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Really bad honeybee vs. round up news [glyphosate]. Can this article be trusted?

13K views 62 replies 23 participants last post by  1102009 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi everyone!

Well, just read this article and it was kinda heart breaking.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018...lame-for-honey-bee-deaths-study-suggests.html

https://news.utexas.edu/2018/09/24/common-weed-killer-linked-to-bee-deaths

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/09/18/1803880115

The research originated from University of Texas and I have a high respect for them. Article was originally published in
the National Academy of Sciences.

We live on a ranch/farm and often use glyphosate out of necessity. We also just experienced a full 30% loss of our bees this summer.

Ok, my million dollar question:

I would like to know how we can determine if this article is based upon genuine scientific research and data.

How can we know if the facts presented in this article are for real and based upon truth?

Dang, UoT and PNAS appear to be fairly BIG NAMES in releasing accurate scientific research and data...

After reading the article, I am concerned it may be spot on and perhaps we need to stop using glyphosate at our ranch and especially near our honey bee yards [we spray under our honeybee stands 2-3 times per year].

Thanks,

Soar
 
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#2 ·
The ut article did not even mention varroa when speaking about other causes for bee decline which is suspect in my mind. I live along the gulf coast of Texas my friends are farmers they spray tons of it and I’ve caught many swarms around them. I know of several thriving hives that have been established for years.
 
#3 ·
For anyone who's interested in this paper, a .pdf copy of the article can be downloaded from:
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/09/18/1803880115.full.pdf
and a copy of the methods used:
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2018/09/18/1803880115.DCSupplemental/pnas.1803880115.sapp.pdf

I would like to know how we can determine if this article is based upon genuine scientific research and data.

How can we know if the facts presented in this article are for real and based upon truth?
There is no obvious prima facie reason (imo) to doubt the authors findings - bearing in mind that this is a laboratory experiment. Whether it has 'real-world' validity or not is quite another matter.

"Facts" and "Truth" play no part in scientific research - it's about observation, evidence, and conclusions which may then drawn from them, etc.

Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide, and so tends not to be sprayed onto non-GM flowering crops - as doing so is guaranteed to kill them ! Glyphosate is used pre-sowing to clear weeds, and pre-harvest to dessicate crops, but at neither time should there be an abundance of 'weeds' in flower.

The issue with this paper promises to be whether or not the scenario they tested is indeed realistic. Monsanto will undoubtedly disagree, as you'd expect.

Spraying glyphosate around hive bases (especially after flying has finished for the day) is certainly a practice I'll be continuing with. If your losses are around 30%, then I'd recommend looking around for other causes ...
LJ
 
#4 ·
I honestly have no idea if roundup/glyphosate is THE cause of the problems bees are facing.
I do however think it is a contributing factor, along with all the other chemicals that are used-other herbicides,fungicides,pesticides,insecticides,artificial fertilizers,foliar sprays like copper on fruit trees.

I have been told that, while studies have been done to insure these chemicals are safe to use, no study has been done on the effects of these when they combine, either on plants or in the soil.
I pointed this out to the manager of a pine forestry nursery I worked at up until last year. the result was that he severely cut back on artificial ferts and spray within the nursery and outlying fields,including slow release ferts used in bed preparation for the next season.
On top of that he also started applying bought in compost materials.
My timeline is not quite straight here cos after I spoke to him about this, he also did a trial that showed areas that nothing was applied resulted in the best productivity for that year-last year.

What I think people miss is that environmental health starts with the soil and the organisms that live in work in it.
Plants have evolved to grow in, what I call a living soil- one that has the whole range of lifeforms in it.
In that soil are a huge amount of different lifeforms-bacteria, molds, yeasts, fungus, insects-worms all need organic matter not people made fertilizers.
Even the different layers of soil have different types compared to other layers.
It wasnt that long ago, that you would spot wild mushrooms growing in fields, now there just aren't any.

It is not just the bees that are starting to fail health-wise; its us too. There are now pages of different auto-immune disorders that people are now having to deal with.
I used to think our species was a lot more tolerant of chemical overloads than others, I now think it has just taken longer to see the same devastating results.

Its a hard call when you have land that you need to deal with pests, be they weeds or insect infestations, especially when your livelihood depends on a good harvest.
The best I can advise, is to choose one spot where you can 'go organic'-either leave it to it own devises/use a less toxic remedy/choose a different crop.
If time is not pressing,try to learn of other alternatives but also recognise that it does take time to get an local ecosystem back in balance and that it may appear to be worse off in the early stages before it gets better.
So one small area to start off with, so you dont go broke 'trying to fix the world'.
 
#5 ·
Hi everyone!

I would like to know how we can determine if this article is based upon genuine scientific research and data.
post your question on bee-l and maybe Randy O or one of the other people that know more about it can give you an accurate answer.

seems someone beat you to it. here is Jerry Bromenshanks(sp) comments.

>Nice high school
science project, but hardly robust, and how does glyphosate compare with
other herbicide choices?<

Am I the only one who shudders every time I see an article that starts with the phrase 'field-realistic doses' in the title? Jerry
 
#6 ·
I'm a microbiologist/immunologist by profession, work in a department with people who study bee microbiota, and have some microbiotia/probiotic research ongoing in my lab (relating to heart disease, not bees), so perhaps I can shed some light.

TLDR: The results are interesting, but at best, the only concussion the data reasonably supports is that bees which never have been exposed previously to glyphosate may have a short-term increased risk of dying from bacterial infection after their first glyphosate exposure.

Long version:
The study used standard microbiota-measuring methods, but otherwise have some serious flaws in their study design and interpretation. There are also some red flags suggesting that some of their results are spurious (e.g. statistical noise).

Methods
  1. The dose of glyphosate used is high - they tested two doses - one at the high-end of what the studies they quoted as realistic field exposures, and the other exceeded the maximum reasonable estimate of field exposure by 33%. So they basically tested the worst-case-scenario and something far worse than the worst-case-scenario.
  2. Their study duration was short. In most long-term studies, microbiota are astoundingly resilient, with most microbiota-changing insults only producing a temporary change. In most cases, the microbiota return pretty quickly to normal after an insult. They only looked at days 0, 3 and 5 - far too short a time to allow for any recovery or adaptation of the microbiota to glyphosate.
  3. The pathogen used to test for an effect was an odd choice, as was the infection method; Serratia is a relatively rare pathogen of bees, and they hatched sterile bees (i.e. bees without normal microbiota development) for these experiments. I don't know the bee immune system very well, but birthing mammals sterilely profoundly impairs their immune system.

Results
The results have a number of red flags. I've not yet found a good way to explain this in lay language, so my apologies if this is not clear. There are a number of changes that are observed that are problematic - four in particular are especially concerning:
  1. Whole-microbiota stats are lacking; stats were only performed on individual species
  2. There are several cases where there is a lack of dose-dependence - i.e. the lower dose causes a larger change in the microbiota composition than the higher dose, or only the lower dose causes a change.
  3. These changes occur in samples which show high variability
  4. Similar bacterial species do not respond to glyphosate in a similar manner.
These all point to a serious flaw in their analysis which throws a lot of the data into question. Here's where things get hard to explain...The way microbiota analysis is conducted is called "multi-variate analysis" (multiple variable analysis), with the abundance of each species representing a separate variable. The very first step in these analyses are that you run a statistical test which asks "is there a statistically significant difference between the net change in the microbiota between my treatment groups" - i.e. you test to see if the combined changes across all species together is different between the doses of glyphosate.

If the answer to that question is 'yes', then you go on and do sub-group analyses - i.e. you ask which specific species are changing in response to glyphosate.

If the answer to that question is 'no', then your analysis is done. By definition there are no differences to be found, so performing a subgroup analysis is irrational.

This paper didn't perform that first test, and jumped straight into subgroup analysis. And the results of those sub-group analyses are exactly what you would expect to see if you perform a subgroup analysis when the result of the first test is 'no differences in the microbiota'. The lack of a dose-response and randomness of where significant changes are observed (e.g. related species which should behave similarly, are observed to behave differently), are all hallmarks of the kinds of spurious associations you expect to see when subgroup analyses are performed improperly.
 
#8 ·
We can beat around the bush a lot.

Chem companies will make more money.
Lab people will get more grants (including from the chem companies).
Average American Joe will keep looking for a magic, quick-fix pill from every bug, weed and sickness under the sun (the pill that does not exist anyway - so stop looking and stop killing everything still left alive).
Chem companies will make more money (because, hey, Joe keeps wanting those magic pills; supply meets demand).
Lab people will keep arguing and get more grants (including from the chem companies).

Meanwhile, it is really very simple - don't put stuff into the nature that does not belong.
Crap does not belong there - don't put it out.
Round-up does not belong.
Ditch the crap.
That simple and common sense.
What is there not to see?
 
#9 ·
That simple and common sense.
What is there not to see?
"What is there not to see"...apparently you are blind to your own biases and lack of knowledge. Without chemicals like roundup billions will die - there is no way without modern farming methods to feed the earths 7 billion people. The choice isn't chemicals versus nature; the choice is chemicals versus massive human starvation and death. And, given the alternatives, round-up is as good as its going to get. The alternatives are far more toxic and far more damaging to the environment.

As for your implication that scientists like myself are all corrupt and interested in nothing more than grant money - you're talking from a position of absolute and total ignorance that is so far removed from reality to be laughable...or it would be laughable if there wren't people out there dumb enough to
believe opinions like yours.
 
#10 ·
This has been widely known for at least a DECADE, nothing new here.

Exposure to sublethal doses of pesticides and systemics does not kill individual bees, but impacts colony health as a whole leading to eventual collapse. Manufacturers are not required to perform extensive studies by a third party - they test themselves and submit whatever results they want to EPA. They test individual bee mortality, not colony health and vitality.

Europe figured it out in early 2000s. We have figured out in 2012 (Harvard Study). Here we are in 2018 still acting surprised, blaming pests, genetics and seasonality without addressing the root cause. Unless enough people make enough noise to make EPA do a 180 in current political climate of anti-environment posture, nothing will change.

Until then, all you can do is make a personal decision to garden organic and educate your family, friends and neighbors.
 
#14 ·
Just to make certain I am reading the study correctly:

They used bees from a SINGLE hive.

15 bees were painted in each study group.

The bees were directly fed glyphosate. (Not real world, environmental exposure)

Their guts were "perturbed."

No bees were initially killed.

They introduce a pathogen which kills 50% the bees in the control group and 90% of the bees in the test group.

They repeat the process with similar results 3 times (using a single hive, with 15-bee test groups.)

My mind remains open, but I find the study lacking. I do not understand why we cannot find glyphosate treated fields (not a rare thing) to forage test subjects on as opposed to feeding them glyphosate. 15 bees? 1 hive?

Maybe someone will expound on this study with something more substantial and real-world. Until then, I reserve judgment.
 
#16 ·
Bringing suburbia and golf courses into the discussion is a Straw Man tactic.

Hunger and death from starvation is Nature's way of keeping all animal populations under control - but we clever (but not very wise) over-brained monkeys have learned to largely control our food supply so that the human population has significantly increased since the development of artificial fertilisers and the adoption of industrial-style farming. Mono-cropping - which has become essential to meet society's needs - requires the use of all sorts of chemicals to remain viable: pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and so on ...

The idea that you could suddenly stop using this chemical-based method of farming and adopt organic farming methods is naive. If you were able to somehow reduce the human population to that of the Victorian era, this might indeed be possible - but I can't really see such a reduction ever happening.

Too many people on the planet - that's the core problem.

LJ
 
#21 ·
I have between 20 and 25 hives that I keep in 4 separate yards. 3 yards are on cotton fields and one is in an actively managed (and sprayed) pecan orchard.

In Spring, the cotton fields are full of cover crop, mainly wild radish, some clover, dandelion and a lot of weeds I cannot identify. The bees work these cover crops hard. Then, one day, the farmer decides he is going to "burn down" the cover crop and sprays Round Up on the entire field. Between 180 to 300 acres. In the past 4 years, I have lost 3 hives to laying workers (shook out after going queenless) and 2 hives to varroa mites (one of which I just posted pictures of this week on another thread "Dead Out -Classic PMS.")

The fact that my hives thrive in this environment is purely anecdotal. Perhaps they would give me twice the production if they were located away from glyphosate. I do not run controls, so I have no idea. The farmer plants "Round Up Ready" cotton seed days later and the cycle continues.

I feel sure similar farming tactics are used in the Midwest, but instead of 300 acre fields of cotton, I am sure 2000 acre fields of canola would not be a difficult thing to come by. Why can't these studies take place in these fields? Why would that be expensive? It just makes so much more sense than bottle feeding a couple dozen bees in Austin, Texas.
 
#34 ·
I feel sure similar farming tactics are used in the Midwest, but instead of 300 acre fields of cotton, I am sure 2000 acre fields of canola would not be a difficult thing to come by. Why can't these studies take place in these fields? Why would that be expensive? It just makes so much more sense than bottle feeding a couple dozen bees in Austin, Texas.
Its far more complicated than that. The "secret" to any good piece of science is to hold all variables constant except the one that you manipulate. That way you can be certain any differences you see are due to the variable you manipulated, rather than an extraneous factor.

In a field study that is not possible; even if you find a forage-sized region that is glyphosate free, you need it to match your glyphosate-containing area exactly - same amount/types of forage, same water availability & water quality, same levels of wind/shade/cloud cover/etc, same diseases circulating, same varroa infestations, etc. And you also need your hives to be as identical as possible - same genetic background, same "base" microbiota, etc. If you can do that, you can have a field study the same in structure as the one in the paper, and get good results. But achieving this level of control across multiple sites simply isn't possible.

The way you work around that is that you add a series of additional measurements to each of your sites, and you take a much larger number of samples, in order to determine the impact of these extra factors. Most "field" microbiota trials sample dozens to hundreds of individuals - compared to the handful in this study. Already, the cost as quadrupeled or more; and we're not even taking into account the costs of addressing the extraneous factors. To address those factors you need more hives (again, as similar as possible) and form each hive you'll need a lot of additional measures - rates of food intake, growth rate of the hive, types and numbers of pathogens and varoa present, etc. More hives and more measurements = more people, and people don't come cheap. Likewise, you are tracking additional factors, and quantifying these requires different experimental equipment and reagents - all of which cost money. And, if your trial site isn't near where you live/work, you also have to house and feed yourself and your crew.

As a simple example, the microbiota study my lab is conducting right now would have been ~$60K to do with mice, which lack genetic diversity and which we can keep in a controlled environment and feed a controlled diet - i.e. perform the study in a manner similar to the one posted at the start of this thread. But we're doing the study in people (i.e. a field trial), and so we need to track and account for diet, genetic diversity, and other lifestyle factors. We're in the middle of the study, so the final bill isn't set yet, but we're expecting to be around ~$400K.
 
#22 ·
i keep bees on my farm. all the farms in my area are gmo corn and soybeans. my hives are located along the edge of my field. never had a problem due to pesticide / herbicide / fungicide applications.; i also have an orchard with fruit trees . they also get applications of fungicides and insecticides, but not while blossoming. no problems from there either.
 
#23 ·
i keep bees on my farm. all the farms in my area are gmo corn and soybeans. my hives are located along the edge of my field. never had a problem due to pesticide / herbicide / fungicide applications.
Same. GMO corn, alfalfa, and soybeans. And Im the one who sprays the fence lines and ditches with roundup. Only real problems I have ever had were a few hives on the edge of a field getting blasted by a cropduster early in the morning and varroa, but the problems boil down to mostly varroa.
 
#28 ·
These discussions will carry on for ever usually by the tree huggers that will always try to blame everything else for their inability to keep their bees alive, while others who are surrounded by neonics and glyphosate have a problem with too many bees. It obviously stands to reason that the reason this is so is because the successful beekeepers are in an area where the neonics and glyphosate are supplied by good companies not like Monsanto and Bayer.
Johno
 
#29 ·
Sir,

Your logic impresses me: "It [Gly] was discovered to be an herbicide by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970."

"Glyphosate (IUPAC name: N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It is an organophosphorus compound, specifically a phosphonate, which acts by inhibiting the plant enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase. It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops. It was discovered to be an herbicide by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970.[3] Monsanto brought it to market for agricultural use in 1974 under the trade name Roundup. Monsanto's last commercially relevant United States patent expired in 2000.[citation needed][clarification needed]"

So, following your logic, then, cocaine is great as far as it is sold by good guys like Government? Please enlighten me.

Very Respectfully,

Earthboy
 
#30 ·
Earthboy have you managed to keep your bees alive? Now I should take a leaf out of Mark Twains book and just ignore you but as I am having such fun tweaking you greenies I cant help myself. The reference to monsanto and other manufacturers was sarcasm and humor, As far as Gly is concerned I also believe it to be some sort of antibiotic but I digress. I spray it around my hives as well, great stuff. Now as far as cocaine is concerned the only experience I have had with that was talking to some New Yorkers on a charter boat in the Carribean who were smoking pot and snorting cocaine and when I approached them about it they told me not to worry about it as they were professional persons in New York and would be quite responsible. They are probably legislators by now. This makes me think that maybe this was a reason that many objected to the use of OA as in some quarters anyone seeing the white powder would stick it up his nose. Now if government could turn a profit from cocaine I an sure that they would get involved but Knowing governments it would not last long as there would soon be a shortage of cocaine and it would still be cheaper to buy from the cartels Anyhow thats enough rubbish for now but the whole story lies in the supposed field related doses.
Johno.
 
#33 ·
Why should glyphosate be a problem to bees fed with artificial pollen patties ( hopefully organic source) and sugar syrup ( probably organic sugar too)?

It´s the wild insects which lack nourishment in such an environment. Or the natural beekeeper`s bees.

I´m not speaking about the humans consuming glyphosate now whose children and grandchildren will have the long term results of today`s managements. So why should this generation care? We will be gone and leave behind a poisoned earth.
 
#35 ·
Thanks SuisGeneris for explaining the controls necessary for a reasonably conclusive experiment.

Far too often we see links posted to experiments having controls about as rigorous as a grade school science fair project. If it supports our beliefs, we applaud, and yet even if a well executed experiment is contrary to the persons convictions, they claim all scientists works are profit driven fraud.
 
#38 ·
One part I'd like to touch on is in the study they forced the bees to feed on syrup laced with the high doses of glyphosate. If a weed is sprayed with glyphosate while flowering, there is no way it continues to produce nectar for 5 days. It looks like a piece of straw by day 7.

Except in the case of roundup-ready crops. But if you're still spraying roundup on soybeans that are already heavily blooming, doubtful if those beans would make a good honey crop anyway. And I'd bet that a hive would likely fly to the next field that didn't have the same application window, thereby limiting its exposure.

Did I read the study correctly if I thought I read that the higher dosed set of bees actually tested healthier than the lower dosed bees in one of the sets? That makes the study hardly conclusive, I'd think.

Also, if a study this small had claimed that roundup had no effects or improved the health of honeybees, many of the same people who champion this as conclusive would be claiming "Monsanto must've donated a new lab to the university". Or that the study was too small, or more studying needs to be done.
 
#39 ·
Did I read the study correctly if I thought I read that the higher dosed set of bees actually tested healthier than the lower dosed bees in one of the sets? That makes the study hardly conclusive, I'd think.
What has been alluded to earlier in the thread is that this result shows that the difference is more than likely just noise.
 
#42 ·
For those interested in how the sly Gly is all over the place, not only in our food but also even in Tampon, here is the url for a Youtube podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmAsTrsUjBc

About 2/3 into the podcast, the MIT researcher briefly talks about the synergistic interactions of Gly in honeybee gut.

I appreciate those of you outside USA commenting on this thread with a good measure of sanity.

Earthboy
 
#43 ·
For those interested in how the sly Gly is all over the place, not only in our food but also even in Tampon
And has been for almost half a century. Even back in the "good ole" pre-varroa, pre-CCD days.

If I began to list the multitudes of studies that show no ill-effect, it will just be answered with "Monsanto/Bayer paid for that study" whether true or not.

For some very religious people, they see the devil behind every bush. For the non-religious, they do not see him at all. Yet they are looking at the same bushes.

Let's just say openly what these debates are all about: People with pre-conceived dispositions about the uses of chemicals and pesticides making their arguments and cherry-picking their "studies." On both sides.

It makes it very difficult for the agnostics to get to any sense of truth and accuracy.

The OP was about a SINGLE study that was recently published. It will be much more productive to talk about this study and what it may or may not tell us about glyphosate and what could be done to either verify the findings or discredit them with future studies.
 
#50 ·
Thanks guys.

I've used roundup to control weeds around the hives for years, but since that guy sued cos he got cancer and won ( i think ) 250 million, I have been wondering if I need to find another way.


But a read of this thread has restored my confidence in roundup I will continue using it.
 
#54 ·
True.

Not all Americans support the rampant abuse of pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides that harm the environment "because I too have to make a living." As a bloody American, I am glad there are some of us still around.

The average life span of queen bees, it appears, has now been reduced to a season when they used to live, on average, three years--a topic well examined on Bee-L. This is just one example of the overall degradation. Look at the green deserts on our lawns: there is absolutely nothing for the bees to forage. Worse, where will the residue of Roundup eventually end up? In the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the soil we raise our crops, and in the veins of our blood: this man-made, unnatural chemical is everywhere.

To argue this chemical is safe is beyond common sense.

Roundup is a short term solution with a long-lasting impact. Roundup-resistant weeds are popping up already, forcing us to stay only one step away from disaster. We cannot keep up with this kind of arms race. Such arms race is not sustainable just as honeybees kept in a bubble of IPM cannot survive in nature.

Bees, on a different note, should not be able to merely survive in nature but thrive when left alone. Remember bees will make honey "in spite of the beekeeper!" They have been doing just fine for eons.

What kind of world have we created for the bees if they must be medicated around the clock? How sustainable or natural is that? Are we not choking our own throat with our cleverness and for our greed? Don't you realize what we are doing to ourselves in the long run?

Please note that my postings lack ad hominem.
 
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