 11:18 AM
This article was originally published for PeakProsperity.com's enrolled subscribers on 5/18/15. Given its importance, so many of them contacted us to make this post public that we are doing so today. ~ Adam
As you are aware, honey bees have been suffering from something called Colony Collapse Disorder. In practice, what this means is that the bees simply vanish from their hives, leaving behind their most precious worldly possessions: honey and larvae.
What causes these mysterious vanishing acts has been something of a mystery. But because the phenomenon began really ramping up in 2006, we can focus in on some suspects.
While it’s always possible that the bees are suffering ‘death from a thousand cuts’ -- where it’s no one specific thing but rather a wide range of minor insults, ranging from loss of forage to herbicides to fungicides to pesticides -- there’s actually quite strong evidence pointing to a specific class of pesticides called neonicotinoids.
This class of pesticides is massively and indiscriminately toxic. More specific to our investigation here, it was only introduced into widespread use shortly before the massive bee die-offs began.
Biocide = Suicide
Actually, it’s not really proper to call neonicotinoids ‘pesticides’ because they don't solely target pests. They should more accurately be called ‘biocides’ because they kill all insects equally and indiscriminately.
How toxic are they?
The neonics are so toxic that it's sufficient to simply lightly coat a seed with it before planting. When the seed grows to maturity, the plant will still have enough absorbed toxin circulating within its system to kill any insect that munches on it or sucks on its sap.
Think about that for a minute. Coat a kernel of corn with a neonic, sow it, and the mature plant will still be lethal to a corn borer when the corn ears develop several months later.
But not just to insects:
"A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a song bird." As a long time environmental lawyer and campaigner, I should not have been stunned by that fact but I was. Shaking my head in dismay, I read on, "Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola treated with the ...neonicotinoid... can fatally poison a bird."
( http://tinyurl.com/ot2nmec )
Ugh. Boy, that depresses me -- thinking of the mentality in play that allows one to conceive of and then use such powerful poisons simply because one wants to engage in lazy farming. Hard farming requires knowing how to rotate crops, use beneficial natural relationships, and work intimately with the land on which you farm so as to minimize pest losses while maximizing the abundance of both your crops and the local ecosystem.
Sadly, the indiscriminate neonic killers are being used very widely. The mentality at play might as well be kill them all and let god sort them out. And therefore we are literally taking out whole swaths of life; both observed as in the case of the honey bee, and unobserved in the case of the many, many organisms not commercially or recreationally important enough to us to notice and track.
Killing off organisms in an ecosystem using indiscriminate biocides is quite literally a slow form of suicide for us humans. As within, so without. You cannot poison and kill of the world around you without poisoning and killing yourself.
Simply put: We are killing ourselves. And the data is literally horrifying.
This 'must read' article continues below:
http://www.peakprosperity.com/insider/92653/suicide-pesticide
The Blight of the Honey Bee
They’re dying of stress, which is stressing us out. But we’ve only got ourselves to blame.
By David Wallace-Wells
June 17, 2015 8:00 a.m.
The American honeybee is in peril, you might have heard, if you are the sort of person who likes a ghost story. In the last year, beekeepers lost 42 percent of their colonies, another peak in a string of mass die-offs on the scale of plagues: In the last five years, die-offs have hit 34 percent, 46 percent, 29 percent, and 36 percent. That’s more than one in every three colonies each year — whole impeccably networked societies, as big as small cities. In many areas, the figures were worse, and it was hard not to wonder how a species in crisis could possibly sustain annual regional losses as high as 60 percent without fast approaching extinction. “What are we doing on bees?” the president has been said to interject at the end of Oval Office meetings. “Are we doing enough?”
It’s been a long decade for bees. We’ve been panicking about them nonstop since 2006, when beekeeper Dave Hackenberg inspected 2,400 hives wintering in Florida and found 400 of them abandoned — totally empty. American beekeepers had experienced dramatic die-offs before, as recently as the previous winter in California and in regular bouts with a deadly bug called the varroa mite since the 1980s. But those die-offs would at least produce bodies pathologists could study. Here, the bees had just disappeared. In the U.K., they called it Mary Celeste syndrome, after the merchant ship discovered off the Azores in 1872 with not a single passenger aboard. The bees hadn’t even scrawled CROATOAN in honey on the door on their way out of the hive.
Hackenberg is 66, a self-described farm boy, and not just the public face but the Edward Snowden of bee death — an avid yawpy monologuist with a long Freeman Dyson nose who runs a one-man ad hoc bee-advocacy speakers circuit (Sierra Clubs, farmers associations, Katie Couric). I’d come to find him in Maine, where he was working for a couple of weeks helping to manage someone else’s bees. Sitting in the farm office, he told me about what happened in 2006. “It’s kind of an airy, breezy day — 70-some degrees, but there’s no bees flying. There’s something wrong here. Nobody sticking their heads out the door. I started jerking covers, and then I was really jerking covers — I mean, I’m going right down the line pulling covers up and there’s nobody home. I’m so stunned I can’t even talk. I’m on my hands and knees crawling around looking for dead bees in among the stones, and there wasn’t any. I mean, there was no dead bees. Three weeks ago, these bees are fine,” he says. Now? “You got a murder scene, and nobody knows what happened. There are no weapons, there are no corpses.
Article continues below:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/bees-are-literally-worrying-themselves-to-death.html
Why Morgan Freeman Decided To Become A Beekeeper
Claire Bernish
June 3, 2015
http://theantimedia.org/why-morgan-freeman-decided-to-become-a-beekeeper/
Suicide By Pesticide
What the honey bee die-off means for humanity
by Chris Martenson
Friday, May 22, 2015, 11:18 AM
http://www.peakprosperity.com/insider/92653/suicide-pesticide
To fight bee decline, Obama proposes more land to feed bees
By SETH BORENSTEIN
May 19, 1:29 PM (ET)
Graphic shows bee colony losses by state since April 2014.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration hopes to save the bees by feeding them better.
A new federal plan aims to reverse America's declining honeybee and monarch butterfly populations by making millions of acres of federal land more bee-friendly, spending millions of dollars more on research and considering the use of fewer pesticides.
While putting different type of landscapes along highways, federal housing projects and elsewhere may not sound like much in terms of action, several bee scientists told The Associated Press that this a huge move. They say it may help pollinators that are starving because so much of the American landscape has been converted to lawns and corn that don't provide foraging areas for bees.
"This is the first time I've seen addressed the issue that there's nothing for pollinators to eat," said University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, who buttonholed President Barack Obama about bees when she received her National Medal of Science award last November. "I think it's brilliant."
The federal government hopes to reverse America's declining honeybee and monarch butterfly populations by making more federal land bee-friendly, spending more money on research and considering the use of less pesticides. (AP Photo/Andy Duback, File)
Environmental activists who wanted a ban on a much-criticized class of pesticide said the Obama administration's bee strategy falls way short of what's needed to save the hives.
Scientists say bees — crucial to pollinate many crops — have been hurt by a combination of declining nutrition, mites, disease, and pesticides. The federal plan is an "all hands on deck" strategy that calls on everyone from federal bureaucrats to citizens to do what they can to save bees, which provide more than $15 billion in value to the U.S. economy, according to White House science adviser John Holdren.
"Pollinators are struggling," Holdren said in a blog post, citing a new federal survey that found beekeepers lost more than 40 percent of their colonies last year, although they later recovered by dividing surviving hives. He also said the number of monarch butterflies that spend the winter in Mexico's forests is down by 90 percent or more over the past two decades, so the U.S. government is working with Mexico to expand monarch habitat in the southern part of that country.
The plan calls for restoring 7 million acres of bee habitat in the next five years. Numerous federal agencies will have to find ways to grow plants on federal lands that are more varied and better for bees to eat because scientists have worried that large land tracts that grow only one crop have hurt bee nutrition.
The plan is not just for the Department of Interior, which has vast areas of land under its control. Agencies that wouldn't normally be thought of, such as Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation, will have to include bee-friendly landscaping on their properties and in grant-making.
That part of the bee plan got praise from scientists who study bees.
"Here, we can do a lot for bees, and other pollinators," University of Maryland entomology professor Dennis van Englesdorp, who led the federal bee study that found last year's large loss. "This I think is something to get excited and hopeful about. There is really only one hope for bees and it's to make sure they spend a good part of the year in safe healthy environments. The apparent scarcity of these areas is what's worrying. This could change that."
University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk said the effort shows the federal government finally recognizes that land use is key with bees.
"From my perspective, it's a wake-up call," Bromenshenk wrote in an email. "Pollinators need safe havens, with adequate quantities of high-quality resources for food and habitat, relatively free from toxic chemicals, and that includes pollutants as well as pesticides and other agricultural chemicals."
Berenbaum said what's impressive is that the plan doesn't lay the problem or the solution just on agriculture or the federal government: "We all got into this mess and we're going to have to work together to get out of it," she said.
The administration proposes spending $82.5 million on honeybee research in the upcoming budget year, up $34 million from now.
The Environmental Protection Agency will step up studies into the safety of widely used neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been temporarily banned in Europe. It will not approve new types of uses of the pesticides until more study is done, if then, the report said.
"They are not taking bold enough action; there's a recognition that there is a crisis," said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity. She said the bees cannot wait, comparing more studies on neonicotinoids to going to a second and third mechanic when you've been told the brakes are shot.
"Four million Americans have called on the Obama administration to listen to the clear science demanding that immediate action be taken to suspend systemic bee-killing pesticides, including seed treatments," Friends of the Earth food program director Lisa Archer said in statement. "Failure to address this growing crisis with a unified and meaningful federal plan will put these essential pollinators and our food supply in jeopardy."
But CropLife America, which represents the makers of pesticides, praised the report for its "multi-pronged coordinated approach."
The report talks of a fine line between the need for pesticides to help agriculture and the harm they can do to bees and other pollinators.
Lessening "the effects of pesticides on bees is a priority for the federal government, as both bee pollination and insect control are essential to the success of agriculture," the report said.
The White House bee strategy: http://1.usa.gov/1Ad2DUE
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150519/us-sci--bee_plan-525394ec31.html
Quest for a Superbee
Can the world’s most important pollinators be saved? How scientists and breeders are trying to create a hardier honeybee.
By Charles C. Mann
Photographs by Anand Varma
Published: May 2015
Brother Adam must have known he had become a beekeeper at an unlucky time. It was 1915, and he was a 16-year-old novice at Buckfast Abbey in southwest England. Rapid bee die-offs have been recorded for centuries, but the catastrophe that confronted the young monk was unprecedented. A mysterious disease had wiped out almost every apiary on the Isle of Wight and now was devastating the rest of England. Brother Adam found his hives suddenly vacant, bees crawling beneath them, unable to fly. That year he lost 29 of the abbey’s 45 hives.
Scientists eventually linked the disease to a previously unknown virus. But the research came too late to save Britain’s native dark brown honeybee. Almost all the surviving hives were hybrids, the progeny of local drones that mated with foreign-bred queens. The apparently superior vigor of these blends made Brother Adam think about breeding a disease-resistant bee.
In 1950, after years of preparation, he finally got his chance. Commandeering an old abbey car, he traveled over the next 37 years through Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, collecting more than 1,500 queens: the hardworking bees of northern Turkey, the hyper-diverse bees of Crete, the isolated bees of Sahara oases, the deep black bees of Morocco, the tiny orange bees of the Nile, the supposedly placid bees of Mount Kilimanjaro. He took his exotic menagerie to a remote station in the moors, miles from other bees with their unwanted genes. Performing countless breeding tests in pristine solitude, he created the Buckfast bee—a superbee, as it was quickly dubbed. Tan-colored and robust, it was reluctant to sting, zealously productive, and resistant to what had come to be called Isle of Wight disease. By the 1980s Buckfast bees were sold across the world. Bee breeders are rare. Brother Adam had become something even rarer: an apiculture celebrity.
But honeybees were again under assault. An Asian mite with the evocative name of Varroa destructor had invaded Europe and America. “Only a fully resistant, genetically endowed race or strain,” Brother Adam proclaimed in 1991, will be “the ultimate answer to this menace.” But before he could begin work, Buckfast’s abbot, convinced that Brother Adam’s growing fame conflicted with his vocation, removed him from his post. He died, heartbroken, in 1996. “Nobody really took his place at the abbey,” says Clare Densley, who two years ago restarted Buckfast’s storied beekeeping operation.
All the while, conditions worsened in Beelandia. In 2007 reports of “colony collapse disorder”—swift, terrible deaths of entire colonies—suddenly mushroomed across Europe and the Americas. News reports called it a “threat to global agriculture” and an “unprecedented catastrophe for the planet.” The headlines were justified: Insect pollination, mostly from honeybees, is critical to one-third of the world’s food supply.
Bee researchers, many inspired by Brother Adam, rushed to understand colony collapse. Most have concluded it is not a single problem, as first thought, but a lethal amalgamation of pests, pathogens, habitat loss, and toxic chemicals; varroa mites are a critical component. Most large-scale beekeepers now use pesticides to kill the mites—a stopgap solution, at best. To avoid chemicals, some bee researchers are returning to Brother Adam’s approach: Superbee Version 2.0. Only this time, they are using the tools of big science, including genetic modification. Others tout the opposite approach, one even more natural than Brother Adam’s. No chemicals, no manipulation—let the bees evolve on their own!
“Unfortunately, none of these approaches has yet produced a sufficiently mite-resistant and productive bee. And by ‘sufficiently’ I mean a bee that’s a game changer,” Keith Delaplane, director of the University of Georgia’s honeybee program, told me. Meanwhile, he says the pressures on the bee are enormous. “I stand in front of beekeepers and say, ‘You all tell me the success stories.’ I do not see any hands going up.”
Semen to inseminate queens is collected from a drone at a USDA lab in Baton Rouge. When a drone’s abdomen is rubbed or squeezed, the endophallus is exposed. The semen is the light brown substance at the end of it.
Honeybees are superorganisms. Honeybees are hive minds. Honeybees are linguistic networks: One of the few nonhuman animals to communicate symbolically, they dance to explain the location of food to their fellows. Bee people use such metaphors but admit they don’t quite capture these complex, fascinating creatures and their ultra-organized communities. With a population of up to 80,000, a beehive is like a small human city.
Bumbling and buzzing, these industrious animals—Apis mellifera, as scientists call them—search flowers for tiny drops of a sugary secretion called nectar. Bees slurp the nectar into their “honey stomachs,” which break down the sugars. Inside the hive they regurgitate the goop and fan it with their wings to evaporate the water. The sweet, gluey result—honey—is stored for winter food or stolen by humans. A pound of clover honey, ecologist Bernd Heinrich has estimated, “represents the food rewards from approximately 8.7 million flowers.”
When you watch bees single-mindedly labor to make honey, it’s hard to believe that their greatest role in nature is something they are entirely unaware of: distributing pollen. Pollen is, in effect, the male part of a plant; it transfers DNA to the female part of the flower, an essential step in reproduction. Plants can disperse pollen by wind or animals, usually insects. As Apis mellifera hunts for nectar in flowers, pollen grains stick to its hairy body. When it visits more flowers, some of the pollen drops off, fertilizing the plant. Plants that rely on wind emit vast clouds of pollen, hoping a few grains will drift into other flowers. From an evolutionary point of view, harnessing insects is so much more efficient that insect-pollinated plants typically make one-thousandth as much pollen as their wind-dependent cousins.
Not until I visit Adam Novitt do I understand how all this works. Novitt, a beekeeper in Northampton, Massachusetts, keeps hives in his small urban backyard. His is an artisanal, locavore operation—“I’m at constant risk of sounding like an extra in Portlandia,” he says, referring to the hipster-skewering television series. Each jar of his Northampton Honey is labeled with the zip code where his bees labored. Novitt endured a two-year wait to obtain his much-in-demand Buckfast queens. Demonstrating their gentleness, he removes the tops from his hives without gloves or veil. A barnyardy smell—wax and honey and wood—rises into the air. On the combs the bees tumble over each other like children at a day care center.
In a USDA lab, technician Sharon O’Brien holds the stinger of a sedated queen bee with forceps as she prepares to inject semen into the insect’s oviduct (the passage to the ovaries). The researchers are trying to breed honeybees that naturally resist Nosema ceranae, a fungal parasite from Asia that is hitting honeybee colonies in Europe and the United States.
Some of Novitt’s bees are stippled with reddish, pinhead-size dots: Varroa destructor. The mites latch on like ticks or leeches, draining bloodlike hemolymph from their hosts and enfeebling their immune systems. The hive environment—steamy and warm, bees in constant contact—is as perfect for bee pathogens as a day care center is for human pathogens. “The mite opens up the road; the bacteria or fungus or virus does the rest,” Novitt says. He snaps his fingers. “Pfft!—colony collapse.” Before varroa, he tells me, beekeeping was mostly a matter of bee-having—“they needed minimal attention, most of the time.” Since the mite arrived, “you really have to keep them.” Beekeeping, he says, should actually be called “mite management.”
Most farmers facing insect issues turn to chemicals, such as the pesticides sprayed on apple trees to control maggots. Even though mites and bees are more closely related than apples and maggots, chemical firms have discovered a dozen or more effective miticides. The chemicals are widely used, but not a single bee researcher, commercial beekeeper, or bee hobbyist I spoke with was happy about putting toxins into hives. In addition, scientists report, many varroa are already resistant to commercial miticides.
A different, potentially nontoxic treatment is envisioned by Beeologics, an arm of the agribusiness giant Monsanto, which uses RNAi (the last letter stands for “interference”). RNA molecules in cells carry the information from genes—that is, particular segments of DNA molecules—to the cellular machinery that makes proteins, the chemical building blocks of life. Each protein has a unique makeup, as do its associated RNA and gene. In RNA interference, cells are targeted with a substance designed to attack a specific variant of RNA. Crippling that RNA snaps the link between a gene and its protein. In the Beeologics version, bees would be fed sugar water containing RNAi, which disables mite RNA. In theory the doctored sugar water should not affect the bee. But when mites drink the bees’ hemolymph, the mites will also take in RNAi—and it should affect them. It’s as if you could kill vampires by eating pizza with garlic sauce.
Jerry Hayes of Monsanto Honey Bee Health hopes to have something on the market within five to seven years. The biggest challenge, he says, is creating a stable product—something beekeepers “can ride around with in a truck in Montana when it’s a hundred degrees out.”
Encircled by nurse bees, a queen in an experimental mite-resistant colony extends her tongue to be fed. The queen, bred by USDA researchers, is “hygienic”—she produces workers that instinctively detect and kill mite-infested pupae. Scientists are now developing hygienic bees that also have traits valued by beekeepers: docility, hardiness, and prolific honey production.
Problem is, Marla Spivak says, RNAi is still a single-purpose tool. Spivak, of the University of Minnesota, is the only bee researcher ever to receive a “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation. “If you target one specific area,” she argues, “the organism will always make an end run around it.” Staving off the beepocalypse, in her view, ultimately requires a “healthier, stronger” honeybee, one that can fight mites and disease on its own, without human assistance.
In parallel efforts, two groups of researchers—Spivak and her collaborators, and John Harbo and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana—sought to breed mite-resistant bees. Although their approaches were different, they took aim at the same target: “hygienic” bees.
All Apis mellifera larvae grow in special cells in the comb, which adult bees fill with food and cap with wax. Mites enter the cells just before they are sealed and lay their eggs. When they hatch, the young mites feed on the helpless, immobile bee pupae. When the fully grown bee emerges into the hive, mites dot its back or belly. Unlike most honeybees, hygienic bees can detect mites inside sealed cells, probably by smell, then open the caps and remove infested bee pupae, interrupting the mite’s reproductive cycle.
Spivak and Harbo both succeeded in breeding versions of hygienic bees by the late 1990s. A few years after that, scientists realized that hygienic bees are less effective as the mites grow more numerous. How to overcome that remains uncertain, in part because the genetic basis of hygienic behavior is not yet understood. Similar problems beset another breeding target: grooming. By running their middle legs over their bodies, honeybees tidy themselves and each other. If bees groom before mites attach themselves, they can dislodge the pests. An obvious goal is a hygienic bee that grooms intensively. But breeders fear they will produce bees that primp constantly, like vain adolescents. And always there is the worry that breeding for one trait will compromise others—that hygienic bees, for instance, will be aggressive or make little honey.
Ultimately, solving these quandaries will require molecular biology, argues Martin Beye, a geneticist at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. To a geneticist, blindly breeding two bees that have a desired trait is like banging together two handfuls of marbles and scooping up the result. It’s much more effective to identify specific genes responsible for the desired traits and insert them. A consortium of more than a hundred researchers decoded the honeybee genome in 2006. Beye was part of the group. The next step, in his view, would be to identify genes that influence certain behaviors—and, if needed, modify them.
Although scientists had produced transgenic insects since the early 1980s, all attempts to insert genes into Apis mellifera had failed. Beye assigned the task of discovering a method to a young researcher, Christina Vleurinck. Science is like moviemaking: The result can be exciting, but the process is excruciating. Vleurinck had to extract eggs from a colony, inject genetic material (in this case a gene that makes certain tissues glow under fluorescent light), and reinsert the eggs into the hive. Time after time the new genes didn’t take. Poking needles into the eggs often resulted in damaged embryos. Worker bees swiftly killed them. It was like having thousands of tiny critics, each with the ability to close the show. With Beye and two other collaborators, Vleurinck gradually developed a successful technique. Still, it will take years of work before the method can be used to develop a better bee. And releasing genetically modified bees is bound to be controversial. “This is new ground,” Beye says. “People will want to be careful.”
Vleurinck’s bees are kept in a tent, sealed off from the outside world, as required by German laws about transgenic organisms. During my visit a staffer takes me into the tent, extracts a comb from a Styrofoam bee box, and lets me inspect it. It is covered with genetically modified bees. To my untrained eye, they look exactly like ordinary bees, except unhappier. When not allowed to fly freely, bees get grouchy. In the course of her research, Vleurinck was stung so many times she became allergic to bee venom. “I’m not allowed inside with them,” she says.
All of this makes Phil Chandler, the author of The Barefoot Beekeeper, roll his eyes. A preacher in the Church of Everything You Know Is Wrong, he argues that too many scientists, even if well-meaning, are effectively part of the problem. “We cannot solve our difficulties by using the type of thinking that created them,” Chandler says. He’s referring to the “persistent delusion” that humans can control nature. Better bees can be built, he believes, but only by bees themselves. The biggest enemy of honeybees, he contends, is not mites or viruses but industrial agriculture. Many scientists ruefully agree. The disagreement comes over what to do about it.
A century ago many crops were still pollinated by feral bees. Then family farms turned into agribusiness operations. Bees need to forage for food much of the year, but fields devoted to single crops typically have flowers for just a few weeks, while weeds that could tide bees over are killed by herbicides. So few bees now exist that farmers must rent hives from huge commercial outfits that transport them from crop to crop in 18-wheelers. The peak or nadir occurs every February and March, when about 1.6 million hives from all over converge on California’s Central Valley to pollinate almonds. In a few frenzied weeks, the hordes help produce about 80 percent of the world’s almond supply.
I meet Chandler near Buckfast Abbey, at a gathering of beekeepers. Many around him agree with his diagnosis. Still, they look vexed when he says that the best thing to do for varroa would be … nothing. Keep bees healthy and well fed, but let evolution work. For ten years or more, beekeepers might lose most of their bees, he concedes. But natural selection would eventually lead to some kind of resistant bee. “We have to think of these issues in terms of what is best for bees,” he says. “Not what is best for us.”
Chandler is not optimistic about the future for Apis mellifera; Densley, the Buckfast Abbey beekeeper, is worried, but more hopeful. To cheer them up, I tell them about Harvard University’s RoboBee project: an effort to create tiny, pollinating drones. In principle, the technology is feasible. Autonomous robots identify flowers by color, hover above them, and insert soft probes that pick up pollen. It might take the pressure off real bees, I suggest.
Chandler doesn’t look reassured. Densley too seems less than enthusiastic. “I’m not ready for a world of mechanical bees,” she says. “I think I like the ones we have.” She, like other bee people, is waiting for something to happen.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/building-bees/mann-text
Survey: More than 40 percent of bee hives died in past year
By SETH BORENSTEIN
May 13, 2015 11:48 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than two out of five American honeybee colonies died in the past year, and surprisingly the worst die-off was in the summer, according to a federal survey.
Since April 2014, beekeepers lost 42.1 percent of their colonies, the second highest loss rate in nine years, according to an annual survey conducted by a bee partnership that includes the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"What we're seeing with this bee problem is just a loud signal that there's some bad things happening with our agro-ecosystems," said study co-author Keith Delaplane at the University of Georgia. "We just happen to notice it with the honeybee because they are so easy to count."
But it's not quite as dire as it sounds. That's because after a colony dies, beekeepers then split their surviving colonies, start new ones, and the numbers go back up again, said Delaplane and study co-author Dennis vanEngelsdorp of the University of Maryland.
What shocked the entomologists is that is the first time they've noticed bees dying more in the summer than the winter, said vanEngelsdorp said. The survey found beekeepers lost 27.4 percent of their colonies this summer. That's up from 19.8 percent the previous summer.
Seeing massive colony losses in summer is like seeing "a higher rate of flu deaths in the summer than winter," vanEngelsdorp said. "You just don't expect colonies to die at this rate in the summer."
Oklahoma, Illinois, Iowa, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Maine and Wisconsin all saw more than 60 percent of their hives die since April 2014, according to the survey.
"Most of the major commercial beekeepers get a dark panicked look in their eyes when they discuss these losses and what it means to their businesses," said Pennsylvania State University entomology professor Diana Cox-Foster. She wasn't part of the study, but praised it.
Delaplane and vanEngelsdorp said a combination of mites, poor nutrition and pesticides are to blame for the bee deaths. USDA bee scientist Jeff Pettis said last summer's large die-off included unusual queen loss and seemed worse in colonies that moved more.
Dick Rogers, chief beekeeper for pesticide-maker Bayer, said the loss figure is "not unusual at all" and said the survey shows an end result of more colonies now than before: 2.74 million hives in 2015, up from 2.64 million in 2014.
That doesn't mean bee health is improving or stable, vanEngelsdorp said. After they lose colonies, beekeepers are splitting their surviving hives to recover their losses, pushing the bees to their limits, Delaplane said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/survey-more-40-percent-bee-hives-died-past-131525197.html
Buzz Over Bee Health: New Pesticide Studies Rev Up Controversy
By Allison Aubrey
April 22, 2015 6:36 PM ET
A honeybee forages for nectar and pollen from an oilseed rape flower. Albin Andersson/Nature
It has been about a decade since beekeepers and scientists began documenting a decline in honeybee populations and other important pollinators.
Even if you're not a lover of bees or honey, you should know that bees are critically important to our food supply. They help pollinate billions of dollars of crops each year, from apples and carrots to blueberries and almonds.
So if bees are threatened, ultimately, the production of these crops will be threatened, too.
Scientists have shown that a range of factors — from climate change to viruses to loss of habitat — are contributing to the global decline in bee health.
And two new studies published in the journal Nature add to the evidence that overuse of neonicotinoid pesticides may also be contributing to the decline of bees.
Neonics, as they're known for short, have become among the most widely used insecticides in the world. The pesticide is coated onto the seeds that farmers plant to grow their crops. These pretreated seeds are used extensively in corn, soy and canola crops. In fact, it's estimated that treated seeds are used in more than 95 percent of the U.S. corn crop.
Part of the appeal for farmers is that neonics are simple to use. Farmers plant the seeds in the spring. "The neonicotinoid [which is water soluble] is then absorbed as the plant grows ... and protects the tissues," explains scientist Nigel Raine, who authored a News & Views piece that accompanies the new Nature studies.
This is effective at protecting farmers' crops from pests. But it may be risky for the bees, because "you get [neonicotinoid] residues in the nectar and pollen, even when the plant is flowering months later, potentially," Raine says.
And this means that when bees feed on the nectar of these flowering crops, they can be exposed to the pesticide.
Researchers estimate the strength of a honeybee colony filled with busy bees tending their brood and food storage. Maj Rundlöf/Nature
Now, neonicotinoids, as the name suggests, are derived from nicotine and act as a poison to the nervous system. There's been a theory that bees might actually be repelled by it and avoid plants grown from treated seed. But one of the new studies published Wednesday suggests this is not the case.
Researchers in the United Kingdom conducted a lab experiment to see which kind of food sources bees are drawn to. They offered bees a choice between a plain, sugary solution and one laced with neonics. They found the bees preferred the pesticide solution.
"I think it's a surprising result," Raine says, "because the data suggest that they can't taste the [pesticides], but they are still preferring them."
It's possible that they're getting a little buzz from the neonics, similar to the way a human may get a buzz from nicotine.
"It might be a similar pathway," says Raine. "They're getting some kind of positive reinforcement."
And the upshot is that bees could be opting for the food source that may harm them.
In a second study published in Nature, researcher Maj Rundlof and colleagues document the negative effects on the growth and reproduction of commercial bumblebee colonies feeding on flowering canola plants that were grown from seeds coated with neonicotinoids.
The study also documents a negative effect on populations of wild bees — both in seed-treated fields and in adjacent meadows.
Interestingly, the researchers did not observe a negative effect on honeybee colonies.
Scientists for Bayer CropScience, a leading producer of neonics, wrote in a statement emailed to The Salt that the research "demonstrates yet again there is no effect of neonicotinoids on honeybee colonies in realistic field conditions, consistent with previous published field studies." The statement goes on to question the methodology and the "overall robustness" of the data on wild bees.
But given the accumulating body of evidence on the potential risk of neonics, there's a growing movement to restrict their use.
The European Union already has a temporary, partial ban in place restricting the use of some neonics.
And the Ontario government in Canada has proposed a regulation aimed at reducing the number of acres planted with neonic-treated corn and soybean seed by 80 percent by 2017. The proposal, which is currently open for a public comment period, would take effect in July.
In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency announced this month that it is unlikely to approve new neonicotinoid pesticide uses.
"I definitely think we are overusing neonicotinoids," Christian Krupke, an associate professor in the department of entomology at Purdue University, tells us.
"We're simply using too many of these compounds, in such an indiscriminate way," he says. He points to a recent EPA review that concludes that using neonic-coated seeds offers little, if any, economic benefit to soybean farmers' economic bottom lines. In other words, some farmers are using pesticide-treated seeds they don't need.
And around the globe, there's concern that this may be undermining the health of bees.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/04/22/401536105/buzz-over-bee-health-new-pesticide-studies-rev-up-controversy
Pesticides Linked to Honeybee Deaths Pose More Risks, European Group Says
By DAVID JOLLY
APRIL 8, 2015
A beekeeper stacking his hives on a truck after the bees pollinated a blueberry field in Maine. Credit Adrees Latif/Reuters
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
PARIS — An influential European scientific body said on Wednesday that a group of pesticides believed to contribute to mass deaths of honeybees is probably more damaging to ecosystems than previously thought and questioned whether the substances had a place in sustainable agriculture.
The finding could have repercussions on both sides of the Atlantic for the companies that produce the chemicals, which are known as neonicotinoids because of their chemical similarity to nicotine. Global sales of the chemicals reach into the billions of dollars.
The European Commission in 2013 banned the use of three neonicotinoids — clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam — on flowering plants after a separate body, the European Food Safety Authority, found that exposure to the chemicals created “high acute risks” to bees.
But the chemicals continue to be employed on an industrial scale in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing their use after President Obama last year established a national Pollinator Health Task Force to help address concerns about so-called colony collapse disorder, a not fully understood phenomenon that has devastated commercial apiaries.
Pesticides are thought to be only one part of the widespread deaths of bees, however. Other factors are believed to include varroa destructor mites, viruses, fungi and poor nutrition.
Two of the main producers of neonicotinoids — Syngenta, a Swiss biochemical company, and the German company Bayer CropScience — have sued the European Commission in an effort to overturn the ban, saying it is not supported by the science. That legal case is still pending.
Research has been directed largely at the effects of neonicotinoids on honeybees, but that focus “has distorted the debate,” according to the report released on Wednesday by the European Academies Science Advisory Council.
The council is an independent body composed of representatives from the national science academies of European Union member states. The European ban is up for review this year, and the council’s report, based on the examination of more than 100 peer-reviewed papers that were published since the food safety agency’s finding, was prepared to provide officials with recommendations on how to proceed.
A growing body of evidence shows that the widespread use of the pesticides “has severe effects on a range of organisms that provide ecosystem services like pollination and natural pest control, as well as on biodiversity,” the report’s authors said.
Predatory insects like parasitic wasps and ladybugs provide billions of dollars’ worth of insect control, they noted, and organisms like earthworms contribute billions more through improved soil productivity. All are harmed by the pesticides.
The report found that many farmers have adopted a preventive approach to insect control, soaking their seeds in the pesticides, a method that releases most of the chemicals directly into the environment. They said a farming approach known as integrated pest management, which takes a more natural approach to insect control, would allow for a sharp decrease in their use.
The authors were critical of studies of neonicotinoids on bee health that tested the insects’ ability to survive a single exposure to a given quantity of pesticide dust; they noted that the effect of the chemicals is cumulative and irreversible, meaning that repeated sublethal doses will eventually be deadly if a certain threshold is passed.
Considering the broad impact of the pesticides, they said, “the question is raised as to what extent widespread use of the neonicotinoids is compatible with the objectives of sustainable agriculture.”
Utz Klages, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience, said on Wednesday that the company stood by its position that its neonicotinoid products “can be used safely if they’re used according to the label.”
A European industry group to which Bayer CropScience and Sygenta belong sought on Wednesday to rebut the study, describing it as a “biased report.”
“This is not new research or even a meaningful review of all the studies available,” Jean-Charles Bocquet, director general of the European Crop Protection Association, said in a statement. “Rather, it is a misleading and very selective reading of some of the literature, especially from organizations well known for their opposition to neonicotinoids.”
The restrictive approach used by European regulators contrasts with the more lenient stance of United States regulators. In March, American opponents of neonicotinoid use delivered more than four million signatures to the White House calling for stronger action to protect pollinators.
The E.P.A. last week warned pesticide makers that it was unlikely to approve new uses for the class of pesticides “until new bee data have been submitted and pollinator risk assessments are complete.”
But critics say the E.P.A.’s interim policy is rife with loopholes, allowing continued use of existing products for approved applications, for example. They also criticized the agency for not halting the approval of some products that are chemically quite similar to neonicotinoids but classified differently for regulatory purposes.
A temporary ban on new uses “is going to have a negligible impact,” said Larissa Walker, director of a bee-protection campaign at the Center for Food Safety, an environmental advocacy group in Washington. “They really need to look at the bigger picture. They should prohibit all future registrations for all systemic pesticides.”
Pollination — the transfer of pollen from one flower to another, typically by wind, bug or bird — is essential to the global food supply. An estimated 75 percent of all traded crops, including apples, soybeans and corn, depend on pollination.
Neonicotinoids are absorbed by a plant so that the neurotoxic poison spreads throughout its tissues, including the sap, nectar and pollen. Far more deadly to insects than to mammals, they do not discriminate between harmful pests and beneficial pollinators.
But the pesticides are also among the most effective insecticides available to farmers. Proponents argue that they are essential to food security, and note that many of the chemicals they replaced were worse in important respects.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/business/energy-environment/pesticides-probably-more-harmful-than-previously-thought-scientist-group-warns.html
The Chickadee’s Guide to Gardening
In Your Garden, Choose Plants That Help the Environment
By Douglas W. Tallamy
Marcg 11, 2015
Courtney Wotherspoon
OXFORD, Pa. — I GREW up thinking little of plants. I was interested in snakes and turtles, then insects and, eventually, birds. Now I like plants. But I still like the life they create even more.
Plants are as close to biological miracles as a scientist could dare admit. After all, they allow us, and nearly every other species, to eat sunlight, by creating the nourishment that drives food webs on this planet. As if that weren’t enough, plants also produce oxygen, build topsoil and hold it in place, prevent floods, sequester carbon dioxide, buffer extreme weather and clean our water. Considering all this, you might think we gardeners would value plants for what they do. Instead, we value them for what they look like.
When we design our home landscapes, too many of us choose beautiful plants from all over the world, without considering their ability to support life within our local ecosystems.
Last summer I did a simple experiment at home to measure just how different the plants we use for landscaping can be in supporting local animals. I compared a young white oak in my yard with one of the Bradford pears in my neighbor’s yard. Both trees are the same size, but Bradford pears are ornamentals from Asia, while white oaks are native to eastern North America. I walked around each tree and counted the caterpillars on their leaves at head height. I found 410 caterpillars on the white oak (comprising 19 different species), and only one caterpillar (an inchworm) on the Bradford pear.
Was this a fluke? Hardly. The next day I repeated my survey on a different white oak and Bradford pear. This time I found 233 caterpillars on the white oak (comprising 15 species) and, again, only one on the Bradford pear.
Why such huge differences? It’s simple: Plants don’t want to be eaten, so they have loaded their tissues with nasty chemicals that would kill most insects if eaten. Insects do eat plants, though, and they achieve this by adapting to the chemical defenses of just one or two plant lineages. So some have evolved to eat oak trees without dying, while others have specialized in native cherries or ashes and so on.
But local insects have only just met Bradford pears, in an evolutionary sense, and have not had the time — millennia — required to adapt to their chemical defenses. And so Bradford pears stand virtually untouched in my neighbor’s yard.
In the past, we thought this was a good thing. After all, Asian ornamentals were planted to look pretty, and we certainly didn’t want insects eating them. We were happy with our perfect pears, burning bushes, Japanese barberries, porcelain berries, golden rain trees, crape myrtles, privets, bush honeysuckles and all the other foreign ornamentals.
But there are serious ecological consequences to such choices, and another exercise you can do at home makes them clear. This spring, if you live in North America, put up a chickadee nest box in your yard. If you are lucky, a pair of chickadees will move in and raise a family. While they are feeding their young, watch what the chickadees bring to the nest: mostly caterpillars. Both parents take turns feeding the chicks, enabling them to bring a caterpillar to the nest once every three minutes. And they do this from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. for each of the 16 to 18 days it takes the chicks to fledge. That’s a total of 350 to 570 caterpillars every day, depending on how many chicks they have. So, an incredible 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars are required to make one clutch of chickadees.
And chickadees are tiny birds: just a third of an ounce. What if you wanted to support red-bellied woodpeckers in your yard, a bird that is about eight times heavier than a chickadee? How many caterpillars would that take?
What we plant in our landscapes determines what can live in our landscapes. Controlling what grows in our yards is like playing God. By favoring productive species, we can create life, and by using nonnative plants, we can prevent it.
An American yard dominated by Asian ornamentals does not produce nearly the quantity and diversity of insects needed for birds to reproduce. Some might argue that we should just let those birds breed “in nature.” That worked in the past, but now there simply is not enough “nature” left. And it shows. Many bird species in North America have declined drastically in the past 40 years.
Fortunately, more and more gardeners are realizing that their yards offer one of the most empowering conservation options we have, and are sharing their properties with the nature around them.
By the way, you might assume that my oak was riddled with unsightly caterpillar holes, but not so. Since birds eat most of the caterpillars before they get very large, from 10 feet away the oak looked as perfect as a Bradford pear.
Douglas W. Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, is the author of “Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife With Native Plants.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/opinion/in-your-garden-choose-plants-that-help-the-environment.html
It's been a decade since I resolved that I would provide the best bee environment possible to keep my bees happy. This approach included planting many flowers and herbs, perennial and annuals, to address my bee garden concerns. The perennial plants are staggered to bloom throughout the season.
Here are some examples:
Spearmint - Mentha spicata
Spearmint - Mentha spicata
CAMPANULA 'SUPERBA'
SPIREA
AGASTACHE
GLOBE THISTLE
LIATRIS
LIATRIS
MOSTLY ECHINACEA [CONEFLOWERS]
SPIDER WORT
A new theory for why the bees are vanishing
By Brad Plumer
March 9, 2015, 11:20 a.m. ET
A honey bee (Apis mellifera) visiting a mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) blossom.
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
Honeybees and wild bees alike are mysteriously dying off all over the world. And scientists have long struggled to pinpoint why, exactly, that is.
Some experts cite diseases and invasive parasites like the Varroa destructor mite, introduced from Asia and afflicting US honeybees. Others point to a new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids that mess with the nervous systems of insects. Still others blame the loss of wild habitat, as diverse flowers are replaced by suburban lawns or farms with just a few crops, impoverishing bee diets.
But the best explanation may be that it's not just one thing hurting the bees — it's lots of different things working together, often in unexpected ways.
In a recent review paper for Science, a team of researchers argue that the combination of modern stresses facing bees seem to be much deadlier than is often appreciated. Pesticides alone might not be enough to wipe out bee colonies, but studies have shown that they can make bees more susceptible to invasive parasites. Poor nutrition can lead bumblebees to succumb to disease. Fungicides and pesticides are more potent together than in isolation. This graphic from the paper details just a few known interactions
Both wild and managed bees are subject to a number of significant and interacting stressors. For example, exposure to some fungicides can greatly increase toxicity of insecticides, whereas exposure to insecticides reduces resistance to diseases. Dietary stresses are likely to reduce the ability of bees to cope with both toxins and pathogens. Photo credit: Beth Nicholls; Flickr Commons. (Goulson et al, 2015)
Now, it might seem totally obvious that chronic exposure to lots of different stresses would be bad for the bees. But surprisingly, the authors note, both scientific research and regulatory reviews don't always capture these synergies well. "It’s a lot easier to study a single stressor in the lab or the field," says Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex who coauthored the review. "But we haven’t really tried to tackle how these things all interact."
The good news, Goulson adds, is that this could actually make it easier to help the bees. "If you’re working off the assumption that it’s a single cause, then it’s hard to do anything until you figure out what that is," he says. "But if you acknowledge that it’s likely lots of things — disease, lack of food, pesticides — then improving the situation for any or all of those makes sense."
That would mean steps like incorporating more flower-rich habitat into farmland, reducing pesticide use when possible, and better monitoring the global bee trade in order to limit the spread of foreign diseases. The authors also note that we need better data on wild bees, which are actually responsible for the majority of crop pollination but about which we know fairly little.
We may want to get started soon. Honeybee colonies have been dying off each winter in the United States and Europe at elevated rates. More alarmingly still, wild pollinators like bumblebees appear to be on the decline. Seeing as how US honeybees alone pollinate $16 billion worth of crops each year, from apples to blueberries to cherries to almonds, that’s all worrisome.
Goulson notes that the world isn’t facing a pollination crisis just yet. Yes, US and European honeybee colonies have been dying off in the winter, but beekeepers have worked furiously to rebuild stocks in the spring. But if you combine the surging global demand for crop pollination — which has tripled in 50 years — with the decline of wild pollinators, then there’s the potential for things to go very, very badly in the near future.
I talked to Goulson in more detail about what we really know about the bee decline, Europe’s recent pesticide ban, the destructive global trade in bees, and what we can do to avoid a disaster.
Brad Plumer: What do we actually know about the decline of bees?
Dave Goulson: For honeybees, we can say there have been increased rates in winter colony losses, especially in North America, but also in Europe. This varies from year to year, but commercial beekeepers are broadly concerned.
Now, just because there’s increased mortality in the winter, that doesn’t mean the number of bees is going down. Beekeepers are madly replacing hives in the spring so they can pollinate crops.
But then there are also wild pollinators, like bumblebees, which are actually responsible for the bulk of crop pollination. Here, there are some big holes in our understanding. In some places like the United Kingdom, we have good maps that let us see how the wild bee distribution has changed. And we can see that there have been clear contractions in the ranges of wild bees. But a map is a very crude indicator. What we really lack is population data.
Range decline for the bumblebee Bombus distinguendus in the UK (data from the National Biodiversity Network, UK). Photo by Dave Goulson.
So with wild bees, we can definitely say that some species have undergone big range declines, and some species have gone globally extinct. Franklin’s bumblebee hasn’t been seen in Oregon and California since 2006 and is almost certainly gone for good. In North America, Bombus terricola used to be one of the most common bees that everyone would see in their garden. And it’s now gone from almost all its former range.
So we can say something is wrong with the wild bees.
BP: In your paper you note that "there is clearly no major pollination crisis yet" — in part because commercial beekeepers are rebuilding honeybees. But could we have one in the future?
DG: That’s really the concern. We’re becoming more and more dependent on a smaller number of bee species. And those species are themselves showing signs of ill health. If things were to get much worse, it could have major implications. Similarly if we see a big decline in wild bees, which, again, are responsible for the bulk of pollination.
At some point — and we don’t know if that’s next year or 50 years from now — there’s a real danger that we could see crop yields start to suffer. That would be dramatically damaging to the economy, but also bad for the well-being of people. We’ve got a growing population and a growing demand for pollinated crops.
BP: Why is this happening? Studies on honeybee decline often focus on a single cause — like parasites or pesticides. But you argue that we should pay far more attention to how these things interact.
DG: You can see why people study one factor at a time. It’s much easier to do in a lab or a field. And it quickly becomes really expensive to design experiments where you look at a range of different stressors. So the basic limitation is a practical one.
And it’s not just the mainstream scientific research, but regulatory studies, as well. Some of these can be pretty woeful in terms of their realism.
For example, take pesticides. Studies will figure out what levels the bees are likely to be exposed to. And they’ll expose the bees to them and see if they’re still dead or alive after a period of time. But that’s a crude way of looking at it. In the real world, there are often many other stressors as well. And we haven’t tried to tackle how those things interact.
That said, there have been some nice studies that show pairwise interactions, often in unexpected ways. For example, there was a study by an Italian group, led by Gennaro Di Prisco, showing that low levels of exposure to neonicotinoids could knock out bees’ immune response and allow viruses to replicate much more quickly. So if you were examining those bees, you might conclude that it was just the virus — whereas that might miss the ultimate cause.
BP: So how do we stop the bees from vanishing?
DG: The causes are clearly complicated, and probably vary from place to place. But the solutions don’t have to be complicated.
In fact, this almost makes it easier. If you’re working off the assumption that it’s a single cause, then it’s hard to do anything until you figure out what that is. But if you acknowledge that it’s probably lots of things — disease, lack of food, pesticides — then improving the situation for any or all of those makes sense. For instance, there’s experimental evidence that if you make a bee hungry, it becomes more susceptible to disease. So if a bee is well fed, it has a better chance of coping with disease.
Basically that means that a number of different steps, from reducing new pathogens, to reducing pesticides to planting a wider variety of flowers, can help.
Bumblebee on goldenrod in Montgomery County, Maryland. (Alice Crain/Flickr)
BP: Back in 2013, Europe announced a two-year ban on neonicotinoid pesticides. Have we learned anything from that ban yet?
DG: Not yet. The moratorium went into effect 14 months ago, but some of the autumn crops like canola were still treated with neonicotinoids. So it might be too soon to see effects until we see a summer without neonics. This summer might be the first summer that we see that.
There are also limitations. Europe is collecting data on honeybee colony death. But there isn’t a good wild bee monitoring scheme in place.
One interesting point though, is to look at the yields from the spring-grown crops that went in last year — maize, corn, sunflowers. These were the first crops grown and harvested without neonics, and yields were higher than ever. So we didn’t seem to see an impact on that side.
BP: You mention in the paper that there’s this global trade in bees that’s not well monitored and helps spread disease around. What’s going on there?
DG: Honeybees have been moved around the world for centuries. And when humans were first doing that, they had zero knowledge of parasites and pathogens.
So back in the 1700s there was this initial wave of spreading disease around the world. And we actually don’t know all the effects. We don’t know what was in America before honeybees were introduced, so we don’t know what impact that has.
But this is still going on, and we can trace some of the impacts now. The Varroa mite came from Asian honeybees in the past few decades, and we’ve now actively spread that around the world.
There’s also a big bumblebee trade that has come up since the 1990s. And this has created problems. Bumblebee nests have to be reared on pollen, and these big factories that rear them import thousands of kilos of pollen from beekeepers all over the place. And these factories aren’t always maintained to the highest hygiene standards. Then you’re, again, shipping bumblebees to all continents, so you’re increasing the potential for pathogen to spread.
South America has seen a collapse in a native species in the face of imported European bumblebees, so clearly this is a practice has the potential to do a lot of harm. There’s also circumstantial evidence that this was behind the decline of Bombus terricola in North America — many people believe that was due to a disease from European bees, but that has never been proved.
Anyway, we know moving bees around like this is a dumb idea. And to be fair, some of these factories are trying to improve. They’re experimenting with things like irradiating the pollen. But they don’t seem able to do so with 100 percent effectiveness.
A graphic from Whole Foods trying to illustrate the crops that depend on bee pollination. (Whole Foods)
BP: If a lot of bees do end up vanishing, are there any other alternatives? Don’t they hand-pollinate some crops in China?
DG: For most crops, that’s incredibly inefficient. It can work for high-value crops. But I’d be very surprised if we can replace bees with something more effective.
The obvious thing we’d do if things became very bad is that we’d grow fewer insect-pollinated plants and more wind-pollinated plants. More wheat and barley and corn and so on, which we already eat a lot of. So our diet would become much poorer, and we would struggle to maintain a healthy diet without fruits and vegetables. Blueberries. Raspberries. And so on.
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/9/8174949/bee-decline-parasites-pesticides-flowers
A gamechanging, redesigned beehive with a built-in honey tap has taken the beekeeping world by storm
Simon Thomsen,
Business Insider Australia
Feb. 23, 2015, 7:05 AM
(h/t to steviee)
Cedar and Stuart Anderson are revolutionising beekeeping.
Two Australian inventors are changing the way honey is harvested and the world can’t get enough of it.
Father and son Stuart and Cedar Anderson spent a decade creating a revolutionary system that allows beekeepers to harvest honey on tap, without disturbing the hive.
After a decade of research and development, the Andersons launched their idea on the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo today. Within two hours, they’d sold $830,000 (£420,000) worth of beehives. Their initial target was $70,000 (£35,500). Within three hours they’d sold more than $1 million (£507,000) of products.
The first 500 top-of-the-line beehives, costing $600 (£390), sold out within an hour. They’ve now released a further 1000 hives, along with a range of cheaper options.
The Andersons has some idea how how intense interest was when they posted a video of their invention on YouTube and it attracted nearly 1 million viewers within two days. This morning they had interest from 80,000 people before the launch, and were forced to switch from Kickstarter to Indiegogo as the crowdfunding platform at the last minute realising that they needed to cater for the US market, find an American manufacturer and charge in USD (which Kickstarter doesn't allow) to overcome exchange rate fluctuations.
The initial run of Flow honeycomb cells will be made in Brisbane.
The honey drains from the hive.
The pair came up with the idea on the New South Wales north coast, near Byron Bay, wanting to find an easier way to extract honey than the time-consuming and elaborate current system of dismantling the hive.
It was a combination of bee stings through his protective suit and his distress at squashing bees as he put the hive back together that had Cedar thinking there had to be a better way.
“So my Dad and I set to work on a decade-long task of inventing the beekeepers dream,” he said.
His solution was to design plastic honeycomb frames that split in two with the turn of a handle, allowing the honey to drain down and out without opening the hive or disturbing the bees. It then locks back in place for the bees to reset with wax and refill. A perspex window into the hive allows you to see when the honeycomb is full and ready to be harvested.
“This really is a revolution. You can see into the hive, see when the honey is ready and take it away in such a gentle way,” Cedar said.
The Andersons have called the system Flow. Aside from being kinder on the colony, it saves hours of work and the strain required, as well as the mess, from traditional honey harvesting. It also promises to revolutionise the growing trend towards amateur beekeeping at home, who won’t need to suit up in protective equipment with smokers, extractors and the mess when they want to grab the honey.
For more details, visit their website. http://tinyurl.com/nhnmftl
And see below for how it all works:
bagwa-john, we are so rooted to nature that it is beyond our comprehension of how the lunatics can effectively destroy the food chain. It can and probably will happen; the trend is not our friend in view of the death of millions of many bees around the world year after year.
The absence of worldwide leadership to halt and reverse this trend is most disturbing.
There are many fronts where we are losing the battles: bees, water, and soil to name a few nature.
You and I cannot wrap our heads around this situation; we are in disbelief because we are wired differently.
I knew you would react this way!
What do these raving lunatics think they are going to eat when they've killed the food chain? I can't wrap my head around this Eddie.
GMO corn plantings lead to death of 37 million bees in Canada
Monday, November 24, 2014 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/047771_GM_corn_neonicotinoids_honeybees.html#ixzz3K2p6qinH
The Mystery of the Missing Bees
by Retro Report 9:44 mins
The mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder has brought honeybees into the public eye. But the story of their plight — and its impact — is more complicated.
https://screen.yahoo.com/videos-for-you/mystery-missing-bees-115006541.html
Stop Syngenta’s bee-killing pesticide plan
The United States has already lost more than half of its managed honeybee colonies -- and the problem could soon get much worse.
Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta, which is one of Monsanto’s biggest competitors, just filed paperwork with the EPA requesting permission to increase the amount of the bee-killing pesticide thiamethoxam it uses on alfalfa, corn, barley, and wheat crops by up to 40,000%.1 If approved, this proposal would be absolutely devastating for bees and other pollinators.
The EPA has opened a crucial public comment period to take feedback on Syngenta’s bee-killing proposal – but we only have a few days to flood the EPA with comments and save the bees.
Tell the EPA: Reject Syngenta’s bee-killing pesticide proposal. Submit a public comment before the October 6 deadline.
A growing number of scientists place the blame for the rapid collapse of bee populations on neonicotinoid pesticides, including Syngenta’s thiamethoxam, which suppress bees’ immune systems and make them more susceptible deadly viruses and bacterial diseases.
That’s why governments and individuals around the globe are taking action to save bees and other pollinators by restricting or prohibiting the use of neonicotinoids. In Europe, after a major report found that these pesticides posed “high acute risks” to bees, the European Commission enacted a two-year ban in order to conduct further studies.2 And just a few weeks ago, Canadian beekeepers filed a $400 million lawsuit targeting pesticide manufacturers Syngenta and Bayer for their role in contributing to the deaths of honeybees.3
But here in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to continue studying the issue until 2019 before taking action, despite the fact that bee populations continue to collapse.4 Bees can't afford to wait for the EPA to get its act together -- and neither can we.
Syngenta’s new proposal to radically increase neonicotinoid pesticide spraying could be a death sentence for bees. We need your help to build massive pressure on the EPA to reject it.
Submit a public before the October 6 deadline telling the EPA to reject Syngenta’s bee-killing pesticide proposal.
1. "Syngenta asks EPA to raise tolerance level for 'bee-killing' chemical," E&E Publishing, September 5, 2014.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060005321
2. "Colony Collapse Disorder: European Bans on Neonicotinoid Pesticides," Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/about/intheworks/ccd-european-ban.html
3. "Beekeeper 'Frustration' Led To Class Action On Neonicotinoids," Huffington Post, September 6, 2014.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/09/05/beekeeper-frustration-l_n_5775132.html
4. "Schedule for Review of Neonicotinoid Pesticides," Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www2.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/schedule-review-neonicotinoid-pesticides
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/syngenta_bees?nosig=1&t=7&akid=11773.1647103._rPpFE
Bees, unexpected allies in the fight against hunger and poverty
http://www.fao.org/family-farming-2014/news/news/details-press-room/en/c/237411/
Environmentalists sue California for ‘rubber stamping’ use of honeybee-killing pesticides
Reuters
Heinz-Peter Bader
July 10, 2014 23:32
(please note: The underlined words are 'clickable' links when accessed via the link at the bottom of this page)
Three environmental and food safety nonprofits are suing the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) over its approval of insecticides linked to the massive die-off of honeybees in the state, saying the agency violated state laws by doing so.
The Pesticide Action Network North America, the Center for Food Safety, and Beyond Pesticides joined together to file the suit in a California Superior Court. They point to current research blaming the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the disease killing off honeybees and threatening pollination of the world’s crops, on two popular insecticides.
The two products, clothianidin and imidacloprid, are both types of neonicotinoids. Another study found that bees exposed to "field-realistic" doses of neonicotinoid insecticides gather less than half the pollen that they normally do, dooming their young to starvation.
Neonicotinoids were developed in the 1990s to boost yields of staple crops such as corn, but they are also widely used on annual and perennial plants in lawns and gardens. Researchers believe the neonicotinoids are causing some kind of unknown biological mechanism in bees that in turn leads to CCD.
"In 2006, honeybees began dying at unprecedented rates," the groups stated in their 46-page complaint.
"Today, whether honeybees will survive and recover in America is uncertain, and so we have reached the point of agricultural and environmental crisis. About one-third of the food we eat - and an even greater proportion of our overall nutrition - comes from plants that will not make fruit or seed unless they are pollinated by a bee. The crisis is especially acute in California, because we are the largest producer of crops that require honeybees for pollination, including our most valuable crop: almonds."
CCD has killed tens of millions of honeybees in the US, with annual death rates of about 30 percent. Since 2006, around 10 million beehives at an average value of $200 each have been lost, according to a 2013 US Department of Agriculture study. Honeybees pollinate more than 100 US crops – including apples, zucchinis, avocados, and plums – that are worth more than $200 billion a year. CCD is threatening the existence of those crops.
“None of this is news” to the DPR, the suit claims. In 2009, the agency initiated a “reevaluation” of the use of neonicotinoids in the state. “Over five years later, DPR’s reevalution remains ongoing with no end in sight, and DPR has taken no significant steps to protect honeybees. And DPR’s foot dragging is only part of the problem.”
“Pending its reevaluation, DPR has not hesitated to make the existing problem worse by expanding the use of neonicotinoids without any meaningful analysis of the impact to bees or feasible alternatives, in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other laws,” the court documents said. “DPR’s actions are consistent with the agency’s illegal pattern and practice of rubber-stamping applications to approve new pesticides without first complying with laws enacted to ensure they are safe.”
The lawsuit focuses on the DPR’s mid-June decision to expand the use of two neonicotinoids - Venom Insecticide and Dinotefuran 20SG. The group of petitioners is asking the court to put a hold on the approval of the two insecticides until the reevaluation is complete.
The DPR has approved 15 new neonicotinoid products or expanded uses for existing products since 2012. In the agency’s approval reports, the DPR failed to analyze the direct and cumulative impacts that approving these pesticides would have on honeybees and other pollinating insects in light of the agency's past and future decisions regarding neonicotinioid use, the lawsuit says.
The European Commission adopted a two-year moratorium on the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides in 2013. Scientists are using those two years to determine whether the ban helps stop declines in bee populations, after which the restriction may be reviewed. US officials have stated that they don’t have enough evidence to ban neonicotinoids.
The Center for Food Safety filed a legal brief in December in support of a lawsuit backed by many organizations that seeks a reversal of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) May 2013 decision to approve sulfoxaflor, a neonicotinoid. That lawsuit is the first to invoke the US Endangered Species Act to protect bees, claiming the EPA violated the act by not sufficiently considering the impact of pesticides on honeybees and other imperiled wildlife categorized as threatened or endangered under federal law.
http://rt.com/usa/171912-environmentalists-sue-california-neonicotinoids/
Bees relief: Syngenta withdraws application for pesticide ban exemption
By Ognen Teofilovski
July 07, 2014 21:07
Global agrochemical company Syngenta withdrew its application to allow use of banned pesticide on UK's oilseed rape. Hundreds of thousands of people protested against the bid, as the pesticide is linked to killing bees.
Pesticide maker Syngenta pulled its 'emergency' application last week. Earlier the company was seeking permission to use the chemicals in the UK this planting season, claiming up to a third of all oilseed rape needed treatment with neonicotinoid.
Syngenta was caring for crops, as it stated the winter oilseed rape were largely deemed to be at risk of damage from pests such as cabbage stem flea beetle.
But green campaigners made an outcry, saying it could be bees that would suffer from the crop treated with insecticides.
“It’s great news that the huge swarm of protest killed off Syngenta’s attempts to try and keep their bee-killing poisons in Britain’s fields," Bert Wander, Avaaz campaigner, commented in a press release Friday.
The company's neonicotinoid seed treatments were suspended for two years by the European Union in late 2013 due to research linking it to be a serious harm to the bees. Brussels banned the use of the world’s most widely used insecticide in open flowering crops such as oilseed rape, although there are opinions within the farming industry the assertions of its harm are ill-founded.
Only recently, after a four-year assessment, scientists have also concluded ( http://tinyurl.com/n5qvhnl ) that neurotoxic pesticides blamed for the decline of honeybees is also harming butterflies, worms, fish, and birds.
The UK government’s advisory committee on pesticides said the criteria for an exemption for Syngenta had been met, although the evidence of the threat to the crops was not made public.
Over 200,000 people protested against the application via a campaign website, with around 35,000 more writing to environment secretary Owen Paterson and asking ministers to “stand firm against Syngenta” and not let chemicals believed to be harmful to bee populations be used.
Although the company itself withdrew its application, it blamed the government for failing to make a decision in time for crop sowing.
Guy Smith, vice president of the National Farmers Union, was also disappointed by the decision's bad timing. “It is very frustrating that it was not possible for a decision to be made in time for Syngenta to prepare seeds for this year’s planting. This loss of this treatment will make it more complicated to grow oilseed rape this season,” he said.
Syngenta spokesman said the company was considering re-applying in 2015.
The decision not to use the banned pesticides this time was welcomed by environmentalists.
Andrew Pendleton, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said: "This is very good news for bees, at least for now, bees can buzz a little bit easier."
http://rt.com/uk/171072-bees-syngenta-application-pesticide/
Why Monsanto's 'Cure' For World Hunger Is Cursing The Global Food Supply
Posted on: Sunday, August 3rd 2014 at 11:15 am
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weed-killer-linked-vanishing-bees-3
What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world's food supply now depends?
See the 2 page link above...
Bee studies feel sting of pesticide manufacturers – MPs
Reuters / Michaela Rehle
Published time: July 28, 2014 10:41
Corporate funding from pesticide manufacturers threatens to contaminate research into the impact of agricultural chemicals on the declining bee population, warn a committee of MPs.
Reacting to the government’s draft National Pollinator Strategy ( tinyurl.com/os2lda8 ), the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) says further research needs to be transparent and subject to independent controls in order to stave off corporate influence and to command public confidence.
“When it comes to research on pesticides, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is content to let the manufacturers fund the work,” Chair of the Committee, Joan Walley MP, said. “This testifies to a loss of environmental protection capacity in the Department responsible for it.
“If the research is to command public confidence, independent controls need to be maintained at every step. Unlike other research funded by pesticide companies, these studies also need to be peer-reviewed and published in full,” she added.
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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."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
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