Title edited to de-sensationalize. This is a classic combination of biased industry research, astroturfing (funding fake grassroots support and interest groups), regulatory and academic capture,...
Title edited to de-sensationalize. This is a classic combination of biased industry research, astroturfing (funding fake grassroots support and interest groups), regulatory and academic capture, and misleading pesticide users.
The Bayer-funded study, led by Cynthia Scott-Dupree, an environmental sciences professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, placed hives in clothianidin-treated fields of canola and hives in untreated fields of canola. The tests found little variation between the two sets of hives, but researchers later pointed out that the hives in the study were placed only 968 feet apart from one another. Honeybees forage for pollen up to six miles from their hives.
Scott-Dupree was later appointed the “Bayer CropScience Chair in Sustainable Pest Management” at the University of Guelph. Regulators in Canada and at the EPA used the study to clear clothianidin for unconditional use. Internally, however, EPA scientists expressed concerns.
By all means, read the whole article as it really is exemplary for industry practices to ensure continuing use of dangerous products. As one of the interviewees notes, there's always a "gray area" in attributing harmful effects. For honeybee decline, pesticide manufacturers are blaming the concurrent appearance of Varroa destructor, an imported parasitic mite.
Anecdata: I literally just took a very in-depth beekeeping class yesterday, and learned a couple of things... First, most bees have natural behaviours that suppress mite infestation - grooming, biting, and even eating their parasites. Severe infestations normally occur only in hives already under extreme environmental stress, from climate or lack of food.
Local beekeepers have tried importing known Varroa resistant subspecies from Russia, but when they're exposed to U.S. fields, they become just as susceptible to mites as local bees, suggesting that something is suppressing their instinctive mite control behaviors.
Other insects not affected by Varroa are declining precipitously in synch with neonicotinoid use, which any honest review would reveal as suggestive that these compounds should be severely restricted or banned.
^^^This bit right here. They're intentionally steering the conversation to be about honey bees for a reason, because they've got a convenient excuse lined up. Honey bees aren't even native to the...
Other insects not affected by Varroa are declining precipitously in synch with neonicotinoid use, which any honest review would reveal as suggestive that these compounds should be severely restricted or banned.
^^^This bit right here. They're intentionally steering the conversation to be about honey bees for a reason, because they've got a convenient excuse lined up.
Honey bees aren't even native to the Americas, yet in my experience they're what people here bring up when I try to talk to them about pollinators. I've been trying to steer the conversations I have with people about this topic to be about monarchs. They're charismatic little native pollinators, I live in their migration path and we used to get fields covered in them occasionally when I was a kid. But it's hard to get people to notice the absence of something that wasn't reliably happening every year, and cute as they are they're still just bugs. Insignificant.
Monarchs are another "gray area" for attribution of pesticide harm - they're also impacted by climate change and loss of uncultivated land for the nectar sources they've evolved to depend on....
Monarchs are another "gray area" for attribution of pesticide harm - they're also impacted by climate change and loss of uncultivated land for the nectar sources they've evolved to depend on. There's no question that neonic pesticides are contributing to the decline, but the industry will fight to the death to blame anything else.
The local beekeeping club has a member who's cultivating and distributing miner bees, an endangered native pollinator. It's a little ridiculous that saving species from extinction is essentially reduced to a quaint hobby for the privileged, rather than a public duty of governments.
My wake-up moment was what seems to have been a pollinator crash the last couple of years in South Florida. Tree fruits were still doing OK through wind, animal, and ant pollination, but I was down to hand-pollinating tomatillos, peppers, and some of the tomatoes by the time we left.
Title edited to de-sensationalize. This is a classic combination of biased industry research, astroturfing (funding fake grassroots support and interest groups), regulatory and academic capture, and misleading pesticide users.
By all means, read the whole article as it really is exemplary for industry practices to ensure continuing use of dangerous products. As one of the interviewees notes, there's always a "gray area" in attributing harmful effects. For honeybee decline, pesticide manufacturers are blaming the concurrent appearance of Varroa destructor, an imported parasitic mite.
Anecdata: I literally just took a very in-depth beekeeping class yesterday, and learned a couple of things... First, most bees have natural behaviours that suppress mite infestation - grooming, biting, and even eating their parasites. Severe infestations normally occur only in hives already under extreme environmental stress, from climate or lack of food.
Local beekeepers have tried importing known Varroa resistant subspecies from Russia, but when they're exposed to U.S. fields, they become just as susceptible to mites as local bees, suggesting that something is suppressing their instinctive mite control behaviors.
Other insects not affected by Varroa are declining precipitously in synch with neonicotinoid use, which any honest review would reveal as suggestive that these compounds should be severely restricted or banned.
^^^This bit right here. They're intentionally steering the conversation to be about honey bees for a reason, because they've got a convenient excuse lined up.
Honey bees aren't even native to the Americas, yet in my experience they're what people here bring up when I try to talk to them about pollinators. I've been trying to steer the conversations I have with people about this topic to be about monarchs. They're charismatic little native pollinators, I live in their migration path and we used to get fields covered in them occasionally when I was a kid. But it's hard to get people to notice the absence of something that wasn't reliably happening every year, and cute as they are they're still just bugs. Insignificant.
Monarchs are another "gray area" for attribution of pesticide harm - they're also impacted by climate change and loss of uncultivated land for the nectar sources they've evolved to depend on. There's no question that neonic pesticides are contributing to the decline, but the industry will fight to the death to blame anything else.
The local beekeeping club has a member who's cultivating and distributing miner bees, an endangered native pollinator. It's a little ridiculous that saving species from extinction is essentially reduced to a quaint hobby for the privileged, rather than a public duty of governments.
My wake-up moment was what seems to have been a pollinator crash the last couple of years in South Florida. Tree fruits were still doing OK through wind, animal, and ant pollination, but I was down to hand-pollinating tomatillos, peppers, and some of the tomatoes by the time we left.