Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Legislation to Restrict Neonics Proposed By Oregon Representative

21K views 76 replies 12 participants last post by  mac 
#1 · (Edited)
#3 ·
Go Oregon!!!

In the wake of the death of over 50,000 bumblebees last month in Wilsonville Oregon, and growing concern about the fate of the nation's honeybees and the role the neonicotinoids may be playing in Colony Collapse Disorder, legislation to restrict pesticide use was just proposed by Rep. Blumenauer of Oregon:

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/07/legislation_to_restrict_pestic.html
WELL Some thing is killing the bees. Europe thinks its partly neonicotinoids. If you actually know the answer, please tell us all. The award winning Swiss documentary MORE THAN HONEY is very good. Poses a lot of questions and some answers. Looks at bee keeping in four countries, Switzerland, USA China and Australia (Western Australia, its a big state, over 1 million sq miles). The movie trailer states there is a Noah's Ark for bees and he's been there. Guess where that is.

It is a very serious problem, wish I knew the answer.

Geoff
 
#4 ·
Noah's ark for bees???

How many people her in the US have bees?? How many people rely on wild swarms? How long have bees been in the USA??? and at what level??

Answer these questions and you will realize there are more bees in NA now than ever before!.....

Thats without adding Mason and Bumbles to the list........ ever wonder what we are doing right that there were 50000 bumbles in one spot????
 
#5 ·
There should be no NOAH's Ark. It would be nice if people lived peacefully and that included the bees. The bees have been around for 100 million years. I can't remember that far back. People depending on what you believe, about 7,000 years or 50,000 years.

Since arriving in the USA in about 1622, bees did alright for a long time. Some covered most of the continent. They are very hardy creatures.

The MORE THAN HONEY, features John Miller from Millers Bees. If the BBC program is right, it was his grandfather that first started migratory beekeeping in the US. Perhaps that is why MORE THAN HONEY chose to feature him. John Miller certainly says there is a problem with bees. Perhaps he is wrong.

DAN Rather in a report in early April certainly highlighted a problem in getting enough bees for the almond bloom in California. The price went from $150 to $225 per hive. Four frames of bees were acceptable instead of the normal 5. He may have bee mis-informed. Then again he is only a reporter, so who can trust him.


If there isn't a bee problem in the US, it will the BEST NEWS a lot of people have heard for a long time. Lets hope you are right and the others (including me) are wrong.

Does the GM in GMCHARLIE stand for anything in particular.

I hope your bees do well.

Cheers

Geoff
 
#11 ·
The 6 month sales restriction on Dinotefuran insecticides could be lifted if the Oregon Dept. of Agriculture determines the bee kill was solely due to applicator error.
http://www.valent.com/newsroom/news...t-issues-statement-on-oregon-bee-incident.cfm
"We do not believe the scope of these measures is necessary with the information available, and we will work to get the restrictions lifted as soon as possible."
 
#12 ·
And how long will the secretary of the Oregon Dept. of Ag. hold that position if it is lifted quickly?

You really don't understand how politics works. It's 'the squeeze play'.

The restrictions won't get lifted unless the price is right.

Repeat this thousands of times across the U.S. .

Sound familiar? It's what is most likely occurring in the EU.

A Maltese lawyer doesn't suddenly 'get religion'.

It's death by a thousand cuts for the defendants.

By the way, I did see 'More Than Honey' at an art house.
 
#13 ·
And how long will the secretary of the Oregon Dept. of Ag. hold that position if it is lifted quickly?
You really don't understand how politics works. It's 'the squeeze play'.
This is not a political matter. It's a simple pesticide accident. There will be a civil fine imposed on the applicator or his company of between $1,000 - $10,000. Probably closer to $1,000 if the applicator was confused by the label directions because they do not plainly state: "Do not spray landscape ornamentals when in bloom". Then the ban on Dinotefuran will be lifted and the matter will be closed and forgotten. Valent USA has already paid for the netting that was used to cover the Linden trees until they are finished blooming. No humans were hurt so it's not likely there will be a lawsuit. The neighboring State of Washington has already rejected a petition from the Xerces Society to restrict sales of Dinotefuran.
 
#15 ·
#17 ·
For me and many others, it comes down to burden of proof, and, the precautionary principle. If, after sufficient research, it can be clearly established that neonics do not harm bees and are not contributing to and/or causing CCD, then clearly they should not be banned. However, they should be removed from the market until more research into their role in CCD is conducted.

Where there's smoke, there's usually fire, and there are now dozens of published research papers that show how neonics are causing problems for pollinators. Until we know how to mitigate those problems, the products should not be sold. It's entirely too little, too late to wait for the EPA's 2018 follow-up review on neonic's safety.
 
#18 ·
For me and many others, it comes down to burden of proof, and, the precautionary principle. Neonics should be removed from the market until more research into their role in CCD is conducted.
"It has been shown _over and over_ that neonics and other insecticides harm insects in the lab. If people want to make a case for a ban, they have to show that they cause harm in the field. Not hypothetical harm.
Following the "precautionary principle" no one would do anything new. For example, people were afraid of GM food. There is no evidence that GM food has harmed anybody consuming it. Same with neonics, there is no evidence that neonic treated crops have harmed colonies storing the nectar. The accidental spray and dust kills are another matter, but these have been going on for centuries."
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1307&L=BEE-L&D=1&O=D&P=42700
 
#22 ·
where theres smoke?? we still have guys running around claiming there are POW in Vietnam.........
problem is ecoterrorist are smart... start lots of little fires... scream and squawk despite the facts.... and let the dump people and shameless reporters live on the dung piles left behind....... Kinda like global warming, which used to be global cooling, and now its climate change... Ahh heck who cares lets just tax Americans and give it to someone else and call it good....

Its interesting to note. that a lot of articles list 25,000 as the count.... and suddenly as if by magic the new number is 50K....typical
whats real odd is a quick goggle search will show over 1000 articles on the little bee kill.....
Stupid people who are really bad at math, not even close to understanding the numbers of bees killed by low mowers and raid on a daily basis.

We squawk over the dumbest stuff...... 1000's hits on a few dead bumbles, and not a darn thing on how things are going right........
 
#24 ·
"The manufacturers of these bee-toxic chemicals are currently not required to carry out tests on their potential sub-lethal impact on bees. Unlike older types of pesticides that killed bees if they were unlucky enough to be in a field when it was being sprayed, these newer "neonics" – which are coated on the seeds of crops such as sunflowers, sweetcorn and rape seed oil and are transported through its sap, protecting them from bugs as the plant grows – are not lethal to bees on contact at the doses that have been licensed for use. But what the long-term cumulative impact is we just don't know."

"The licensing authorities also do not require tests on how the pesticides may be affecting bee larvae. Bees collect millions of pollen particles from flowering plants and it's this bee food that contains miniscule amounts of pesticides. Honeybees bring it back to the hive and feed the protein-rich pollen to thousands of larvae before they metamorphosise into adult bees. You'd think the pesticide companies would be asked to prove their wares weren't harmful to these developing bees. But no."

"A colony of honeybees is a superorganism, consisting of up to 50,000 individuals unable to survive by themselves for extended periods of time. To find out how damaging chemicals are to honeybees, we need tests on the whole animal – the colony. Again, nothing. So the pesticides have been approved for use all over the world without the relevant tests being conducted."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/14/bees-dying-eu-pesticide-ban
 
#28 ·
You need to learn a bit about bumble bees.. they are a super small hive/ solitary insect. (depending on which species) so 50,000 in a spot is freaking huge. if you assume a 5 square mile area and EVERY bee in that are was there, that means in the state of oregon there are 9,486,660,000 bummble bees.... Means 50k was a huge nothing....in the sort of a 9.5 billion number

ANd FYI,,, they almost all going to die shortly anyway(except queens...)

Like I said a tragedy for those who are really bad at math... and like to make much tado about nothing.
 
#31 ·
BigDawg; just as a point of reference this may be the largest kill in history, but to keep things in perspective the average bumblebee colony is about 50 bees per hive. That means that approx. 1,000 colonies were destroyed. This info is just to keep things in perspective and not skew numbers one way or the other.
 
#32 ·
The bottom line is the bumblebee and honeybee population in the Wilsonville, Oregon area was high at the time of the bumblebee kill incident despite years of using the Safari SG neonic insecticide; therefore banning neonics will won't help the bees because they were not in trouble to begin with. Plus the Safari SG only kills bees when it is accidentally sprayed on plants that are in bloom which rarely happens. Plus only a tiny percentage of the flowering shrubs and trees in the region in question are ever treated to begin with.
 
#34 ·
yes they do, and we can boycott states that do dumb stuff.......

Jeffinmo... Keep in mind that the "actual numbers" were doubled at least 2 times if you read closely, and no one ever counted......or even swept them up.......
The state Etomoligist who went said maybe 10-15k in the first report.....
 
#36 ·
There was another incident in nearby Hillsboro where the trees were sprayed in accordance with the instructions (i.e. the trees were not in bloom) and there were a large number of bumblebees observed dying at the base of a few trees over 2 months after Safari was applied.
 
#37 ·
Charlie a good central figure for bumble bees is 2 to 300 bees per colony with a density of 3 to 4 colonies per acre. Given that bees can forage up to 5 miles that is a population of 19,200,000 bees. want to try again and make some number seem impressive?
 
#46 ·
At least in our hospital if nurse or doctor made "applicator mistake" - it would be all-hospital system consequence - they would ban "applicator" until it is clear that it is safe to use it. After such accident, obviously, all precautions will be made do not repeat it again. If some device or chemical would be found harmful to patients, of coarse it would be banned until issue resolved. But I do see your point - not all "nurse" should be banned - the source of the problem (which is a chemical in this case) should be banned until it is clear that it is safe. You have a good point.
 
#42 · (Edited)
If native pollinators are being killed by a neonic product in public spaces, even when used according to the label, then there IS a problem.

While the Target incident was more recent and spectacular, the Hillsboro tree was sprayed in March! That's a good three months time lag between application and the bee deaths.

Something is amiss with Safari.
 
#43 ·
Barry, we are not talking about negligence . We are talking about proper use of a product. to make it fit our switching of subject matter, a medicine. and if that proper administration of medication caused death. yes I would say it needs to be banned. Nearly all medication has a list of side effects. many even list death. are they banned? No. Given that can we be assured that pesticides that kill pollinators would be banned? no. I say we come up with something that can be applied to bees that will kill plants that may threaten them. Such as an herbicide in a dust form that will kill corn and soybeans.
 
#47 ·
Barry, we are not talking about negligence . We are talking about proper use of a product.
So far the Oregon Dept. of Agriculture has NOT made a determination that any proper applications of Safari SG caused the deaths of any bees. In June in Hillsboro, Oregon 100 dead bumblebees were found underneath this linden tree that was sprayed with Safari SG in March http://imageshack.com/a/img195/5088/46lq.jpg but maybe the nectar of that particular tree was toxic. The toxicity of linden tree nectar is known to vary from year to year and tree to tree.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top