Posted on 09/25/2018 7:42:00 AM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas
Increased mortality of honey bee colonies has been attributed to several factors but is not fully understood. The herbicide glyphosate is expected to be innocuous to animals, including bees, because it targets an enzyme only found in plants and microorganisms. However, bees rely on a specialized gut microbiota that benefits growth and provides defense against pathogens. Most bee gut bacteria contain the enzyme targeted by glyphosate, but vary in whether they possess susceptible versions and, correspondingly, in tolerance to glyphosate. Exposing bees to glyphosate alters the bee gut community and increases susceptibility to infection by opportunistic pathogens. Understanding how glyphosate impacts bee gut symbionts and bee health will help elucidate a possible role of this chemical in colony decline.
(Excerpt) Read more at pnas.org ...
As I understand it, roundup gets into the roots of plants. What happens when it rains? Let's say that an orchard used roundup to kill weeds, and it got into the roots of the fruit trees. What if it didn't kill the trees but contaminated the fruit?
That was wasps for sure. They live in the ground, and raise their young in there. The wasp foragers hunt for honeybees and cut them in half, bringing the juicy part back to their underground nest to feed their young. The young produces some substance that affects the foragers, egging them on to more hunting. Quite a vicious cycle, made worse in the fall with slim food sources.
The remedies include making sure your hive entrance has been restricted by mid-August. I go to my smallest restrictor opening by September. Another remedy is hanging up wasp traps nearby your hives - there are directions online for making them using a soda bottle. Very simple, and effective - you wind up with a bottle of dead wasps.
On the roundup - when spraying, probably good to avoid flowering stuff.
On nicotinoids, hard to avoid - all seeds it seems these days are coated with the stuff, so a tiny amount gets into all parts of the plant, roots/stems/leaves/flowers/nectar/pollen.
The "mystery of the worldwide deaths of honeybees" is looking more and more like it's as real as "global warming".
If it was actually a problem, honey production in the US would collapse at some point. Instead, it looks like it fluctuates a bit year-to-year, but is staying relatively consistent: https://www.beeculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1blue2.png
Further, if glyphosate was in any way affecting bee populations, it would be most evident in states which use a lot of glyphosate and have high honey production: North and South Dakota and Minnesota.
US use of glyphosate is six times as much as it was twenty years ago. Where is the evidence that it is affecting bee populations?
It may be economically feasible to buy live bees to replace the dead ones, even if a lot of them die. If that is going on, still not very reassuring.
But if the amount of dead bees is the same as expected, we don't have to blame roundup or anything else.
Again, if bee farmers are buying live bees to replace a large amount of dead bees, production would not collapse. I don’t know. Another way to replace dead bees would be to have a service that removes live bee colonies from houses or other property.
This hypothesis needs to be confirmed ASAP.
The stakes are huge either way.
But if it wills off honey bees, it’s the most dangerous substance in all of agriculture, and one of the most dangerous in the world.
What I’ve told is that many crops like corn now are genetically altered to tolerate glyphosate, so it can be sprayed over the whole field, leaving residue on the crops. The person who told me is convinced it’s the cause of many current health problems. Me, I try to keep an open mind.
Yep, another nonexistent crisis.
“Understanding how glyphosate impacts bee gut symbionts and bee health will help elucidate a possible role of this chemical in colony decline.”
So they admit they don’t know whether it impacts the bees at all, that it’s all speculation and maybe a possibility.
You'll be healthier if you do, but I doubt it would have anything to do with the glyphosate.
Pretty much all the soybeans and corn are grown using glyphosate. So eliminate consuming foods containing soy, or corn, including corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup. Eliminate consuming meats of animals which have been fed corn. Probably leaves you eating wild-caught fish as a readily-available meat source if you want to completely avoid foods produced with glyphosate, I suppose.
It isn't the glyphosate that is actually the problem in what you eat. It's the corn and soybeans themselves. High in carbohydrates/low in nutrients. Although it isn't produced using glyphosate as far as I know, wheat is just as bad, if not worse in harmful health effects as a high carb/low nutrient source of calories. You might as well try staying healthy living on spoonfuls of refined sugar.
Works out well for Monsanto/Bayer.
I try to keep an open mind too. It's OK for scientists to develop theories as long as they don't try to punish us if we disagree, like would-be-authoriratian "climate alarmists."
This is all BS. There is so much crap out there passing for science. If this causes cancer, why aren’t all the landscape workers dying of cancer?
When the robotic weed plucker is invented, Roundup is doomed.
There is. A cancer dying landscaper is currently in a famous glysophate court trial.
How does the USDA determine how many hives were "lost to the malady?" Are bee farmers buying or obtaining live bees to replace dead ones?
I'd bet that consumption of chlorine from treated city water (including breathing in the humid air while showering) causes more health problems than the glyphosate residues which may be in the foods we eat.
OOooooooo! MonSAAANNNTTOooo!
BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!
I’ve just met ONE TOO MANY individuals who — when you say “Monsanto” — totally wig out and their head twists around like Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”
Glyphosate is a glycine mimic that absorbs through plant leaves and stems and binds to the active site of the critical enzyme EPSP synthase inhibitng its function in the production of other amino acids that plants and bacteria require to survive. Rendered unable to produce these vital amino acids, the plant cannot sustain the cellular mechanisms that transport nutrients and water to the stem and leaves, so the plant wilts, dehydrates, and dies. Because EPSP synthase is present in highest concentration in the growth areas of plants, glyphosate accumulates in these aeras, and does not break down until the plant has died and begins to decay.
Once in the soil, glyphosate adsorbs onto the soil particles, and remains immobile unless the soil itself is transported by some means, which would include surface erosion by wind or water. Glphosate is broken down by microbes in the soil into inert organic compaunds: nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. How long that takes depends on the soil and the amound of glyphosate, but the half-life of glyphosate in soil has been observed to be anywhere from 1 to 174 days. Glyphosate in soil is not absorbed by other plants, which is why you can plant a treated area mere days after treating the weeds in that same area. Because of this, glyphosate in the soil is bound TO the soil, it is unavailable for uptake into plants subsequently grown on treated land, and is thus not present to be ingested by consumers of those plants.
More detail here:
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-glyphosate/glyphosate-ext.html
Oh bullshiite. Monsanto has awful business practices, but trashing roundup based on bad science is marxist territory. They almost ruined them with bad science regarding roundup and cancer. It was complete BS suitable for contrail, antivax kookville crowds. In other words, Useful Idiots.
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