Sign the Petition to Save the Bees!
Sign the Petition to Save the Bees!
The Issue
To: U.S. Residents
Do you think that our country (or at least our state, if not our county) should quickly move to save our swiftly declining bee population-- by smartly following in the footsteps of Germany and France by having our state's Department of Environmental Conservation or Environmental Protection Agency implement an emergency ban now on neocotinoid seed-treatment pesticides like clothianidin and imidacloprid?
If you do, sign on to this petition and pass it along to all you know.
More than enough compelling evidence to drive this has been collected from across the planet linking these chemicals to Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)-- and even the EPA's own fact sheet on clothianidin shows that it has known of the dangers to bees since it conditionally approved the chemical in 2003.
France has outlawed the use of the pesticide imidacloprid (see below)— which like clothianidin is classed as a “neonicotinoid.” Imidacloprid has been linked to disoriented behavior in honeybees– and may help explain why many CCD cases result in abandoned hives.
As far as Germany goes, according to the cover story for the Hudson Valley Business News June 21st this year, "The Plight of the Honeybee: New Buzz on a Deadly Problem" by Bob Rozycki, Beekeeper Dennis Remsburger of Pleasant Valley "thinks that neonicotinoids, used in a variety of pesticides are to blame. He’s in good company with his thinking. Last month, Germany banned a family of pesticides that beekeepers there are linking to the deaths of their bees. According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, tests on the dead bees in Germany showed that '99 percent of those examined had a build up of clothianidin.' The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety suspended the registration of eight pesticide seed treatment products. Clothianidin is in the nicotinoid chemical family. Clothianidin, which is manufactured by the Bayer Corp., is registered for seed treatment use on corn and canola, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a pesticide fact sheet dated May 30, 2003, 'clothianidin on corn and canola should result in minimal acute toxic risk to birds. However, assessments show that exposure to treated seeds through ingestion may result in chronic toxic risk to non-endangered and endangered small birds (e.g., songbirds) and acute/chronic toxicity risk to non-endangered and endangered mammals. Clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen.' Organophosphates (OPs) had been used in orchards, Remsburger said, but could not be sprayed on the blossoms. That was good for honeybees. But as OPs are being phased out by the EPA and neonicotinoids are being widely used, honeybees are being affected."
[see http://www.hudsonvalleybusinessnews.com/archive/062308/cover/cover06230801.php ]
I myself have confirmed the above in conversation with Beekeeper Dennis Remsburger (also profiled on the front page of the Poughkeepsie Journal July 21st)-- and Sam Comfort of Anarchy Apiaries as well, profiled in a cover story for the Summer 2008 issue of "About Town for Northern Dutchess County"; Comfort echoed this too (see http://www.abouttown.us/dutchess/articles/summer08/listen.shtml ).
Calls to Congress at (800) 828-0498, the New York State Legislature at (877) 255-9417, and letters to our County Legislature on this at countylegislature@co.dutchess.ny.us also help (if the federal and state governments refuse to move on this, Dutchess County should; I've submitted documentation to our County Legislature's offices for this to happen this summer-- if enough of you folks out there sign on to this and get your friends to do the same!).
Enough.
Do you like eating food? I like eating food. Without the bees, there is no food.
Neocotinoids are killing the bees-- and all of us. Period.
Pass it on-- before it's too late.
Joel Tyner
Dutchess County Legislature Environmental Committee Chair
County Legislator (Clinton/Rhinebeck)
324 Browns Pond Road
Staatsburg, NY 12580
joeltyner@earthlink.net
(845) 876-24388
[note-- besides all that's below, check out these twelve links for even more information on this:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6326020 ;
http://www.panna.org/files/guardianPesticidesGermanyBansChemicalszLinkedToHoneybeeDevastation20080523.pdf ;
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/requiemForTheHoneybee.php ;
http://blog.t1production.com/ecological-apocalypse-why-are-all-the-bees-dying ;
http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/Disorders/pesticide_kills.htm ;
http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1088/ ;
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/37493 ;
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/35027 ;
http://www.livescience.com/animals/070615_ap_bee_trouble.html ;
http://nature.berkeley.edu/blogs/news/2007/09/suburban_gardens_solution_to_b.php ;
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14237-decline-in-bee-diversity-could-sting-crop-producers.html ;
http://food.propeller.com/story/2008/07/08/-proof-bee-decline-is-reducing-food-supply/ ]
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"Germany and France Ban Pesticides Linked To Bee Deaths; Geneticist Urges U.S. Ban"
By Shermakaye Bass [6/23/08]
http://www.greenrightnow.com/2008/06/23/germany-and-france-ban-pesticides-linked-to-bee-deaths-geneticist-urges-us-ban-would-save-the-bees/
In light of recent European bans of a pesticide linked to Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), at least one key bee expert is calling for a ban of the same pesticide in the United States.
“In the United States, drastic action is needed,” says Canadian geneticist Joe Cummins, explaining that U.S. farmers and beekeepers shouldn’t have to wait for more evidence or for an air-tight explanation for the complex syndrome, which threatens one in every third bite of food in the United States. Now most apiarists and scientists realize that pesticides are a factor in CCD, he says.
Cummins’ remarks, in an interview with GreenRightNow, come less than a month after Germany’s ban of clothianidin, a pesticide commonly used to keep insects off of corn crops. Germany banned the pesticide after heaps of dead bees were found near fields of corn coated in the pesticide, and in response to scientists who report that the insecticide severely impairs, and often kills, the honeybees that corn and other crops depend on for pollination.
The German government took the extraordinary action to protect bees and other essential pollinators, stating that there is now enough compelling evidence connecting the chemical to Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in that country.
The ban also will likely fuel the European debate over genetically modified food, which involves treating crop seeds to resist harm from pesticide treatments. Critics of such modified foods say they are harming the environment, and have unknown human consequences, for little or no crop gain. Some scientists in Europe have called for their ban.
Bee Colony Collapse has been threatening bees, and the crops they serve, around the world for the past several years.
In other parts of Europe, including France, studies of other pesticides have shown they are negatively impacting bee behavior – and contributing to the collapse of entire bee colonies. France has outlawed the use of the pesticide imidacloprid — which like clothianidin is classed as a “neonicotinoid.” Imidacloprid has been linked to disoriented behavior in honeybees – and may help explain why many CCD cases result in abandoned hives.
“I think the Environmental Protection Agency would be well advised to put an immediate emergency ban on the neonicotinoid seed-treatment pesticides. I would say on all pesticides,” says Cummins.
The ban in Germany, and Cummins’ call for a U.S. ban, should be no surprise to the EPA. The agency’s own fact sheet on clothianidin shows that it has known of the dangers to bees since it conditionally approved the chemical in 2003.
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From http://www.hudsonvalleybusinessnews.com/archive/062308/cover/cover06230801.php ...
The Plight of the Honeybee: New Buzz on Deadly Problem
by Bob Rozycki [Hudson Valley Business News cover article 6/21/08]
From Papua New Guinea and Australia to Germany and the United States, the honeybee has been under siege.
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) last year destroyed thousands of colonies worldwide. News reports reminded everyone about the need for the tiny, buzzing insects. From soup to nuts and even beef, the honeybee is needed.
Even Haagen-Dazs, the ice cream maker, is joining the fight to save honeybees. It has set up a Web site, www.helpthehoneybees.com and is also distributing packets of wildflower seeds for people to plant.
Honeybee deaths are continuing as researchers try to pinpoint the cause of the devastation, now focusing on a number of components.
Beekeeper Dennis Remsburger of Pleasant Valley said honeybees pollinate about 130 different food crops, from fruits and vegetables to the clover that cattle eat. Without the honeybees, fruits and vegetables would be greatly diminished if not wiped out. Pollination could still continue via wind and some other insects, he said, but the honeybees are the major source of pollinating.
Last year, Remsburger lost about 47 percent of his hives to CCD. This year it was a different story for Remsburger, who is also a third-generation maple sugar farmer. He lost 20 hives, the equivalent of about 2,000 pounds of honey to a bear; although he theorizes it was more like a mother bear and her cubs. Those hives were on a farm in Hyde Park that uses his services to pollinate crops. The ramification of the marauding bear or bears was a loss of $67,000 in bees, hives and honey as well as the future production of honey.
Because of the loss, the state Department of Environmental Conservation gave him permission to destroy any bear that attacks his hives. But since his hives are on eight farms from the Hudson Valley up to the Berkshire Mountains, he cannot just sit in a chair armed with a shotgun loaded for bear. Instead, he chose the most vulnerable sites and invested about $600 per site for the placement of an electric fence around the perimeter of the hives. There have been no indications that the bear has returned.
Despite the losses, Remsburger did earn about $100,000 from his honey and maple operations. But it’s not easy work traveling from location to location placing the hives and then checking on them. And then there’s the travel involved to farmers markets around the Hudson Valley and down to New York City selling his products. They are sold at a few retail outlets including Adams Fairacre Farms stores and Meadowbrook Farm in the town of Wappinger.
He hopes to have about 160 colonies producing by the end of the summer. Each full-size colony produces about 100 pounds of honey. At the outset last year, he had hoped to obtain about 20,000 pounds. During the season he reassessed his estimate down to 16,000 pounds. He lost 2,000 pounds to the bear. In the end, he had about 12,000 pounds of honey.
As the deaths of honeybees continue, Remsburger believes it’s more than just mites that are contributing to the demise. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service has been studying the combination of varroa mites and pesticides.
Remsburger thinks that neonicotinoids, used in a variety of pesticides are to blame. He’s in good company with his thinking. Last month, Germany banned a family of pesticides that beekeepers there are linking to the deaths of their bees. According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, tests on the dead bees in Germany showed that “99 percent of those examined had a build up of clothianidin.” The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety suspended the registration of eight pesticide seed treatment products.
Clothianidin is in the nicotinoid chemical family. Clothianidin, which is manufactured by the Bayer Corp., is registered for seed treatment use on corn and canola, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a pesticide fact sheet dated May 30, 2003, “clothianidin on corn and canola should result in minimal acute toxic risk to birds. However, assessments show that exposure to treated seeds through ingestion may result in chronic toxic risk to non-endangered and endangered small birds (e.g., songbirds) and acute/chronic toxicity risk to non-endangered and endangered mammals. Clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen.”
Organophosphates (OPs) had been used in orchards, Remsburger said, but could not be sprayed on the blossoms. That was good for honeybees. But as OPs are being phased out by the EPA and neonicotinoids are being widely used, honeybees are being affected.
“The thought is that as the honeybees go out in the morning to gather nectar, the poison that they also pick up is not enough to kill them,” he said. “But they get it on their legs and then pack it in the hives.” Concentrated in the hives, the poison breaks down and causes the honeybees to abandon the hive.
The Agricultural Research Service is focusing on four areas concerning CCD: pathogens, parasites, environmental stresses and bee management stresses such as poor nutrition.
The number of managed honeybee colonies has dropped from 5 million in the 1940s to 2.5 million today, according to the USDA. The health of the colonies has also been declining since the 1980s as new pathogens and pests appeared, the agency reports. The spread of varroa and tracheal mites, in particular, created major new stresses on honeybees.
Added to the deadly mix doing in honeybees is the bacterial disease, foulbrood, which is a spore that is contagious and easily spread. It can wipe out a hive in no time. Since the hives are basically contaminated and replacing them with new ones adds up in costs for the beekeepers, a method is needed to clean and reclaim for reuse, Remsburger said. One currently in use involves sending the contaminated hives to a place that irradiates them with Cobalt 60. Remsburger said he is currently experimenting with another method that includes using peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide, a product developed by the Minntech Corp., which is biodegradable and used in disinfecting cleanrooms in the semiconductor industry.
Remsburger said he is more optimistic this year than last that a solution will be found to CCD. He was encouraged by the action taken by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California who last year introduced the Pollinator Protection Act.
On May 15, the Senate passed the 2008 farm bill that included Boxer’s honeybee provision, which authorizes up to $100 million over five years for “high priority research dedicated to maintaining and protecting our honeybee and native pollinator populations.”
To help stem his own losses, Remsburger has worked out agreements with the farmers on whose land he has hives to let him know when they plan to spray their crops so he can remove his hives.
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From the Summer "About Town" for Northern Dutchess County...
[ http://www.abouttown.us/dutchess/articles/summer08/listen.shtml ]
"Listen to the Bees"
Peggy O'Brien interviews Sam Comfort of Anarchy Apiaries
[excerpt here below]
Editors' Note: For more than a year now, newspapers have been sounding the alarm about the impending breakdown of a vital link in our national food chain: the sudden, inexplicable disappearance and death of millions of commercially-raised honeybees. While food philosopher Michael Pollen has speculated that the affliction, baptized Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD, may be a byproduct of our commercialized food production systems, most scientists and the USDA seem to remain stumped. AboutTown was therefore delighted to learn that the young apiarist and recent Bard Graduate Sam Comfort was setting up a bee education program in our area and we asked local beekeeper Peggy O'Brien to interview him.
Q: Is the current bee decline a sudden crisis?
A: Despite the recent media attention, the current bee decline has been with us for 150 years. The crisis still festers from our lack of understanding of ecosystems. To heed the bees we can't just talk about bees anymore! The health of bees is the health of the land and our own wellness.
Pollinating bees have been around for 80 million years. For one important species, the honeybee, to be stricken with a sudden plethora of ailments raises suspicion of some deeper causes. The latest proclaimed "cause" is called Colony Collapse Disorder, but sometimes the cause is varroa mites, or tracheal mites, or small hive beetles, or chalk brood or foul brood—you name it. Name any of a dozen reasons, most outfits are losing half to two-thirds of their bees every year. Any large beekeeper will tell you it is constant labor to keep hives alive. They are dividing hives to replace losses and artificially stimulating the bees to make it possible. Large crews are needed to keep it all going. Some deeper problems in bee management are at issue, but the industry is just trying to deal with the symptoms.
Q: So what do you think is the main contributory factor of CCD?
A: The industry has always been in quicksand. The more we think we help, the deeper we sink. I think we've stepped over a boundary and put ourselves into the mind of the hive, and bees don't agree with our intrusions into their home or on the landscape. The sub-lethal effects of pesticides, like the popular systemic imidacloprid, compromise bee immunity.
Q: That's a nicotine-related insecticide widely used in heavily-populated areas, on lawns, for flea control on pets, right?
A: Yes, and it and other systemics—insecticides that affect their victims through the plants they enter—are showing up in all kinds of wild plants adjacent to cropland. While supposedly safer for mammals than the organophosphates they are replacing, the new control methods are destroying insect communities and have a long residual in the soil. It takes only parts per billion to compromise honeybee health. Many chemical miticides—mite-killing chemicals—also do not break down in the comb and add to early queen mortality. Because of breeding to make bees "better" in the eyes of a profit-driven industry, the gene pool doesn't have the depth to cope anymore. The bees are very vocal about all this by means of CCD, mite infestations, bacterial diseases like American foul brood, etc.
Q: How do you think we can help them?
A: Bees know what is best for bees. They've been doing it a long time. We need to step aside again. Go back to what the bees want to do. Do not feed them corn syrup and soy flour. Do not bring your bees to support monoculture farming. Do not treat them for mites...
To get in contact with Sam Comfort or learn more about the Bard Bee Program, contact him at anarchyapiaries@hotmail.com or 406-396-8357.
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"Disease, Stress Threaten Bees: Deaths Endanger Farm Industry"
by Michael Woyton [Poughkeepsie Journal 7/21/08]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080721/NEWS01/807210320/1006
PLEASANT VALLEY - Dennis Remsburger makes his living from bees and honey.
But he's a little nervous about whether that will be viable in the future.
What has Remsburger, as well as other beekeepers around the country, worried is colony collapse disorder, the sudden death of entire colonies of honey bees.
"We are a maple syrup producer also," the Pleasant Valley resident said, "so luckily, we have something to fall back on. But we can make more money with honey."
Bees are critical for agricultural pollination of about 130 crops, including almonds, apples, blueberries, pumpkins and broccoli. Honeybees also produce beeswax, which can be made into candles, and the substance for which they are named - honey.
The estimated value of the crops that bees help produce in the United States is $15 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Colony collapse disorder was first reported in November 2006. By February 2007, heavy losses were reported by commercial beekeepers, some of whom lost up to 90 percent of their colonies.
There have been die-offs of honeybees in the past, said Maryann Frazier, senior extension associate at Penn State, citing the varroa mite infestation in the United States in the mid-1980s.
"There have also been a couple of instances of die-offs we have not been able to explain," she said. "Each time these die-offs seem to be more severe."
Parasites, Pesticides
Research at this stage is taking a multipronged approach, looking into a number of causes: pathogens, parasites, pesticides, stress and malnutrition.
"And that is what makes it a long-term problem," Frazier said. "There's not one simple thing.
"It looks like a combination of things coming together, each in its own right complex," she said.
Researchers are exploring how viruses, such as the Israeli acute paralysis virus, might affect bees.
Frazier said they are also looking into protozoan diseases that affect the digestive system.
Relatively new, USDA-approved pesticides called neonicotinoids are also being studied by researchers.
Those pesticides are designed to kill other insects while leaving the bees un-harmed, but they can deliver a sublethal dose of the toxin, Frazier said.
"These things can act on the nervous system and interfere with the bee's ability to learn where the pollen is," she said.
They can also interfere with the immune system, allowing other diseases to have a more significant impact, Frazier said...
Frazier testified in Washington on June 26 before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture.
U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Hudson, is a member of the subcommittee and attended the hearing..."So many of our crops rely on bee pollination, so this is going to affect everyone."
With the agriculture community in the Hudson Valley, the issue has real urgency, she said.
"This is putting our food supply at risk," Gillibrand said about the disorder. "That is a national security issue."
In Pleasant Valley, Remsburger is having a relatively good year - so far.
He has 160 colonies, each with about 50,000 to 70,000 honey bees. In 2007, he had 135 colonies, but lost about 35 over the winter.
But in 2006, he had 56 colonies and 50 of them died. That cost him about $67,000...
He feels the disorder is inflicted on the bees by humans and it's not something that happened out of the blue. "Bees are living creatures and should not be industrialized," he said.
It was important to keep colony collapse disorder and the plight of bees in people's minds, Frazier said. And there needs to be a rethinking about the use of herbicides and pesticides, she added.
"People are kind of addicted to our green lawns without dandelions, but those are great food for honeybees," Frazier said.
Frazier said the impending crisis is a wake-up call.
"Hopefully we are not at a point where this is irreversible," she said.
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Pesticides: Germany Bans Chemicals Linked to Honeybee Devastation
by Alison Benjamin [The Guardian 5/23/08]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/23/wildlife.endangeredspecies?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.
The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.
"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."
Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.
The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.
Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC's Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. "It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe," he said.
Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is "highly toxic" to honeybees.
This is not the first time that Bayer, one of the world's leading pesticide manufacturers with sales of €5.8bn (£4.6bn) in 2007, has been blamed for killing honeybees.
In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking the company to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.
Bayer's best selling pesticide, imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France, has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its widespread use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. A few months ago, the company's application for clothianidin was rejected by French authorities.
Bayer has always maintained that imidacloprid is safe for bees if correctly applied. "Extensive internal and international scientific studies have confirmed that Gaucho does not present a hazard to bees," said Utz Klages, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience.
Last year, Germany's Green MEP, Hiltrud Breyer, tabled an emergency motion calling for this family of pesticides to be banned across Europe while their role in killing honeybees were thoroughly investigated. Her action follows calls for a ban from beekeeping associations and environmental organisations across Europe.
Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: "We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now.
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."
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From http://www.panna.org/mag/summer2008/news/vanishing-bees ...
Vanishing Bees: Victims of Industrial Agriculture
Over the past 30 years, honeybee populations have plummeted 50%. Many factors are contributing to the decline—including systemic pesticides, varroa mites and Nosema Disease—but the greatest threat to the bee’s survival may be the industrial agriculture model that promotes pesticides and monocropping.
When we read about “colony collapse disorder,” we’re hearing about the problems confronting commercial bee-brokers. Natural pollination by wild, resident honeybees and other beneficial insects was the norm only 30 years ago. But natural pollination is no longer possible where traditional habitats have been replaced by weedless, laser-leveled acres planted to a single crop. In California’s Central Valley, vast industrial spreads—artificially maintained by synthetic nitrogen inputs, herbicides and insecticides—are no longer hospitable to native bees, wasps, butterflies or other wildlife.
In May, following the mass deaths of bees and other insects, Germany’s Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) suspended use of eight pesticides after it was found that the bees were killed by clothianidin, the active ingredient in Bayer’s Eldado and Poncho pesticides. BVL also suspended use of four of Bayer’s imidacloprid-based pesticides: Antarc, Chinook, Faibel and Gaucho. Products containing neonicotinoids like imidacloprid and clothianidin account for much of Bayer’s annual agrochemical profits. France’s Comité Scientifique et Technique has declared the chemical a “significant risk” to bees.
As wild pollinators were increasingly forced off the land, Big Ag turned to “domesticated” bees. When up to 90% of U.S. commercial bee colonies went into a tailspin last winter, desperate growers paid premium prices to air-freight one billion “guest worker” bees from Australia to pollinate U.S. fields and orchards.
Commercial honeybees are the insect world’s equivalent of migrant labor. Trucked thousands of miles from one field to another, these bees are forbidden to forage on their own. They are only released to service a particular crop—apples, peaches, oranges, melons—and when they do, they are inevitably exposed to a range of chemical residues. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has identified 58 pesticides that are “highly toxic” to bees, including aldicarb, diazinon and malathion.
It might be more accurate to call commercial colonies “prison colonies.” Trucked from state to state, these captive bees are force-fed a diet of high fructose corn syrup and soy protein—a poor substitute for pollen. This cheap, high-fiber, low-protein, junk-food bee feed is derived from genetically modified corn that has been engineered to contain Bt—a bacterial insecticide.
And now more of the honeybees’ native “homeland” in the prairies of the Midwest—historic vistas of pollen-rich asters and goldenrods—are set to be plowed under and monocropped to make corn ethanol to fuel America’s automobiles.
There is an alternative. “This country has 4,500 species of native insects that are potential pollinators,” Gina Covina writes in Terrain magazine. “On the East Coast, where farms are much smaller, more diverse, and broken up by uncultivated land, native insects account for up to 90% of crop pollination.” In Costa Rica, studies have shown coffee yields increase 20% when crops are grown within a kilometer of a forest. In Canada, canola yields increased on farms that preserved 30% of the land as natural habitat.
“Fortunately,” Covina notes, “insects are quick to recolonize formerly dead areas—hedgerows, windbreaks, wetlands, woodlots.” But the survival of Earth’s bees will require a fundamental transition from the industrial agriculture model to the biodiverse ecological model.
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From http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/758080 ...
Bee Deaths Attributed to Pesticide Clothianidin
Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.
The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.
"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."
Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.
The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.
Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC's Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. "It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe," he said.
Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is "highly toxic" to honeybees.
This is not the first time that Bayer, one of the world's leading pesticide manufacturers with sales of €5.8bn (£4.6bn) in 2007, has been blamed for killing honeybees.
In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking the company to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.
Bayer's best selling pesticide, imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France, has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its widespread use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. A few months ago, the company's application for clothianidin was rejected by French authorities.
Bayer has always maintained that imidacloprid is safe for bees if correctly applied. "Extensive internal and international scientific studies have confirmed that Gaucho does not present a hazard to bees," said Utz Klages, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience.
Last year, Germany's Green MEP, Hiltrud Breyer, tabled an emergency motion calling for this family of pesticides to be banned across Europe while their role in killing honeybees were thoroughly investigated. Her action follows calls for a ban from beekeeping associations and environmental organisations across Europe.
Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: "We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now. 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
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From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19233858/ ...
Bee killers? Pesticides Are a Probable Cause
By Genaro C. Armas
June. 14, 2007
[© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.]
LEWISBURG, Pa. - Scientists investigating a mysterious ailment that killed many of the nation's honeybees are concentrating on pesticides and a new pathogen as possible culprits, and some beekeepers are already trying to keep their colonies away from pesticide-exposed fields.
After months of study, researchers are finding it difficult to tie the die-off to any single factor, said Maryann Frazier, a senior extension associate in Penn State University's entomology department.
"Two things right now ... that are really keeping us focused are the pathogen and the role of pesticides," Frazier said.
Scientists from Penn State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are leading the research into colony-collapse disorder, including study of the yet-to-be identified pathogen, a microorganism capable of causing disease.
But commercial beekeeper David Hackenberg isn't waiting to take action. He's asking growers whether they use pesticides on fields before bringing his bees for pollination.
Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 tasty flowering crops, including apples, nuts and citrus fruit.
Hackenberg, 58, trucks his bees around the country for pollination — from oranges in Florida to blueberries in Maine. He was the first beekeeper to report the disorder to Penn State researchers last fall, having lost nearly 75 percent of his 3,200 colonies.
He said he is convinced pesticides, and in particular a kind of pesticide called neonicotinoids, were harming his bees.
"I'm quizzing every farmer around," Hackenberg said. "If you're going to use that stuff, then you're going to have go to somebody else."
The beekeeper of 45 years is back up 2,400 colonies and doesn't want to lose his bees again.
He and his son, Davey Hackenberg, who operate Hackenberg Apiaries, are considering raising prices to cover the cost of replacing hives that may die off because of colony collapse. They charge about $90 a hive now to "lease" their bees in fields; it costs $120 to replace a hive with new bees, the Hackenbergs said.
Beekeeper Jim Aucker, of Millville, was left with just 240 of his 1,200 hives earlier this spring after the illness struck. He said he's back up to just under 600 now. He is convinced pesticides are playing a role.
"I have found spray materials in our dead hives. Whether it's 100 percent the cause, I'm not sure, but I'm positive it's not helping," Aucker said. He doesn't plan to return to fields where he thinks there might be a pesticide problem.
Daniel Weaver, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, said he wasn't surprised some beekeepers were staying away from fields with insecticides.
"I try to limit my association to growers that I know will be responsible bending over backward and to go out of their way to avoid pesticide application while the bees are flying," he said of his own colonies. "Of course, I can't escape it completely."
He also cautioned what other scientists have echoed — that bees' immune systems might be weakened and vulnerable for reasons besides pathogens and pesticides, such as mites.
Bayer Crop Science is one of the top producers of the neonicotinoid pesticides in the country, and the product has been on the market since 1994.
"We have done a significant amount of research on our products, and we are comfortable this it is not the cause," said company spokesman John Boyne, an entomologist by training.
"The current research indicates that a number of nonchemical causes may be to blame," Boyne said when asked beekeepers' concerns regarding pesticides. Bayer is cooperating with federal and university scientists.
Some of the neonicotinic pesticides are available in stores to homeowners, though some bottles may not have the same warning labels as those available commercially, researchers and beekeepers said. Bayer officials said they were not aware of the issue but were looking into it.
Some beekeepers worry fruit and vegetable growers may be spraying pesticides in ways other than the directions on labels, said University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk. His survey of beekeepers found instances of colony collapse in about 35 states.
Reports are across the board as of mid-June, a time when bee colonies are supposed to be thriving. Some beekeepers have said they are losing bees, while others are holding steady or growing colonies again.
Hackenberg said he went to the extreme of trying to disinfect many of his hives with radiation.
But he fears what might happen if his bees get struck again. A call came in on his cell phone as he worked with a thriving hive of honeybees on a hill above his house — a caller was trying to line up bees for 2008.
"Yeah, we sell bees," Hackenberg said, "if we're still in business next year."
Sincerely,
have read the The Petition to Save the Bees Petition to U.S. Residents, and I hereby sign the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/savebees/petition-sign.html
The Issue
To: U.S. Residents
Do you think that our country (or at least our state, if not our county) should quickly move to save our swiftly declining bee population-- by smartly following in the footsteps of Germany and France by having our state's Department of Environmental Conservation or Environmental Protection Agency implement an emergency ban now on neocotinoid seed-treatment pesticides like clothianidin and imidacloprid?
If you do, sign on to this petition and pass it along to all you know.
More than enough compelling evidence to drive this has been collected from across the planet linking these chemicals to Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)-- and even the EPA's own fact sheet on clothianidin shows that it has known of the dangers to bees since it conditionally approved the chemical in 2003.
France has outlawed the use of the pesticide imidacloprid (see below)— which like clothianidin is classed as a “neonicotinoid.” Imidacloprid has been linked to disoriented behavior in honeybees– and may help explain why many CCD cases result in abandoned hives.
As far as Germany goes, according to the cover story for the Hudson Valley Business News June 21st this year, "The Plight of the Honeybee: New Buzz on a Deadly Problem" by Bob Rozycki, Beekeeper Dennis Remsburger of Pleasant Valley "thinks that neonicotinoids, used in a variety of pesticides are to blame. He’s in good company with his thinking. Last month, Germany banned a family of pesticides that beekeepers there are linking to the deaths of their bees. According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, tests on the dead bees in Germany showed that '99 percent of those examined had a build up of clothianidin.' The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety suspended the registration of eight pesticide seed treatment products. Clothianidin is in the nicotinoid chemical family. Clothianidin, which is manufactured by the Bayer Corp., is registered for seed treatment use on corn and canola, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a pesticide fact sheet dated May 30, 2003, 'clothianidin on corn and canola should result in minimal acute toxic risk to birds. However, assessments show that exposure to treated seeds through ingestion may result in chronic toxic risk to non-endangered and endangered small birds (e.g., songbirds) and acute/chronic toxicity risk to non-endangered and endangered mammals. Clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen.' Organophosphates (OPs) had been used in orchards, Remsburger said, but could not be sprayed on the blossoms. That was good for honeybees. But as OPs are being phased out by the EPA and neonicotinoids are being widely used, honeybees are being affected."
[see http://www.hudsonvalleybusinessnews.com/archive/062308/cover/cover06230801.php ]
I myself have confirmed the above in conversation with Beekeeper Dennis Remsburger (also profiled on the front page of the Poughkeepsie Journal July 21st)-- and Sam Comfort of Anarchy Apiaries as well, profiled in a cover story for the Summer 2008 issue of "About Town for Northern Dutchess County"; Comfort echoed this too (see http://www.abouttown.us/dutchess/articles/summer08/listen.shtml ).
Calls to Congress at (800) 828-0498, the New York State Legislature at (877) 255-9417, and letters to our County Legislature on this at countylegislature@co.dutchess.ny.us also help (if the federal and state governments refuse to move on this, Dutchess County should; I've submitted documentation to our County Legislature's offices for this to happen this summer-- if enough of you folks out there sign on to this and get your friends to do the same!).
Enough.
Do you like eating food? I like eating food. Without the bees, there is no food.
Neocotinoids are killing the bees-- and all of us. Period.
Pass it on-- before it's too late.
Joel Tyner
Dutchess County Legislature Environmental Committee Chair
County Legislator (Clinton/Rhinebeck)
324 Browns Pond Road
Staatsburg, NY 12580
joeltyner@earthlink.net
(845) 876-24388
[note-- besides all that's below, check out these twelve links for even more information on this:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6326020 ;
http://www.panna.org/files/guardianPesticidesGermanyBansChemicalszLinkedToHoneybeeDevastation20080523.pdf ;
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/requiemForTheHoneybee.php ;
http://blog.t1production.com/ecological-apocalypse-why-are-all-the-bees-dying ;
http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/Disorders/pesticide_kills.htm ;
http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1088/ ;
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/37493 ;
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/35027 ;
http://www.livescience.com/animals/070615_ap_bee_trouble.html ;
http://nature.berkeley.edu/blogs/news/2007/09/suburban_gardens_solution_to_b.php ;
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14237-decline-in-bee-diversity-could-sting-crop-producers.html ;
http://food.propeller.com/story/2008/07/08/-proof-bee-decline-is-reducing-food-supply/ ]
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"Germany and France Ban Pesticides Linked To Bee Deaths; Geneticist Urges U.S. Ban"
By Shermakaye Bass [6/23/08]
http://www.greenrightnow.com/2008/06/23/germany-and-france-ban-pesticides-linked-to-bee-deaths-geneticist-urges-us-ban-would-save-the-bees/
In light of recent European bans of a pesticide linked to Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), at least one key bee expert is calling for a ban of the same pesticide in the United States.
“In the United States, drastic action is needed,” says Canadian geneticist Joe Cummins, explaining that U.S. farmers and beekeepers shouldn’t have to wait for more evidence or for an air-tight explanation for the complex syndrome, which threatens one in every third bite of food in the United States. Now most apiarists and scientists realize that pesticides are a factor in CCD, he says.
Cummins’ remarks, in an interview with GreenRightNow, come less than a month after Germany’s ban of clothianidin, a pesticide commonly used to keep insects off of corn crops. Germany banned the pesticide after heaps of dead bees were found near fields of corn coated in the pesticide, and in response to scientists who report that the insecticide severely impairs, and often kills, the honeybees that corn and other crops depend on for pollination.
The German government took the extraordinary action to protect bees and other essential pollinators, stating that there is now enough compelling evidence connecting the chemical to Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in that country.
The ban also will likely fuel the European debate over genetically modified food, which involves treating crop seeds to resist harm from pesticide treatments. Critics of such modified foods say they are harming the environment, and have unknown human consequences, for little or no crop gain. Some scientists in Europe have called for their ban.
Bee Colony Collapse has been threatening bees, and the crops they serve, around the world for the past several years.
In other parts of Europe, including France, studies of other pesticides have shown they are negatively impacting bee behavior – and contributing to the collapse of entire bee colonies. France has outlawed the use of the pesticide imidacloprid — which like clothianidin is classed as a “neonicotinoid.” Imidacloprid has been linked to disoriented behavior in honeybees – and may help explain why many CCD cases result in abandoned hives.
“I think the Environmental Protection Agency would be well advised to put an immediate emergency ban on the neonicotinoid seed-treatment pesticides. I would say on all pesticides,” says Cummins.
The ban in Germany, and Cummins’ call for a U.S. ban, should be no surprise to the EPA. The agency’s own fact sheet on clothianidin shows that it has known of the dangers to bees since it conditionally approved the chemical in 2003.
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From http://www.hudsonvalleybusinessnews.com/archive/062308/cover/cover06230801.php ...
The Plight of the Honeybee: New Buzz on Deadly Problem
by Bob Rozycki [Hudson Valley Business News cover article 6/21/08]
From Papua New Guinea and Australia to Germany and the United States, the honeybee has been under siege.
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) last year destroyed thousands of colonies worldwide. News reports reminded everyone about the need for the tiny, buzzing insects. From soup to nuts and even beef, the honeybee is needed.
Even Haagen-Dazs, the ice cream maker, is joining the fight to save honeybees. It has set up a Web site, www.helpthehoneybees.com and is also distributing packets of wildflower seeds for people to plant.
Honeybee deaths are continuing as researchers try to pinpoint the cause of the devastation, now focusing on a number of components.
Beekeeper Dennis Remsburger of Pleasant Valley said honeybees pollinate about 130 different food crops, from fruits and vegetables to the clover that cattle eat. Without the honeybees, fruits and vegetables would be greatly diminished if not wiped out. Pollination could still continue via wind and some other insects, he said, but the honeybees are the major source of pollinating.
Last year, Remsburger lost about 47 percent of his hives to CCD. This year it was a different story for Remsburger, who is also a third-generation maple sugar farmer. He lost 20 hives, the equivalent of about 2,000 pounds of honey to a bear; although he theorizes it was more like a mother bear and her cubs. Those hives were on a farm in Hyde Park that uses his services to pollinate crops. The ramification of the marauding bear or bears was a loss of $67,000 in bees, hives and honey as well as the future production of honey.
Because of the loss, the state Department of Environmental Conservation gave him permission to destroy any bear that attacks his hives. But since his hives are on eight farms from the Hudson Valley up to the Berkshire Mountains, he cannot just sit in a chair armed with a shotgun loaded for bear. Instead, he chose the most vulnerable sites and invested about $600 per site for the placement of an electric fence around the perimeter of the hives. There have been no indications that the bear has returned.
Despite the losses, Remsburger did earn about $100,000 from his honey and maple operations. But it’s not easy work traveling from location to location placing the hives and then checking on them. And then there’s the travel involved to farmers markets around the Hudson Valley and down to New York City selling his products. They are sold at a few retail outlets including Adams Fairacre Farms stores and Meadowbrook Farm in the town of Wappinger.
He hopes to have about 160 colonies producing by the end of the summer. Each full-size colony produces about 100 pounds of honey. At the outset last year, he had hoped to obtain about 20,000 pounds. During the season he reassessed his estimate down to 16,000 pounds. He lost 2,000 pounds to the bear. In the end, he had about 12,000 pounds of honey.
As the deaths of honeybees continue, Remsburger believes it’s more than just mites that are contributing to the demise. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service has been studying the combination of varroa mites and pesticides.
Remsburger thinks that neonicotinoids, used in a variety of pesticides are to blame. He’s in good company with his thinking. Last month, Germany banned a family of pesticides that beekeepers there are linking to the deaths of their bees. According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, tests on the dead bees in Germany showed that “99 percent of those examined had a build up of clothianidin.” The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety suspended the registration of eight pesticide seed treatment products.
Clothianidin is in the nicotinoid chemical family. Clothianidin, which is manufactured by the Bayer Corp., is registered for seed treatment use on corn and canola, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a pesticide fact sheet dated May 30, 2003, “clothianidin on corn and canola should result in minimal acute toxic risk to birds. However, assessments show that exposure to treated seeds through ingestion may result in chronic toxic risk to non-endangered and endangered small birds (e.g., songbirds) and acute/chronic toxicity risk to non-endangered and endangered mammals. Clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen.”
Organophosphates (OPs) had been used in orchards, Remsburger said, but could not be sprayed on the blossoms. That was good for honeybees. But as OPs are being phased out by the EPA and neonicotinoids are being widely used, honeybees are being affected.
“The thought is that as the honeybees go out in the morning to gather nectar, the poison that they also pick up is not enough to kill them,” he said. “But they get it on their legs and then pack it in the hives.” Concentrated in the hives, the poison breaks down and causes the honeybees to abandon the hive.
The Agricultural Research Service is focusing on four areas concerning CCD: pathogens, parasites, environmental stresses and bee management stresses such as poor nutrition.
The number of managed honeybee colonies has dropped from 5 million in the 1940s to 2.5 million today, according to the USDA. The health of the colonies has also been declining since the 1980s as new pathogens and pests appeared, the agency reports. The spread of varroa and tracheal mites, in particular, created major new stresses on honeybees.
Added to the deadly mix doing in honeybees is the bacterial disease, foulbrood, which is a spore that is contagious and easily spread. It can wipe out a hive in no time. Since the hives are basically contaminated and replacing them with new ones adds up in costs for the beekeepers, a method is needed to clean and reclaim for reuse, Remsburger said. One currently in use involves sending the contaminated hives to a place that irradiates them with Cobalt 60. Remsburger said he is currently experimenting with another method that includes using peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide, a product developed by the Minntech Corp., which is biodegradable and used in disinfecting cleanrooms in the semiconductor industry.
Remsburger said he is more optimistic this year than last that a solution will be found to CCD. He was encouraged by the action taken by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California who last year introduced the Pollinator Protection Act.
On May 15, the Senate passed the 2008 farm bill that included Boxer’s honeybee provision, which authorizes up to $100 million over five years for “high priority research dedicated to maintaining and protecting our honeybee and native pollinator populations.”
To help stem his own losses, Remsburger has worked out agreements with the farmers on whose land he has hives to let him know when they plan to spray their crops so he can remove his hives.
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From the Summer "About Town" for Northern Dutchess County...
[ http://www.abouttown.us/dutchess/articles/summer08/listen.shtml ]
"Listen to the Bees"
Peggy O'Brien interviews Sam Comfort of Anarchy Apiaries
[excerpt here below]
Editors' Note: For more than a year now, newspapers have been sounding the alarm about the impending breakdown of a vital link in our national food chain: the sudden, inexplicable disappearance and death of millions of commercially-raised honeybees. While food philosopher Michael Pollen has speculated that the affliction, baptized Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD, may be a byproduct of our commercialized food production systems, most scientists and the USDA seem to remain stumped. AboutTown was therefore delighted to learn that the young apiarist and recent Bard Graduate Sam Comfort was setting up a bee education program in our area and we asked local beekeeper Peggy O'Brien to interview him.
Q: Is the current bee decline a sudden crisis?
A: Despite the recent media attention, the current bee decline has been with us for 150 years. The crisis still festers from our lack of understanding of ecosystems. To heed the bees we can't just talk about bees anymore! The health of bees is the health of the land and our own wellness.
Pollinating bees have been around for 80 million years. For one important species, the honeybee, to be stricken with a sudden plethora of ailments raises suspicion of some deeper causes. The latest proclaimed "cause" is called Colony Collapse Disorder, but sometimes the cause is varroa mites, or tracheal mites, or small hive beetles, or chalk brood or foul brood—you name it. Name any of a dozen reasons, most outfits are losing half to two-thirds of their bees every year. Any large beekeeper will tell you it is constant labor to keep hives alive. They are dividing hives to replace losses and artificially stimulating the bees to make it possible. Large crews are needed to keep it all going. Some deeper problems in bee management are at issue, but the industry is just trying to deal with the symptoms.
Q: So what do you think is the main contributory factor of CCD?
A: The industry has always been in quicksand. The more we think we help, the deeper we sink. I think we've stepped over a boundary and put ourselves into the mind of the hive, and bees don't agree with our intrusions into their home or on the landscape. The sub-lethal effects of pesticides, like the popular systemic imidacloprid, compromise bee immunity.
Q: That's a nicotine-related insecticide widely used in heavily-populated areas, on lawns, for flea control on pets, right?
A: Yes, and it and other systemics—insecticides that affect their victims through the plants they enter—are showing up in all kinds of wild plants adjacent to cropland. While supposedly safer for mammals than the organophosphates they are replacing, the new control methods are destroying insect communities and have a long residual in the soil. It takes only parts per billion to compromise honeybee health. Many chemical miticides—mite-killing chemicals—also do not break down in the comb and add to early queen mortality. Because of breeding to make bees "better" in the eyes of a profit-driven industry, the gene pool doesn't have the depth to cope anymore. The bees are very vocal about all this by means of CCD, mite infestations, bacterial diseases like American foul brood, etc.
Q: How do you think we can help them?
A: Bees know what is best for bees. They've been doing it a long time. We need to step aside again. Go back to what the bees want to do. Do not feed them corn syrup and soy flour. Do not bring your bees to support monoculture farming. Do not treat them for mites...
To get in contact with Sam Comfort or learn more about the Bard Bee Program, contact him at anarchyapiaries@hotmail.com or 406-396-8357.
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"Disease, Stress Threaten Bees: Deaths Endanger Farm Industry"
by Michael Woyton [Poughkeepsie Journal 7/21/08]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080721/NEWS01/807210320/1006
PLEASANT VALLEY - Dennis Remsburger makes his living from bees and honey.
But he's a little nervous about whether that will be viable in the future.
What has Remsburger, as well as other beekeepers around the country, worried is colony collapse disorder, the sudden death of entire colonies of honey bees.
"We are a maple syrup producer also," the Pleasant Valley resident said, "so luckily, we have something to fall back on. But we can make more money with honey."
Bees are critical for agricultural pollination of about 130 crops, including almonds, apples, blueberries, pumpkins and broccoli. Honeybees also produce beeswax, which can be made into candles, and the substance for which they are named - honey.
The estimated value of the crops that bees help produce in the United States is $15 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Colony collapse disorder was first reported in November 2006. By February 2007, heavy losses were reported by commercial beekeepers, some of whom lost up to 90 percent of their colonies.
There have been die-offs of honeybees in the past, said Maryann Frazier, senior extension associate at Penn State, citing the varroa mite infestation in the United States in the mid-1980s.
"There have also been a couple of instances of die-offs we have not been able to explain," she said. "Each time these die-offs seem to be more severe."
Parasites, Pesticides
Research at this stage is taking a multipronged approach, looking into a number of causes: pathogens, parasites, pesticides, stress and malnutrition.
"And that is what makes it a long-term problem," Frazier said. "There's not one simple thing.
"It looks like a combination of things coming together, each in its own right complex," she said.
Researchers are exploring how viruses, such as the Israeli acute paralysis virus, might affect bees.
Frazier said they are also looking into protozoan diseases that affect the digestive system.
Relatively new, USDA-approved pesticides called neonicotinoids are also being studied by researchers.
Those pesticides are designed to kill other insects while leaving the bees un-harmed, but they can deliver a sublethal dose of the toxin, Frazier said.
"These things can act on the nervous system and interfere with the bee's ability to learn where the pollen is," she said.
They can also interfere with the immune system, allowing other diseases to have a more significant impact, Frazier said...
Frazier testified in Washington on June 26 before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture.
U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Hudson, is a member of the subcommittee and attended the hearing..."So many of our crops rely on bee pollination, so this is going to affect everyone."
With the agriculture community in the Hudson Valley, the issue has real urgency, she said.
"This is putting our food supply at risk," Gillibrand said about the disorder. "That is a national security issue."
In Pleasant Valley, Remsburger is having a relatively good year - so far.
He has 160 colonies, each with about 50,000 to 70,000 honey bees. In 2007, he had 135 colonies, but lost about 35 over the winter.
But in 2006, he had 56 colonies and 50 of them died. That cost him about $67,000...
He feels the disorder is inflicted on the bees by humans and it's not something that happened out of the blue. "Bees are living creatures and should not be industrialized," he said.
It was important to keep colony collapse disorder and the plight of bees in people's minds, Frazier said. And there needs to be a rethinking about the use of herbicides and pesticides, she added.
"People are kind of addicted to our green lawns without dandelions, but those are great food for honeybees," Frazier said.
Frazier said the impending crisis is a wake-up call.
"Hopefully we are not at a point where this is irreversible," she said.
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Pesticides: Germany Bans Chemicals Linked to Honeybee Devastation
by Alison Benjamin [The Guardian 5/23/08]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/23/wildlife.endangeredspecies?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.
The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.
"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."
Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.
The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.
Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC's Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. "It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe," he said.
Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is "highly toxic" to honeybees.
This is not the first time that Bayer, one of the world's leading pesticide manufacturers with sales of €5.8bn (£4.6bn) in 2007, has been blamed for killing honeybees.
In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking the company to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.
Bayer's best selling pesticide, imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France, has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its widespread use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. A few months ago, the company's application for clothianidin was rejected by French authorities.
Bayer has always maintained that imidacloprid is safe for bees if correctly applied. "Extensive internal and international scientific studies have confirmed that Gaucho does not present a hazard to bees," said Utz Klages, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience.
Last year, Germany's Green MEP, Hiltrud Breyer, tabled an emergency motion calling for this family of pesticides to be banned across Europe while their role in killing honeybees were thoroughly investigated. Her action follows calls for a ban from beekeeping associations and environmental organisations across Europe.
Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: "We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now.
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."
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From http://www.panna.org/mag/summer2008/news/vanishing-bees ...
Vanishing Bees: Victims of Industrial Agriculture
Over the past 30 years, honeybee populations have plummeted 50%. Many factors are contributing to the decline—including systemic pesticides, varroa mites and Nosema Disease—but the greatest threat to the bee’s survival may be the industrial agriculture model that promotes pesticides and monocropping.
When we read about “colony collapse disorder,” we’re hearing about the problems confronting commercial bee-brokers. Natural pollination by wild, resident honeybees and other beneficial insects was the norm only 30 years ago. But natural pollination is no longer possible where traditional habitats have been replaced by weedless, laser-leveled acres planted to a single crop. In California’s Central Valley, vast industrial spreads—artificially maintained by synthetic nitrogen inputs, herbicides and insecticides—are no longer hospitable to native bees, wasps, butterflies or other wildlife.
In May, following the mass deaths of bees and other insects, Germany’s Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) suspended use of eight pesticides after it was found that the bees were killed by clothianidin, the active ingredient in Bayer’s Eldado and Poncho pesticides. BVL also suspended use of four of Bayer’s imidacloprid-based pesticides: Antarc, Chinook, Faibel and Gaucho. Products containing neonicotinoids like imidacloprid and clothianidin account for much of Bayer’s annual agrochemical profits. France’s Comité Scientifique et Technique has declared the chemical a “significant risk” to bees.
As wild pollinators were increasingly forced off the land, Big Ag turned to “domesticated” bees. When up to 90% of U.S. commercial bee colonies went into a tailspin last winter, desperate growers paid premium prices to air-freight one billion “guest worker” bees from Australia to pollinate U.S. fields and orchards.
Commercial honeybees are the insect world’s equivalent of migrant labor. Trucked thousands of miles from one field to another, these bees are forbidden to forage on their own. They are only released to service a particular crop—apples, peaches, oranges, melons—and when they do, they are inevitably exposed to a range of chemical residues. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has identified 58 pesticides that are “highly toxic” to bees, including aldicarb, diazinon and malathion.
It might be more accurate to call commercial colonies “prison colonies.” Trucked from state to state, these captive bees are force-fed a diet of high fructose corn syrup and soy protein—a poor substitute for pollen. This cheap, high-fiber, low-protein, junk-food bee feed is derived from genetically modified corn that has been engineered to contain Bt—a bacterial insecticide.
And now more of the honeybees’ native “homeland” in the prairies of the Midwest—historic vistas of pollen-rich asters and goldenrods—are set to be plowed under and monocropped to make corn ethanol to fuel America’s automobiles.
There is an alternative. “This country has 4,500 species of native insects that are potential pollinators,” Gina Covina writes in Terrain magazine. “On the East Coast, where farms are much smaller, more diverse, and broken up by uncultivated land, native insects account for up to 90% of crop pollination.” In Costa Rica, studies have shown coffee yields increase 20% when crops are grown within a kilometer of a forest. In Canada, canola yields increased on farms that preserved 30% of the land as natural habitat.
“Fortunately,” Covina notes, “insects are quick to recolonize formerly dead areas—hedgerows, windbreaks, wetlands, woodlots.” But the survival of Earth’s bees will require a fundamental transition from the industrial agriculture model to the biodiverse ecological model.
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From http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/758080 ...
Bee Deaths Attributed to Pesticide Clothianidin
Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.
The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.
"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."
Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.
The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.
Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC's Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. "It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe," he said.
Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is "highly toxic" to honeybees.
This is not the first time that Bayer, one of the world's leading pesticide manufacturers with sales of €5.8bn (£4.6bn) in 2007, has been blamed for killing honeybees.
In the United States, a group of beekeepers from North Dakota is taking the company to court after losing thousands of honeybee colonies in 1995, during a period when oilseed rape in the area was treated with imidacloprid. A third of honeybees were killed by what has since been dubbed colony collapse disorder.
Bayer's best selling pesticide, imidacloprid, sold under the name Gaucho in France, has been banned as a seed dressing for sunflowers in that country since 1999, after a third of French honeybees died following its widespread use. Five years later it was also banned as a sweetcorn treatment in France. A few months ago, the company's application for clothianidin was rejected by French authorities.
Bayer has always maintained that imidacloprid is safe for bees if correctly applied. "Extensive internal and international scientific studies have confirmed that Gaucho does not present a hazard to bees," said Utz Klages, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience.
Last year, Germany's Green MEP, Hiltrud Breyer, tabled an emergency motion calling for this family of pesticides to be banned across Europe while their role in killing honeybees were thoroughly investigated. Her action follows calls for a ban from beekeeping associations and environmental organisations across Europe.
Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: "We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now. 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
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From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19233858/ ...
Bee killers? Pesticides Are a Probable Cause
By Genaro C. Armas
June. 14, 2007
[© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.]
LEWISBURG, Pa. - Scientists investigating a mysterious ailment that killed many of the nation's honeybees are concentrating on pesticides and a new pathogen as possible culprits, and some beekeepers are already trying to keep their colonies away from pesticide-exposed fields.
After months of study, researchers are finding it difficult to tie the die-off to any single factor, said Maryann Frazier, a senior extension associate in Penn State University's entomology department.
"Two things right now ... that are really keeping us focused are the pathogen and the role of pesticides," Frazier said.
Scientists from Penn State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are leading the research into colony-collapse disorder, including study of the yet-to-be identified pathogen, a microorganism capable of causing disease.
But commercial beekeeper David Hackenberg isn't waiting to take action. He's asking growers whether they use pesticides on fields before bringing his bees for pollination.
Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 tasty flowering crops, including apples, nuts and citrus fruit.
Hackenberg, 58, trucks his bees around the country for pollination — from oranges in Florida to blueberries in Maine. He was the first beekeeper to report the disorder to Penn State researchers last fall, having lost nearly 75 percent of his 3,200 colonies.
He said he is convinced pesticides, and in particular a kind of pesticide called neonicotinoids, were harming his bees.
"I'm quizzing every farmer around," Hackenberg said. "If you're going to use that stuff, then you're going to have go to somebody else."
The beekeeper of 45 years is back up 2,400 colonies and doesn't want to lose his bees again.
He and his son, Davey Hackenberg, who operate Hackenberg Apiaries, are considering raising prices to cover the cost of replacing hives that may die off because of colony collapse. They charge about $90 a hive now to "lease" their bees in fields; it costs $120 to replace a hive with new bees, the Hackenbergs said.
Beekeeper Jim Aucker, of Millville, was left with just 240 of his 1,200 hives earlier this spring after the illness struck. He said he's back up to just under 600 now. He is convinced pesticides are playing a role.
"I have found spray materials in our dead hives. Whether it's 100 percent the cause, I'm not sure, but I'm positive it's not helping," Aucker said. He doesn't plan to return to fields where he thinks there might be a pesticide problem.
Daniel Weaver, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, said he wasn't surprised some beekeepers were staying away from fields with insecticides.
"I try to limit my association to growers that I know will be responsible bending over backward and to go out of their way to avoid pesticide application while the bees are flying," he said of his own colonies. "Of course, I can't escape it completely."
He also cautioned what other scientists have echoed — that bees' immune systems might be weakened and vulnerable for reasons besides pathogens and pesticides, such as mites.
Bayer Crop Science is one of the top producers of the neonicotinoid pesticides in the country, and the product has been on the market since 1994.
"We have done a significant amount of research on our products, and we are comfortable this it is not the cause," said company spokesman John Boyne, an entomologist by training.
"The current research indicates that a number of nonchemical causes may be to blame," Boyne said when asked beekeepers' concerns regarding pesticides. Bayer is cooperating with federal and university scientists.
Some of the neonicotinic pesticides are available in stores to homeowners, though some bottles may not have the same warning labels as those available commercially, researchers and beekeepers said. Bayer officials said they were not aware of the issue but were looking into it.
Some beekeepers worry fruit and vegetable growers may be spraying pesticides in ways other than the directions on labels, said University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk. His survey of beekeepers found instances of colony collapse in about 35 states.
Reports are across the board as of mid-June, a time when bee colonies are supposed to be thriving. Some beekeepers have said they are losing bees, while others are holding steady or growing colonies again.
Hackenberg said he went to the extreme of trying to disinfect many of his hives with radiation.
But he fears what might happen if his bees get struck again. A call came in on his cell phone as he worked with a thriving hive of honeybees on a hill above his house — a caller was trying to line up bees for 2008.
"Yeah, we sell bees," Hackenberg said, "if we're still in business next year."
Sincerely,
have read the The Petition to Save the Bees Petition to U.S. Residents, and I hereby sign the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/savebees/petition-sign.html
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Petition created on September 24, 2009