You have to look deeply at the bigger picture to see what's really happening. Like American beekeepers and the US legislature, Australia is codifying the wrong enemy into law. Systemic pesticide use is higher than it's ever been in Australian agriculture thanks to the financial and now legal dominance of mono-crop industries like almonds and citrus. Those are the same industries that have done immeasurable damage in North America, not only to domesticated livestock beekeepers, but to our water, soil and natural resources like bumbles and other native pollinators. And those are the same industries that fund research about what's ailing honeybees.
In Australia, like here in the US, it's the 40-fold increase in use of systemic pesticides that is going to kill Australian pollinators and the species that rely on them. NYT misses this point (again) because most in beekeeping will not/cannot discuss pesticides and fewer know much about the biggest selling agricultural poisons on the planet and how they kill honeybees & all pollinators. I still hear beekeepers say they thought neonics were banned in California! If only. The truth is they are unchecked at every turn.
Since the '90's, researchers around the world have warned that neonics will break the food chain by destroying invertebrates at every stage of life. Destroying invertebrates is equivalent to killing life on earth. Think about the species that require insects and living soil; birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and on up the food chain. American legislators and regulators batted away any research that was hard on neonics. 'Scientific beekeepers', utilizing the same shell game the tobacco industry perfected, actively fought to protect pesticide use by showing up in State Committee and Legislative Meetings to say Enemy #1 is mites and not pesticides. These products are sold to the general public for home garden use which is now Bayers biggest profit base, more profitable than in industrial Agriculture use. Long lasting systemic poisons that require licensed training and a haz-mat suit are sold to trusting gardeners who don't read the microscopic label and believe 'If a little is good, a lot is better!'
To better explain, systemic means long lasting, traveling, incredibly powerful poison is in the resin, nectar, pollen, guttation and leaves and the surrounding soil and water. And because nurseries and brokers pre-treat with systemics, you yourself don't ever have to buy a spray can from a garden center! Your plants and flowering trees are already pre-poisoned! And thanks to the California State Beekeepers Association, there doesn't have to be a label on any pre-treated plant sold at retail. Labeling is purely optional. And most systemic pesticides last the life of the plant and for years in flowering trees. This comes directly from Bayer in To the landscape industry guarantees.
So a rapacious, greedy and highly corrupt industry has basically weaponized plants and trees with their "Plant Protection Products" and gotten away with it on another continent. Xerces Society just tested random pollinator pathways and community pollinator gardens in California and found 100% of those plants were deadly to pollinators. In fact, they found a whole cocktail in each plant. How does that happen? People are Planting for Pollinators with pre-treated plants and trees all over California. Landscapers and beekeepers who trumpet what to plant for bees, who don't even mention Organic are pushers of these deadly plants. Many don't know but around the Bay area many do. I've personally told many who have business interests in getting as many plants in the ground as possible, who didn't want to listen. Did you know that every single citrus tree that goes into the ground in California is deadly to bees...and deadly for years? Did you also know that's been codified in our California law by Big Ag's blaring partners and honeybee industry friends?
It's not mites, that's just the well funded, wildly effective shell game telling people where NOT to look. It's poisons in our food system that should have never, ever been allowed let alone legislated into law. Hell, I'd die of my mites if I was force fed poison and mistreated as honeybees are.
Terry Oxford
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Terry Oxford
UrbanBeeSF