Superb video documentry on the partnership of government (EPA) and poison manufacturers - which has generated $billions - at the expense of killing off more than 10 million American bee colonies since 2003
This was made by a team from Earth Focus channel and is hosted on LINK TV.
Includes interviews ith many important bee-famers, most of the key scientific researchers and a good many of the leading campaigners against systemic pesticides.
Please watch and pass on.
Killing Bees: Are Government and Industry Responsible?
(Earth Focus: Episode 44) Honey bees, the essential pollinators of many major US crops, have been dying off in massive numbers since 2006. This threatens the American agricultural system and the one in twelve American jobs that depends on it. There is growing evidence that a new class of pesticides -- nerve toxins called neonicotinoids, which are used on most US crops including almost all corn -- may be toxic to bees. The Environmental Protection Agency allowed neonicotinoids on the market without adequate tests to determine their toxicity to bees. Environmentalists want neonicotinoids banned until needed safety tests are done. While the US government is slow to act and neonicotinoid sales reap billions for the chemical industry, bees continue to die. Earth Focus reports.
Well your comment implies that you are commenting even BEFORE you have watched the documentary.
Are you being unbiased and open-minded? It sounds like your mind is pretty well made up before you even bothered to click on the link?
when you and stromnessbees (who I assume must be one of your gang) start a thread I don't need to read the links although I do, your side post no facts, just unsuported claims, I have better thing to do than listen to gibberish. If I was you, I would ban all uses of chemicals on all agricultural product, so we could export even more food to you, or not.
when you and stromnessbees (who I assume must be one of your gang) start a thread I don't need to read the links although I do, your side post no facts, just unsuported claims, I have better thing to do than listen to gibberish.
I've learned that posts from Stromm and Border are heavy on unsubstantiated and hyped up claims with very similar axes to grind. If anything, they do themselves a disservice because anyone who actually looks at what they post objectively realizes this and discounts them accordingly.
I certainly don't trust the ethics of most company's in America, if they have a chance to make money and pay fines later they will. I don't believe these products can be healthy for our bees and I am sure there are farmers just like beekeepers who don't follow the directions when using chemicals, but if they are used as widespread as they are shouldn't we all be feeling the effects.
Shouldn't beekeepers who are exposed to these chemicals have massive die offs each year?
now I am getting worried, not only am I old but I have to watch out for the neonics
but actually what I have read said and I can't quote it doesn't have any affect on humans, but now that does bring up an interesting topic for another thread. are beeks human:scratch:
Actually Nicotinoids do have have an effect, we have on most of our neural cells nicotinic receptors*, which are activated by the functional (aka pharmaphor) backbone (nicotine) of these chemicals. So yes be scared/worried because at some point the dose level we are exposed to will reach threshold.
BTW this is why I can see why it would effect the homing capacity of bees.....
Cheers, Thomas. (Bio-medical science major, USC)
*these receptors are actually called muscarinic receptors and are supposed to be activated by acetylcholine, but are also activated by muscarine (death cap mushroom), nicotine, caffeine etc.
I had breakfast with two Californians yesterday and I mentioned bees. They replied that in the last couple of summers they often had bees flying into their houses and dying there.
Apparently they had never noticed this strange behavior before.
Of course I explained to them, that this might well have something to do with neonic pesticides ...
I don't really think illegal rates are a problem Bill. With neonics there are no dosages to calculate at least by the user, the seed itself is treated. Foliar spraying, on the other hand, does require mixing and sprayer calibrations. This has greatly improved in recent years, any farmer that wants to apply spray must take classes and pass a test to get certified. Despite that, the stuff they are using is designed to kill most every insect it contacts and applicators are often dealing with narrow treatment windows because of wind and other environmental conditions. Even the most diligent are probably going to kill a few bees in some situations.
I'm curious, borderbeeman, what's your stake in this issue in the United States? You seem to be a staunch activist about the topic in the U. S., yet your location is listed as Edinburgh, UK.
I'm starting to think that they (borderbeeman and strombees) actually work for the chemical companies and are getting us to prove that they don't affect the bees. There are enough people on the forums in Europe keeping track of borderbeeman that he's trying to inflict us with his jibberish.
Why does it never seem to occur to anyone that OUR food (humans) is now contaminated with neonicotinoids, not to mention Bt toxin. You can't wash them off. They permeate the entire plant. The Bt toxin is now in the genes and in every cell. The neonicontinoids also permeate the entire plant but by a different mechanism. That's the principle of how it works. That is it's mechanism. Then we eat the plant. I like my bees, but I'm much more concerned about my grandchildren.
You have no monopoly on concern for our grandchildren Mr. Bush. in a perfect world there would be no bad insects eating our crops and plenty of food for everyone. If you have proof that our grandchildren are being affected by these systemic pesticides please provide it. if you have proof that systemic pesticides are more damaging than our past widespread use of foliar pesticides please provide that as well.
But how much concern do the chemical companies have for our grandchildren? In a perfect world there would be a natural balance of insects and soil organisms to control "bad" insects, and food production would probably be small-scale, local, and chemical-free for the most part.
Jim, I actually think it should work the other way around... with the chemical companies providing such a high degree of proof before introducing products! Wasn't the past widespread use of foliar pesticides that you referred to considered safe and effective at the time? Ten years from now we may look at the current crop of chemicals and practices in the same light as we now do with those.
Excellent point, although I think quite a number of things need to be added. All classes of pesticides should be included, not just neonicotinoids. Herbicides show up in drinking water samples, insecticides are fogged into the air to target mosquitoes, fungicides are applied widely to cereal crops.
And byproducts of manufacturing find their way throughout the environment, too. Perfluoro chemicals show up in the blood of arctic marine mammals, as well as in the blood of most Americans.
Good points all. Wouldn't we all want to live in a world without risk. I have long been an advocate of less may well be better than more and I practice that in our beekeeping as well. We as a society have an obligation to make intelligent choices when risk intersects with need. But for someone to reduce this argument to one of caring vs. not caring I think is unfair.
It also often mixes fungicides with pesticides which may make each one more deadly. I am much more concerned about fungicides than neonics. I have seen some of my hives crash after an orchard was sprayed with a fungicide [maybe pesticide residue in the tanks?] I have bees very close to neonic corn and those bees are fine. Just my observations, coupled with every well done study has never shown any damage from neonics except at corn planting time with air driven planters and talc dust.
Consider this...the weight of a neonoctinoid poison that is lethal to a bee...is 20 millionths of the weight of the bee....
The contact acute LD50 is 0.024 µg a.i./bee (micrograms of active ingredient per bee).[16] The acute oral LD50 ranges from 0.005 µg a.i./bee to 0.07 µg a.i./bee, which makes imidacloprid more toxic to the bees than the organophosphate dimethoate (oral LD50 0.152 µg/bee) or the pyrethroid cypermethrin (oral LD50 0.160 µg/bee).[15] Other insecticides that are equally or more toxic than imidacloprid include Spinosad, emamectin benzoate, Fipronil, and the neonicotinoids Clothianidin, Thiamethoxam, and Dinotefuran.[17]
Do neonics have any effect on the mite population? That's been my problem. I see documents of beekeepers that hive near multi acres of treated crops and have little problem. I my area very little agi areas....my bees still die. Are vaorroa mites resistant to neonics? Some of you PHD's should have an answer.
The title of this thread implies that government and pesticide companies are conspiring to make and sell neonicotinoids. Where do the people who want such products to improves their production or reduce parasite problems or kill pests in their yards and gardens fit into this? Where do the consumers who want inexpensive food and fuel and other agricultural commodities fit into this?
There's a ton of corn within range of my bees. They may very well have memory issues. I have to repeat the stern warnings for them to stay away from it quite often.
Only the beekeepers that assume neonics are poisoning their bees are to believed, everyone else is a paid shill for the chemical companies. Sorry I cant say much more at the moment, my limousine is waiting.
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