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Neonic facts

69K views 212 replies 30 participants last post by  Ian 
#1 ·
Until actual FACTS are presented that neonics were found IN THE DEAD BEES of deadouts by scientific methods please do not continue to present the conjecture that the bees existance is coming to an end because of it. Opinion is one thing....having proof is entirely different...and so far no proof has been presented. Until that time start your dribble by "in my opinion".
 
#72 · (Edited)
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

Not sure, it was the adjoining orchard. But when I took my bees into the orchard they were strong, mostly 7-8 frames. They were going downhill at petal drop and then some took until July to recover and some haven't made the winter. I suspect pollen poisoning.Maybe some pesticide residue in the tanks. I spoke to the farmer and he refused to tell me what it was, just "it won't hurt your bees. Some of the spray was withing 50 yards of my hives.
 
#73 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

Not sure, it was the adjoining orchard. But when I took my bees into the orchard they were strong, mostly 7-8 frames. They were going downhill at petal drop and then some took until July to recover and some haven't made the winter. I suspect pollen poisoning.Maybe some pesticide residue in the tanks. I spoke to the farmer and he refused to tell me what it was, just "it won't hurt your bees. Some of the spray was withing 50 yards of my hives.
This is all quite believable. Maybe your response to his comment should have been "I sure hope not because if there is something in there killing my bees then I might lose my bees and you might not get much of an apple crop this year either". I am convinced that fungicides are detrimental to bees to some degree based on some peculiarities that I have observed in some hives that have just come off of the Almonds. The signs do seem to disappear pretty quickly though.
 
#74 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

He had a beekeeper bring in bees 2 days later. My farmer wanted bees at King bloom so I was in early. Don't know how the other beekeeper fared. Not going back there this year. Maybe I need to quit pollination altogether. I have some small contracts that are pretty good and I'll keep those but those orchard forests may be too toxic.
 
#79 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I'm joining you! I'm also not pollinating cran anymore. Too much trouble with the hives after coming out. I lost money on my pollination contracts this year. Sucks, thought it would work out. Should have asked you.
Are their pesticide problems in cranberry or is it just the poor quality of the pollen and lack of nectar?
 
#78 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

interesting link cam.

despite the lack of any tangible results one way or the other, it looks like the eu commission is still considering a vote soon to suspend neonic use for two years, even though it will mean 20% in the yields of some crops and considerable economic loss.

it will be interesting to see how they vote.

i am not aware of any such measures being contemplated on this side of the atlantic.
 
#80 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I think it's suspicious in the extreme that neonics came on to the market in 2003 and CCD got its recognition in 2006. Is it just the neonics? Probably not, what no-one seems to be testing for is synergism between these and the plethora of other agrichemicals used to control other pests and diseases. Why they aren't testing for this is obvious, the number of variables is huge and the complexity of such a study would be quite extreme and so equally expensive to run.

BTW I think it very bad form to personally attack someone for expressing an opinion, Stromnessbees has done nothing but ask a question based on their current understanding of the science. Is their understanding right or wrong? I don't know, but they have a right to question and postulate, and we had/have the right to answer and expand on the science and so either confirm or disprove things.

What we don't have a right to do is to vilify and insult a person just because their reading lead them to a different understanding of the facts. <--this is separate because I think it's an important point that should not be missed.....
 
#84 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I think it's suspicious in the extreme that neonics came on to the market in 2003 and CCD got its recognition in 2006. -praxis178
No, that's not right. Neonicotinoids were created in the late 70s or early 80s, and first entered the market in about 1990. Imidacloprid specifically entered the market in 1992. Its use increased rapidly. The amount used in the US peaked in 2003, dropped back each year until 2009, and started increasing again in 2010.

The amount used in 2006 was very similar to the amount used in 2000.
 
#85 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

don't worry about it sergery. spirited discussion and debate are what makes this forum great.

my point of view has been changed from time to time thanks to the willingness of those here that are willing to share theirs.

the only thing that i find difficult to accept is when someone takes a position but cannot offer a reasonable underlying rationale for it.

and when competing rationales are offered, and at the end of the day, we all get to decide for ourselves what our personal take is.

welcome to america!
 
#89 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

The factual events is Neonics have only been evaluated by obviously unreliable sources. and by unreliable tests. -Daniel Y
I'm not sure what you believe to be "reliable" versus "unreliable." Neonicotinoids certainly do pose threats to bees, as well as almost every other insect. The problem to me comes from the emphatic assertions that "neonicotinoids cause CCD." I see no cause-and-effect link. They almost certainly contribute to problems, maybe even contribute to CCD, but they do not seem to be the single cause.

Maybe you term me as "unreliable." Not much I can do about that if you do. A few years ago, I was involved in some pesticide research as part of a job I had. I worked with any number of insecticides, mostly to determine efficacies, rates, and even assess some new products that were not (and some still are not) on the market. The position was a government position, was not funded by chemical companies, and some of the research demonstrated that products did not always work as intended. Not only that, some of the insecticides were not effective against the target insects as they were labeled for application.

Back in 2007, as part of a post in a thread here on Beesource, I posted this:

Just to give some more specific information, some of the test plots where different insecticides are compared are less than one mile from one of my bee yards. I have helped apply pesticides to those plots for the last two years, usually spraying some of bees in the process. Those bees have been sprayed with almost every form of neonicotinoid on the market, most forms of pyrethroids available, organophosphates, carbamates, and so on. While I have witnessed some pesticide poisoning among those bees from time to time, I have not lost any other those hives to pesticide poisoning or to CCD. Nothing statistical about those observations, but they do pretty well eliminate the simple "cause-and-effect" idea about neonicotinoids and CCD. Not only were those bees exposed to low doses of neonicotinoids, they were exposed to high doses (foliar applications, made while the bees were working), and for two consecutive years. -Kieck
The thread can be found here, if anyone is interested: http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...icides-neonicotinoids&highlight=neonicotinoid

Those fields included test plots treated with every neonicotinoid on the market as seed treatments and as foliar treatments, as well as a wide range of classes of insecticides. It included insecticides that have yet to reach the market and maybe never will. I left that job in 2009.

As of yet, I have not seen first-hand anything that could realistically be considered CCD. I consider myself fortunate, but I am also convinced by this that it is not a simple cause-and-effect of neonicotinoids (or other pesticides). If it was, it should not have failed to appear in those hives. Those were the only managed hives within four miles of the test plots, and almost certainly the source of the bees that I observed in those plots while spraying.
 
#90 · (Edited)
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I've posted this before, but it really summarizes what I think causes most problems with our bees. Do insecticides play a part, I believe so. But also fungicides, miticides, etc. But virus issues, vectored by varroa are the real culprit. IMO, keep varroa under control and the other issues are manageable.

PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e43562. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043562. Epub 2012 Aug 21.
Pathogen webs in collapsing honey bee colonies.
Cornman RS, Tarpy DR, Chen Y, Jeffreys L, Lopez D, Pettis JS, vanEngelsdorp D, Evans JD.
Source

Bee Research Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland, United States of America.
Abstract

Recent losses in honey bee colonies are unusual in their severity, geographical distribution, and, in some cases, failure to present recognized characteristics of known disease. Domesticated honey bees face numerous pests and pathogens, tempting hypotheses that colony collapses arise from exposure to new or resurgent pathogens. Here we explore the incidence and abundance of currently known honey bee pathogens in colonies suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), otherwise weak colonies, and strong colonies from across the United States. Although pathogen identities differed between the eastern and western United States, there was a greater incidence and abundance of pathogens in CCD colonies. Pathogen loads were highly covariant in CCD but not control hives, suggesting that CCD colonies rapidly become susceptible to a diverse set of pathogens, or that co-infections can act synergistically to produce the rapid depletion of workers that characterizes the disorder. We also tested workers from a CCD-free apiary to confirm that significant positive correlations among pathogen loads can develop at the level of individual bees and not merely as a secondary effect of CCD. This observation and other recent data highlight pathogen interactions as important components of bee disease. Finally, we used deep RNA sequencing to further characterize microbial diversity in CCD and non-CCD hives. We identified novel strains of the recently described Lake Sinai viruses (LSV) and found evidence of a shift in gut bacterial composition that may be a biomarker of CCD. The results are discussed with respect to host-parasite interactions and other environmental stressors of honey bees.

PMID:
22927991
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
PMCID:
PMC3424165

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22927991

full paper free at the above link.
 
#91 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I agree with you on that one Camero. Even if my goal was to develop treatment free stock, once I get there, I'm going to work in a Fall mite treatment to start spring as clean as possible as needed. Harboring pests/vectors with your resistant/tolerant lines is just askiing for them to break it and I think a few people have experienced similar situations last year/this year where they were comfortable with seeing mites and some DWV with no issues in the past, now they've lost a good percentage of their hives and are seriously rethinking that strategy of just letting it go. Other factors could be in play though, but I think controlling your vectors is key, most resistances/tolerance have a threshold and bees are too dynamic to rely on any one strategy IMO.
 
#97 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I will correct my comment and remove the "Only" Since it is impossible for me to know every study made of these pesticides. I should have said the only studies I know of where done by unreliable sources. mainly allowing Bayer to test their own products.

I also do not agree there is enough evidence to say these pesticides are the sole cause of anything.

Consider this though. Neonicotinoids is just a fancy pants way of saying Nicotine. Since when is that considered harmless?
 
#99 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

Okay, that last one is an example of just how far off conjuncture can get. Nicotine is a chemical present in the tobacco. tobacco actually produces it. This does not mean that everything that smokes has nicotine in it. The truth is it is not the nicotine in tobacco that is bad. it is all the other garbage they put in it to make commercial cigarettes. but that is another very long discussion.

Anyway the amount of nicotine when you smoke your bees will depend on the amount of nicotine in the material you are burning. Nicotine will survive being burned. it will survive passing through a plant is it grows. it will remain in the nectar and it will survive the process of being made into honey. It will also remain in your bee. The reason you cannot detect it is because you cannot separate it from what it is bonded to in order to detect it. One way to come up with clean tests is to test in a way that cannot possible show any result but negative. You know that little question sheet they give you at the end of a training. that one that you cannot possibly fail. they call that a test also.
 
#101 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

Anyway the amount of nicotine when you smoke your bees will depend on the amount of nicotine in the material you are burning. Nicotine will survive being burned. it will survive passing through a plant is it grows. it will remain in the nectar and it will survive the process of being made into honey. It will also remain in your bee.
I've been hearing about tobbacco as smoker fuel all my life, but never tried it. However, last year, acquired some tobbacco seeds which I planted, and ended up with 96 tobbacco plants. Harvested the leaves, and now I roll a couple into each sack roll that goes into the smoker.

A rather pungent smoke, but does burn well the smoker will always put out o good cloud of smoke when I want it. Had been told you can see varroa mites drop off the bees if you use tobbacco so been looking out for that, but no luck.

No ill effects of the bees though. Are neonicitiniods really nicotine? Or something like it, or what?
 
#100 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I will correct my comment and remove the "Only" Since it is impossible for me to know every study made of these pesticides. I should have said the only studies I know of where done by unreliable sources. mainly allowing Bayer to test their own products.
The study I posted above was not done by Bayer, maybe you should read it.
 
#102 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

How I miss using nicotine bombs in the gh too... I think Jerry Brown was the guys name, whoever that gardner on public tv was, he was always making concoctions out of household stuff to treat your plants. He would make a tea from chewing tobaco to add into his stuff to kill insects.
 
#109 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

I believe those were all rat studies. Often don't translate to humans, although RR may qualify.
Um, I'm not them, but I do work in the bio-medical science field.

All mammals have (with very minor differences) the same nicotinic receptor systems, so if it affects rats you can be sure it affects humans (we get addicted to nicotine after all). The use of rats for this study was a costs and ethics decision, rats cost less and have a low ethics approval requirement than the use of human subjects.....

So to put this another way, would you be happy if we laced our baby food with nicotine? I know this is a VERY polarized and extreme example, but the premise holds, we don't allow the harm of our infants so why do we set up our bees to HAVE to <potentially, the jury is still out> harm theirs?
 
#106 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

They have a similar molecular structure ... -Radar Sidetrack
Exactly.

In an "evolutionary arms race," plants that are damaged by insects evolve by relying on adaptations to reduce the damage done by herbivores. Some plants grow extra hairs, some produce thorns or spines, some have tough coverings, some make chemicals that make them unpalatable or even toxic. The insects adapt to those, and the plants adapt again. And so on. We end up with plants that produce some nasty methods to avoid being eaten by insects (and other creatures) and insects that can eat some nasty stuff.

Tobacco plants are an example of a plant that produced a toxin to reduce herbivory by insects. That toxin is nicotine. Nicotine is sold in a purified form for use as an insecticide, too.

Nicotine is harmful to bees, as well.
 
#110 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

>we don't allow the harm of our infants so why do we set up our bees to HAVE to <potentially, the jury is still out> harm theirs?

could it be for the very same reason that some form or another of pesticide has been utilized for a very long time now?

a. so farmers can make a living
b. so the chemcial companies make a profit
c. so we can all have food to eat
d. all of the above
e. none of the above

(and there's always the possibility of a vast underground conspiricy to wipe honeybees of the face of the planet)
 
#111 ·
Re: Summer bees vs winter bees?

>we don't allow the harm of our infants so why do we set up our bees to HAVE to <potentially, the jury is still out> harm theirs?

could it be for the very same reason that some form or another of pesticide has been utilized for a very long time now?

a. so farmers can make a living
b. so the chemcial companies make a profit
c. so we can all have food to eat
d. all of the above
e. none of the above

(and there's always the possibility of a vast underground conspiricy to wipe honeybees of the face of the planet)
Remind me again why there are withholding periods for all crops grown that have chemical applications as part of their cultivation?

Is it because we know they are not good for us and can cause harm to the consumer or is it just because the EPA felt like it? If we are will to impose these restriction of time between application and sale for our protection why don't the animal underpinning ~33%of the US agri sector profits also get the same respect?

Is it because suddenly we would need to address the fact that systemic insecticides don't just stay where we want them but end up permeating the entire plant and it's immediate environment? I'm not saying chemicals have no place in agriculture, I'm just asking why do we afford greater protection to ourselves, and then wonder why something is having an undesired effect on a non-target (aka "an off target" effect in the pharmaceutical world which gets drugs pulled all the time) species?

BTW to claim that neonics have no impact on bees is just plain silly, it has a lethal dose in bees so ergo it has an effect, even if as at this time the exact effect of a sub-lethal dose is poorly known or unknown.

One final VERY OT note, when Chinese toy makers got a trace of lead, at levels WAY below the human lethal dose, into the paint used in toys imported to the USA, what did the US do? It banned all the toys and slapped punitive restrictions on those makers. The trace of lead probably got added to meet points A, B, and C of the above.....

We seem to be quite ready to ban things when it suits us, DDT a very safe (to humans) chemical, because it was thinning the shells of raptors and other apex predator birds (all arguably of no or little economic value), but in the case of bees, which as stated, under pin ~33% of the food we eat, we aren't willing to consider it?
 
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