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.
“I quit trying to do flowers and veggies I have gone to green plants and vines like jasmine and honeysuckle. They are doing OK.”
I have those also and my honesuckle is in great shape. The Hummers see to that.
Bee ping.
I live in the Sacramento area, and I was with you on that one -- no chemical intervention -- until I got "white flies". I left them alone for a while and they destroyed my garden. Tiny white flies that suck the sap out of your plants and leave behind a fungus. I tried all kinds of non-chemical intervention, from blasting their eggs off with a hose to introducing lady bugs. None of it worked. Finally I reached for the pesticide -- and guess what brand it was? Bayer!!!
What’s that got to do with the price of baklava?
I have 2 hives that I let go wild... after they swarmed about 5 years ago. They came back several months later and have built strong hives. I leave them alone except to feed them during the hardest part of winter. I'm in a "dairy" area....and don't use insecticides for much of anything....so I believe it's why they're still around. Besides.....I love to watch them. Very cool.
As a bee keeper who has seen my colonies destroyed, I keep an eye out.
There have been no honey bees at the usual flowers/shrub in my yard. We have been very dry and times for bees are hard.
This week they found my humming bird feeder and in three days drained it dry
Zyklon “Bee”.
We pay a courtesy call on all our neighbors within a half mile and politely ask them not to use Sevin. If they already have Sevin on hand, we buy them a less bee-toxic poison (and take them a nice jar of honey in the fall)!
Unlike the situation in the U.S., this kill-off in Germany was linked by time and place and chemical evidence to application of a particular pesticide.
I still think the U.S. die-off was a virus or other communicable disease, because our hive is very isolated with no other bees nearby and we have had no problems. Most of the die-off is occurring in commercial apiaries where there's a lot of drift from hive to hive and a lot of trucking to follow the crop blooms.
They should have stuck to aspirin.
We still can't rule that out, even if we rule that out.
Our big bloom is already past and gone, we got 18 frames of honey off the tulip poplar bloom. The bees had put up quite a bit of fall bloom honey after that, so we stole some. We'll feed them sugar syrup if they run short.
OK, I don’t care who you are, THAT was funny!
“the brand name Poncho”
“Oh Poncho!”
“Oh Cisco!”
“They should have stuck to aspirin.”
Stuck to that or Xyklon. Xyklon gas from Bayer was pretty effective at exterminating Jews during WWII.
Our bees are Italians . . . so very gentle and fun to watch. I can watch them any time right up to the hive, and I can go down and work lightly on them with just a smoker (no veil or gloves) so long as I don’t go deep. If I have to get down into the hive body, I’ll put on the veil, but it’s so hot here that it’s a real chore to put on the heavy gloves and the bee suit. They’ll dive bomb me while I’m lifting frames, but they won’t light and sting. They don’t make as much honey as the other strains of bee, but it’s worth it just because they’re so easy to work with.
Cool. Hummingbirds are great. I work on an oil drilling ship in the gulf as chief mate. One day after a big norther I found a hummingbird in the wheelhous. He got blown 60 miles offshore. Well he got tame enough to sit on your finger and we would feed him sugar water in a bottlecap. We went to port about 2 weeks later and let him free. He was so cool. The whole crew adopted him. And friendly.
Well bumble bee, butterflies... Any insect that uses pollen.
My daughter was in Costa Rica on a biology internship and the place was infested with hummers -- lots of different species that you don't see in the U.S. She took some video of the students playing with the hummers, the darn things would come and perch on their fingers and sit on their heads, fussing and fluttering all the time.
I called into an organic gardening show once where the host and callers were railing on these "terrible chemicals."
I thanked him by saying that he had helped me a few years back by recommending a "tobacco tea" as a natural pesticide. He thanked me for my thanks.
ThenI continued about how aren't nicitinoids and pyretherins just more narrow-band focused refinements of wide-band, nuclear-strength 'natural' poisons?
Uh, well, yes he said....but he doesn't recommend them anymore.
And I said, "So really we get back to the fact that no matter what it is, it's got to be about moderation...and some of the very 'natural' and 'organic truths' he's pushing now might be just as misguided and harmful to the environment as the mistakes he was making in the past without realizing it.
Bless his heart, he didn't hang up, but you could tell it really hurt his feelings because the wingnuts really do think that fanaticism in the name of 'green' is good, no matter what the actual cost or result.
For what it's worth (or , perhaps, phor what it's worth), imidacloprid is about the only pesticide efficacious in controlling the emerald ash borer.
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