Posted on 10/01/2008 1:47:28 PM PDT by Scythian
(NaturalNews) German government researchers have concluded that a bestselling Bayer pesticide is responsible for the recent massive die-off of honeybees across the country's Baden-Württemberg region. In response, the government has banned an entire family of pesticides, fueling accusations that pesticides may be responsible for the current worldwide epidemic of honeybee die-offs.
Researchers found buildup of the pesticide clothianidin in the tissues of 99 percent of dead bees in Baden-Württemberg state. The German Research Center for Cultivated Plants concluded that nearly 97 percent of honeybee deaths had been caused directly by contact with the insecticide.
"It can unequivocally be concluded that a poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from corn seeds," said the federal agricultural research agency, the Julius Kuehn Institute.
The pesticide was applied to rapeseed and sweet corn seeds along the Rhine River Valley, which borders Baden-Württemberg to the west and south.
"Beekeepers in the region started finding piles of dead bees at the entrance of hives in early May, right around the time corn seeding takes place," said Walter Haefeker, president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association.
A total of two-thirds of all bees in the entire state are believed to have been killed by the chemical.
"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "Fifty to 60 percent of the bees have died on average, and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."
Clothianidin, marketed in Europe under the brand name Poncho, is a widely used insecticide in the neonicotinoid family. Like all neonicotinoids, it is a systemic pesticide that is applied to the seeds of plants and then spreads itself throughout all plant tissues. Based on nicotine, the neonicotinoids function as neurotoxins that attack the nervous systems of insects such as honeybees.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified clothianidin as "highly toxic" to honeybees. The chemical was approved for U.S. use in 2003 and German use in 2004.
Clothianidin manufacturer Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of chemical giant Bayer, blamed the honeybee deaths on incorrect application of the pesticide. Before seeds are sprayed, a fixative should be applied to keep the poison from spreading into the rest of the environment. In the current situation, Bayer says, the fixative was not applied and clothianidin spread into the air.
But beekeepers and pesticide critics rejected this explanation, calling for Germany to follow France's footsteps in banning the chemical - and indeed, all neonicotinoids.
"We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now," said Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the Coalition Against Bayer Dangers. "This proves without a doubt that the chemicals can come into contact with bees and kill them. These pesticides shouldn't be on the market."
While stopping short of a total ban, the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety acted quickly upon release of the study data, placing a provisional ban upon all seven pesticides in the neonicotinoid family. These chemicals may not be used in Germany until the manufacturers can supply enough data to convince the government that they are safe.
The seven provisionally banned pesticides are the clothianidin-based brands Poncho and Elado; the imidacloprid-based brands Antarc, Chinook and Faibell; methiocarb-based Mesurol; and thiamethoxam-based Cruiser
Six of the seven products are made by Bayer, while Mesurol is manufactured by Syngenta.
Bayer's neonicotinoids have been blamed for killing honeybees before, most notably in France. There the company's best-selling pesticide, imidacloprid, was banned from use on sunflower seeds in 1999 after being blamed for killing off a third of the country's honeybees. In 2004, France extended the ban to sweet corn seeds. The government rejected Bayer's application for clothianidin use in France only a few months ago.
In North Dakota, a group of beekeepers is suing Bayer, alleging that imidacloprid was responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in that state in 1995. One-third of North Dakota honeybees died that year after imidacloprid was applied to rapeseed there.
Imidacloprid is marketed in France under the brand name Gaucho, but is also sold as Admire, Advantage, Confidor, Hachikusan, Kohinor, Merit, Premise, Prothor, and Winner.
Around the world, honeybee stocks are in decline, which scientists have warned could have devastating impacts on global food supplies. A total of 80 percent of world food crops are primarily or exclusively pollinated by honeybees, amounting to 130 crops and $15 billion worth of food each year in the United States alone.
Yet two million honeybee colonies have been lost in the United States in recent years, with massive dieoffs also reported across Europe and in Taiwan, where 10 million bees recently disappeared over the course of only two weeks.
"If nothing is done about it, the [British] honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years," warned U.K. Farming Minister Lord Rooker in 2007.
While in many cases bees have actually been found dead, as in the Baden-Württemberg incident, beekeepers have been particularly alarmed by CCD, in which the bees simply vanish, leaving empty hives behind them.
Neonicotinoid pesticides have been suggested as a possible cause of CCD, with advocates of this theory noting that since the pesticide spreads through all plant tissues, bees might be exposed through the pollen of treated plants. At least one study concluded that neonicotinoids are likely to become concentrated in bee hives in high levels, transported by contaminated pollen.
A number of studies have found that in low doses, neonicotinoids produce symptoms consistent with CCD. Termites exposed to imidacloprid experienced disorientation and immune system failure, while bees exposed to low levels of the chemical experienced impaired communication, homing and foraging ability, flight activity, and olfactory discrimination and learning.
Sources for this story include: www.guardian.co.uk. pubs.acs.org, www.allheadlinenews.com.
Then the word "that" is out of place.
Obama will soon be asking his crowd to “elect” Hillary next November 4.
What makes you think so?
That is not totally correct. The vast majority of agricultural crops are pollinated by the wind (grains) and some are self pollinated and really don’t need even that (cotton, soybeans, peanuts). The only roll bee’s play in these crops are cross pollination, which mixes up the gene pool, but farmers save very little of their own planting seed any more so there is no real benefit. Just drive out in farm country and you may drive for miles with out seeing a hive. However some vegetable crops do need bee’s for pollination (melons, tomatoes), but there are many wild species of bee’s that usually take care of the job nicely. Honey bee hives today are mainly there just to produce honey. By the way I love honey so I still want to protect them.
Do you agree that clothianidin is the culprit?
Just from an unscientific perspective, when my yuppie neighbors decided they needed to saturate their lawns with hazmat to make sure that every blade of grass was green, the honeybee population in my yard nosedived, and for a couple of years there were _none_. This year, since the neighbors no longer have the $ or interest to maintain their chemical barrage, the honeybees are back in force. Interestingly, during their absence there was an explosion in the number of carpenter bees visiting the plants, and now they are competing. Maybe the carpenters’ great size makes them more resistant to toxins? I wonder how carpenters rate vs honebees in efficiency of crop pollinization?
Wow, you really know your stuff.
Very interesting. All I’ve ever done with bees is run from them, or freeze. ;-)
OK, so maybe Bert, or Curly Bill will take the ping list.
Bert?
Would you run a bee ping list?
Curly Bill?
Would you do it?
Come on, Guys!
It would be ‘sweet’!
I am not sure of the breakdown, but bee keepers are in very high demand and have been for years, especially in the south, and it has nothing to do with honey which is a byproduct. The bees are leased by ranches and farms, and it's a big deal down in these parts.
/bkmark
German government researchers have concluded that a bestselling Bayer pesticide is responsible for the recent massive die-off of honeybees across the country's Baden-Wurttemberg region. In response, the government has banned an entire family of pesticides, fueling accusations that pesticides may be responsible for the current worldwide epidemic of honeybee die-offs.'night all.
Thanks for the tip...I will try that. They must just like the chlorinated water, because I have fountains and birdbaths everywhere too. Please put me on your BeeCharmer Ping list if ya’ll make one. I am a big gardener and would love to learn more about beekeeping. I studied horticulture and landscape design in college.....but now am a stay at home ‘empty nest’ mom (grin). Mostly fill my time around the house now with gardening, painting, mosiacs, sewing and of course freeping! Mostly freeping these past few weeks...lol!
beekeepers and pesticide critics rejected this explanation, calling for Germany to follow France's footsteps in banning the chemical - and indeed, all neonicotinoids.
Don't tell me. You invented the internet, right?
Ping
The traps drew in tons more, and my yard is too small to position them strategically. They were attacking plants near the traps they would probably not have bothered that badly otherwise. I did empty them once a week and change the bag. But I finally took them down, and things got a little better within a few days. They say the whole neighborhood needs to put up traps for them to really work. Plus we are within distance of a park where they were hellish this year on mulberry trees.
There is a house a couple blocks from me that has tons of roses in their front yard. I see there are two traps there still hung right on top of the roses, but I went to ask about the roses and didn't notice any leaf damage. The beetles finally left for this year.
I was waiting for them, noticed them first June 27th. I quit picking but still found a couple Aug 26th, then I quit looking. That is almost 2 months. They are only supposed to last 6 weeks, first appeared here about 4 years ago.
Thanks for the suggestion :-).
I know (1) I can't rely on traps alone, and (2) I can't be picking bugs 3X a day for that long every summer. But if I use that spray again, it will only be during the worst of it. I think next year I will cut off all buds and cover all the roses with netting. That's how some dealt with it. They got into my clump of birches really bad, never like that before, dead leaves w/the typical damage all over, but they were too high to deal with using anything.
I knew somebody was going to say that.
Hey, listen. I'm a huge fan of nuclear energy, but I don't think every tom, dick and freeper should have a fission reactor in the back yard!
By the same token, I don't necessarily assume that millions of people encouraging small gardens with weakened fruits and vegetables through predation and adaptive antigens due to focused fad gardening is superior to a focused, low-dose laser-beam pesticide which kills only the target pest.
If I have a 1000 acre farm that I'm 'innoculating' out in farm country that's one thing.
If I talk about dozens of 'natural gardens' interspersed in a heterogenous neighborhood of townhomes where beneficial bugs and birds and predators are attacted to neighboring flower gardens and 'organic' vegetable gardens and dog flea collars and city pollution and contagions and whatever else....then I'd suspect that happy little honeybees just might be more likely endangered trying to load up on nectar in a progressive organic neighborhood than due to a wheat farmer out in the country where the bees have no interest in going.
And I really don't believe that the wheat basket will collapse if bees stay out of kansas.
Arrrg.
Stop posting google links, and post the pertinent part of your argument/proof, with specific links, that prove your point.
Thanks.
I like the debate, but I need something to work with.
Why do YOU think Obama will be encouraging people to vote for Hillary in Nov.?
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