We've all heard about the disappearing bees... This is the first story that I've read that drills down on a top selling pesticide by Bayer Chemical, the industrial giant that apparently wants to throttle the science of colony collapse disorder if it turns too tightly on its profitable product.
Honeybee population plunges in six months
By Diane Petryk
For The Daily Item
June 14, 2009 07:55 am
— Food will cost more if no one solves the mystery of the disappearing honeybees — and time is running out.
The situation has gone from bad to worse, Penn State honeybee researcher Maryann Frazier said Thursday.
“Beekeepers are on the edge,” she said. “They’ve done everything they can do for their bees and it’s just about killing them.”
Growers of everything from apples to almonds rent bee colonies to pollinate their crops.
For each of the past three years, about one third of established hives in the United States has inexplicably disappeared, Frazier said, usually in the winter.
Beekeepers respond by cosseting their remaining colonies with supplemental nutrition and extra sucrose to build them up. Then they divide them into new colonies to make up for the losses.
“This,” Frazier said, “is not sustainable in the long term. It’s too costly and labor intensive.”
So far, growers’ needs have been met, but some crops, like cucumbers, weren’t planted because the growers couldn’t be guaranteed the bees, said Penn State entomology professor Diana Cox-Foster.
Three weeks ago, Dave Hackenberg, of Lewisburg, and five colleagues struggled to meet their commitment of 10,000 hives to a major blueberry grower in Maine. They found they were 1,000 hives short and had to scramble for reserves.
“The problem,” said Hackenberg’s cousin and fellow beekeeper Jim Doan of Hamlin, N.Y., “is that at this point next year, there will be no reserves.”
Bob Geary, of Danville, said the loss of hives from November to April was 36 percent from Florida to Maine. Hobbyists, such as himself, haven’t been hit as hard, he said, but he believes the problem is critical because bees are vital to agriculture.
Doan said he has been a beekeeper for 40 years, since he was a kid. Four years ago he had 4,300 hives, he said, but 80 to 90 percent of them were lost to what has come to be known as CCD — Colony Collapse Disorder. No amount of effort could build his bee population back up to an economically viable level. He’s quitting.
In fact, many beekeepers may follow their bees into oblivion, but why will be no mystery at all.
When you have 4,300 hives you have equipment and a work force, Doan said. Now, there are no longer enough bees to justify employing people. What remains is mostly debt. With the high percentage of loss, and no solution in sight, banks aren’t lining up to offer loans, he said. He is trying to sell the business, but a buyer seems unlikely unless there’s a clear fix.
“We are in crisis mode,” said Cox-Foster, the Penn State entomology professor. If the losses keep increasing, there will not be enough bees to pollinate food plants, she said.
“Hopefully we can head that off.”
Penn State has 14 researchers, including entomologists, toxicologists and physiologists looking at all angles of the problem.
Frazier, the university’s honeybee researcher, said they believe in a multi-cause scenario, combined and interconnected, involving disease, weather and pesticide use.
Doan and Hackenberg say that’s what chemical manufacturers want you to think, but they say they are 100 percent sure the culprit is a neonicotinoid pesticide that acts on the central nervous system of bugs. It is not applied to the surface of a plant, but is delivered as a coating on the seeds. Farmers often can’t avoid it. There may be no other seeds available. Nevertheless, in May 2008, Germany banned seed treatment with neonicotinoids, citing negative effects upon — you guessed it — bee colonies. Neonicotinoids are also banned in one region of France. The Oxford Times in the United Kingdom cited neonicotinoids as the most probable cause of honeybee demise.
Why don’t we know what they know in Europe? Neonicotinoid is produced by Bayer, a multi-national corporation with deep pockets and enormous political clout, Hackenberg said. So far, beekeepers’ discussions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been futile, he said.
Geary, the Danville hobbyist, said he believes neonicotinoids may be the primary culprit — not only in destruction of bees, but other creatures across the ecosystem. Humans, too, have this chemical in their system, he said.
In a phone interview from Maine Thursday, where he was collecting hives for return to New York and Pennsylvania, Hackenberg said that when he and colleagues met with the EPA from noon to 4 p.m. June 3 in Washington, their discussions were known by Bayer almost instantly.
“Before 6 o’clock, Bayer was condemning us for what we said to the EPA,” he said.
Hackenberg said he thinks Bayer controls the EPA through its former employees who now work for the agency.
“And for every congressman or senator we get to understand our side, the chemical companies can unduly influence 15 to do what they want,” he said.
The Bayer Corp. is just one of many manufacturers that produce this class of chemistry, but is among the largest, said Jack Boyne, director of communications for Bayer Cropscience, in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
He said the beekeepers may have some disagreements with some positions the corporation is taking, but Bayer would never condemn anyone for expressing his concerns.
“We have probably done more bee research on this pesticide than anyone else,” Boyne said. “We know a lot about it.”
He argues that neonicotinoid, which is actually a class of chemistry, is not likely to be the primary cause of CCD.
“There really is no evidence at all to support that,” he said.
It is an insecticide, and is certainly toxic to bees, he said, but will pose no harm to honeybees.
Before any product can be registered, it takes seven to 10 years of testing a molecule before it can be sold commercially, Boyne said. This includes bee testing.
Recent Penn State research, he said, showed that neonicotinoid was detected in less than 10 percent of the samples scientists took while studying the pollen, honey and wax of honeybees.
“A lot of things are contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder,” he said. Research has found a certain kind of fungus could be affecting the bees, and the fact that many bees are receiving poor nutrition, and are under tremendous stress after being trucked for thousands of miles to pollinate various fields through the nation, could also add to the disease epidemic.
Dr. Will Blodgott, of Danville, master beekeeper, said his bees have never been affected by Colony Collapse Disorder in the 33 years he has been beekeeping. He believes it is because he has never used pesticides on his 11-acre farm.
Researchers are 99 percent sure the disorder is caused by pesticides — specifically one within the neonicotinoid class called imidacloprid, the No. 1 chemical used by farmers today, Blodgott said.
It may be that there are multiple factors involved in the destruction of bees, Hackenberg said.
“The mixture of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides together could have disastrous effects,” he said.
Nobody tests them together, Hackenberg said, and if they did, manufacturers are held to a standard of self-testing that’s a joke, and promised follow-ups usually never happen.
Corporations don’t fund university research projects where they don’t want to know the results, Hackenberg added.
“The bottom line is, somebody’s messing with my livelihood and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
His prediction: Next year bees will go missing in even greater numbers. Produce prices will rise, both because bee visits will get more expensive and fewer crops will be planted.
Corn crops, meanwhile, are being planted in places where they never were before, he said.
“Corn seed, like other seed, is encapsulated inside the neonicotinoid pesticide,” Hackenberg said, “and bees work corn like candy.”
You can help bees bounce back
Honeybees are critical to Pennsylvania agriculture and the state’s economy, state Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff told Melissa Beattie-Moss of Research Penn State Magazine. Across the U.S., the honeybee represents an economic value of $14 billion and pollinates about 130 different fruit and vegetable crops. That’s one out of every three bites you take, said Lewisburg beekeeper Dave Hackenberg.
Three things you can do to help
-- Support organic agriculture that doesn’t use pesticides.
-- Enhance the bee habitat in your yard by planting flowers, and encourage friends, neighbors and city officials to do the same.
-- Participate in the Pollinator Partnership to become a part of the global movement to educate others about honeybees. Find out more at www.pollinator.com
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
3 comments:
And I thought it was the cell phones.
Forget cell phones -- has Miami-Dade County intentionally killed any additinal bee at the Deering Estate at Cutler lately?
We talk about transparency in government. Here's a thought. Do you realize that when a chemical product is banned by the FDA or EPA, chemists often just mess around with the molecular structure and bond one thing to another and reintroduce substances right back on the market? I talked to a chemist that use to produce Agent Orange. He told me that. By the way, many municipalities in Dade used that product, it was just called something else.
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