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EPA & Nicotine bees

5K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Bud Dingler 
#1 ·
Posted on Bee-L by Bob Harrison
A well informed and intouch commercial beekeeping who's facts & thought I highly value.
Larry



Hello All,
The latest film on the neonicotinoids will be released June. I am in possession of the entire letter and can send to interested parties. I expect the entire letter to be published in one of the magazines listed below before long.

The letter is a request to suspend registration of the neonicotinoids for two years in the hardest hit areas of die off under the provisions of FIFRA and explains the reasons why.

I can say from direct experience that California is needing hives. My contacts in Texas & Florida report many calls and horror stories of large scale losses.

Both Bee Culture & the American Bee Journal have been sent the entire letter.

Quotes from the letter :
"We think the crisis is not mysterious. The answers are relatively clear-cut , from evidence across the U.S.,numerous studies in Europe and Canada, neonicotinoids bans in Europe have allowed beekeepers to successfully restore their colonies"

"In the film ,we have tried to systematically rule-out some of the widely -reported possible causes of the massive die off to find the one underlying explanation that really works, all over the world, at the same time, with the same bizarre behavior: bees simply leaving their precious honey and young bees behind. They don't come home"

Below is the email sent with the attachment letter to the EPA.
To:
Laurel Hopwood, Sierra Club
Aaron Colangelo, Esq., NRDC
Brita Belli, Editor, E-Magazine
Cheryl Long, Mother Earth News
Darren Cox, American Honey Producers Association
Dave Hackenberg, Hackenberg Apiaries
Dr. Charles Benbrook, The Organic Center
Dr. Neil Carman, Sierra Club
Hedwig Riebe, DBIB, Germany
Jerry Brown, American Honey Producers Association
Jim Bobb, Eastern Apiculture Society
Jimmy Durchslag, Mainstream Media
Joe Lewis, Harford Honey
John McDonald, Beekeeper
Karl-Rainer Koch, IT Magazin, Germany
Louis Sahagun, LA Times
Nikki Schwab, Washington Examiner
Philipp Mimkes, Coalition against Bayer Dangers (Germany)
Roger Greenway, ENN.com
Stan Sandler, PEI, Canada
Dr. Vandana Shiva, Navdanya, India
Walter Haefeker, European Professional Beekeepers Association, Germany
cc: Robert W. Whetzel Esq., counsel

Subject:
Letter to the USEPA from the Director of the film Nicotine Bees, requesting a 2-year neonicotinyl usage moratorium and other specific actions on the honeybee die-off issue

Hello everyone:

The attached letter is our request sent to the USEPA for a 2-year neonicotinyl usage moratorium in a 'test region' such as California or Florida, and other specific actions on the honeybee die-off issue for the United States.

We attempted to compile the many important recommendations of the experts and beekeepers and farmers we spoke with, and frame them as actions that could be taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) - the regulatory body in the US most relevant for the majority of concerns.

I hope the actions noted in the letter prove to be a useful reference point for our joint understanding, and move us towards a rapid improvement in conditions for the honeybees, pollinators, people and the world.

Thanks for all of your efforts here,
Cheers,
Kevin

--
Kevin Hansen, LEED AP, PG
Director, Nicotine Bees, the movie


"Sustainability is a state of perpetual vitality supported by the resources local to a place" - Sandy Wiggins

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#2 ·
I have received a copy of the "Letter to the USEPA from the Director of the film Nicotine Bees"

Excerpts from the letter:

> To: Mr. Stephen A. Owens Assistant Administrator Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances US Environmental Protection Agency

> Dear Mr. Owens: I am the Director of a new film called Nicotine Bees, a documentary just released on the serious worldwide, simultaneous die‐offs of the honeybee.

> Worldwide, simultaneous bee dieoffs are easily explained by nicotine pesticide use. The ‘body of evidence’ for problems with nicotine pesticides is substantially larger now than at the time of most of their current registrations, for most of their current uses.

> Major crop losses from reduced honeybee pollination services can clearly exist at sub-lethal neonicotinoid concentrations – please see the well‐known work of Professor Dr. Jürgen Tautz in Germany.

* I had a very hard time finding anything by Dr. Tautz about CCD or neonics. There was this from the National Wildlife Federation http://www.nwf.org/

> "When bees are healthy, people are happy," says Tautz. But lately, some honeybees have seemed anything but healthy. For the past two years, many North American beekeepers have reported abrupt disappearances of all adult bees from colonies, with some losing bees in as many as two-thirds of their hives. Though U.S. beekeepers have been hardest hit by CCD, apiarists in Europe have reported similar honeybee problems. "We don't have a really good explanation" for what causes CCD, says Tautz.

> "Our goal is to understand the complex natural fighting of diseases by honeybees," adds the scientist. The group's RFID technology helped researchers discover one such strategy the insects have evolved to protect colonies from viruses or other pathogens. "When individual honeybees are infected, they undergo fairly quickly a change in their nervous system," explains Tautz, "and change in nervous system means change in behavior, and change in behavior in this case means there are problems in orientation and navigation." In short, the sick bee gets lost. Unable to find its way home, it conveniently dies away from the colony. "This is a very, very clever measure of nature to clean the colony of such carriers of pathogens," Tautz adds.

* Dr. Tautz co-authored a paper on "Immune-Related Proteins Induced in the Hemolymph After Aseptic and Septic Injury Differ in Honey Bee Worker Larvae and Adults" in Insect Biochemstry and Physiology 69:155–167 (2008).

> Because of their social lifestyle with a very high population density in their hives, honey bees are especially vulnerable to infection by pathogens.

* Not to belabor the point but Dr. Tautz clearly is not the poster child for neonicotinoids. He not only states that we don't know why bees are dying in large numbers but he suggest an alternative hypothesis (to neonics): they're sick.

plb
 
#5 ·
looks like to me and several other beekeepers that these tree hugger groups are being used as a tool by the beekeepers who are drinking the Bayer Kool Aid.

wonder how these tree hugger types would feel if they new how many chems the beekeepers featured in the movie were dumping into their hives? (sshh we don't want to talk about that little problem though do we?:eek:)

This letter is nothing more then a promotional PR news release for a new movie. No science or any new information here....yawn:sleep:
 
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