Latest Honey Bee News

The Russians are spitting mad at President Obama for protecting Monsanto & Syngenta. The minutes from President Putin's meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders " extreme outrage" over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing " bee apocalypse" that the Kremlin warns " will most certainly" lead to world war. You can read more HERE.

The EPA loves those neonicotinoid poisons: The EPA has a lawsuit filed against them by honey bee keepers who say they have lost as much as 50% of their bees this last year. I personally side with them as a small beekeeper. I lost my bees to neonicotinoids a few years back. They are  the underlying problem causing the death of our bees. These pesticides both kill them outright as well as add to the insidious breakdown of their immune systems. : "Beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that EPA needs to protect bees. The agency has refused, so we've been compelled to sue," said Peter Jenkins, a lawyer for the Center for Food Safety who is representing the coalition of plaintiffs. Read about this problem Here.

The EPA announced that they had granted full registration to sulfoxaflor, foregoing conditional regulation. While not a neonicotinoid, many scientists believe it should be classified in that family since it targets the same neural receptors as the neonicotinoids. It is being used in place of  clothianidin (neonicotinoid) which insects have built up a resistance to.

The GOOD NEWS is that neonicotinoids have been banned in the European Union for two years. You can read about it HERE. Will we all wake up in the United States and refuse to purchase these nasty chemicals that are now everywhere in our soil, and water? Chemicals that have a half life of 10 years. (This means it takes ten years for 50% of it to be out of the soil.) Our government is protecting the companies making these products, not us. It is up to us to educate others  regarding these toxins. If we don't buy the poisons, they will not make them. Read the link below for a list of the names of the chemicals and more details on them. We can also help change our neighbors and friends minds about using toxic chemicals, by showing them how to garden and farm organically.

Most of the things that are making our world difficult to live in come down to this fact. If we don't buy it, they won't make it. 

If you are having trouble trying to figure out how to do something without chemicals. Let me know and I will post a blog about it.

This blog I wrote back in 2011 is still relevant as to how we can save the honey bees: http://dreamingabeautifulworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/save-honey-bees.html

Honeybee Webinar From Purdue University

There is a FANTASTIC new honeybee webinar put out by Purdue University examining issues the honeybees have to deal with. They focus on neonicotinoid treated seeds and their toxicity to bees.

Most of the annual crop acreage planted in North America this year will be planted with neonicotinoid treated seed. Neonicotinoids are extremely toxic to honey bees and recent research suggests that honey bees foraging near these types of plantings may be at risk. The risk is greatest during the period while crops are being planted.

In addition to providing an overview of the research, this webinar offers suggestions for both field crop growers and beekeepers that can minimize the chances of honey bee exposure to these chemicals in the field. 

You can see it here. Please also pass this on to anyone who gardens or farms. Especially get gardeners who use neonicotinoid sprays and farmers who use neonicotinoid  treated seed or sprays to watch it.

This past post has a list of neonicotinoid sprays and information on them. The list is useful to give to gardeners and farmers to make sure they do not use them or if they insist on using them to be sure to read the label and be very careful with it.

This past post has research on honey bee deaths due to neonicotinoids.

You can search this blog for more posts on honeybees if you wish to read more.

Great New Research on Honey Bees & Neonicotinoids

 You can find numerous posts about the research. Here are a few. Check at least one of them out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/bees-neonicotinoid-pesticides-studies_n_1388385.html

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/neonicotinoids-bee-collapse

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-17556307

Save The Honey Bees

The Current Scoop & What You Can Do!

 

Our bees keep disappearing. Bee Keepers try to keep up with the loss. Each year they loose 30-40% of their hives. This can't keep up. Some of them are going out of business. Who will pollinate our food if not for the honey bees. Although there are other pollinators, the honey bees are alone responsible for pollinating 1/3 of all the fruits and vegetables we eat. Do we want to loose 1/3 of our food supply? We must save the bees for their own sake as well as ours. This drastic decrease in worldwide bee numbers is indicative of an environmental disaster. Many bee keepers are convinced this disaster is due to insecticides being used on orchards and farmland that the bees pollinate. This massive demise in our bees seems to have started with the introduction of  one specific type of insecticide group called the neonicotinoids.

If we don't buy it, they don't make it!

If you are a farmer or gardener, you can help the bees by not using neonicotinoid insecticides or seeds coated with neonicotinoids. Neonicotinoids include imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, acetamiprid, thiacloprid, and dinotefuran. The Brand names  are listed below.

Brand Names to Avoid!

Clothianidin: Poncho, Titan, Clutch, Belay, Arena. 

Imidacloprid: Admire, Advantage, Confidor, Gaucho, Marathon, Merit, Premeir, Provado, Bayer Advanced, Rose Defense, Kohinor,  Hachikusan, Premise, Prothor, and Winner.  

Thiamethoxam: Actara, Crusier, Platinum, Helix, Centric

Acetamiprid: Assail, Intruder, Adjust

Thiacloprid: Calypso

If you use insecticides, read the label and do not use any insecticide with one of these names listed in the label contents. (By the way, there are alternatives to insecticides.) Print this blog and put it in your purse or wallet so you have it with you when you go to the store to purchase an insecticide. (Print a few to share with friends.) Tell stores not to carry these products and explain why. Educate all your friends. Send this email to everyone who gardens. Especially educate those who use pesticides.

Some Countries Ban Neonicotinoids to Save the Bees

Some countries have put various bans on the use of neonicotinoids. These countries include France, Germany, Slovenia and Italy.  It has been noted that the year after placing bans on neonicotinoids, the bees come back. We want our bees back in the U.S. We must ban these neonicotinoids.

Research Confirms Bee Death Due To Neonicotinoids

Research by Dr Jeffrey Pettis and his team at the US Department of Agriculture’s Bee Research Laboratory has shown that very low levels of imidacloprid (even microscopic doses)  make the honey bees more vulnerable to infections.

Pettis  exposed two groups of bees to the well-known bee disease agent Nosema. One of the groups was also fed tiny doses of imidacloprid. There was a higher uptake of infection in the bees fed the insecticide, even though the insecticide could not subsequently be detected, which raises the possibility that such a phenomenon occurring in the wild might be simply undetectable. 

Although the US study has not been published, French researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Research in Avignon have independently carried out similar research and published their study in the journal Environmental Microbiology. They stated “We demonstrated that the interaction between nosema and a neonicotinoid (imidacloprid) significantly weakened honeybees.” 

Professor Vincenzo Girolami from the University of Padua published research in the J. Econ. Entomol. 102 (5): 1808-1815 (2009) that examined the bee neonicotinoid affect by looking at corn grown from seed that was coated in neonicotinoids and how it effects the bees.  The research showed that the neonicotinoid coated seed grew corn that was deadly to the bees. It shows that bees drinking the poisoned guttation drops (kind of like dew drops but something the plant exudes) dropped dead within a few minutes.  Professor Girolami grew plants from neonicotinoid-coated maize seeds and observed that the concentration of these active substances in the guttation exudate from the corn leaves  is comparable with the pesticide solutions that are used to treat orchards. Bees are basically sucking concentrated poison. This effect would obviously persist even if the industry found a way of enclosing maize seeds within a smooth, biodegradable plastic coating, which would at least eliminate dispersion during sowing, though. (During dispersion of these coated seeds they kick up a dust from the coated seeds that also kills the bees if they fly through it.)

What Can You Do?

It is obvious to any thinking person that we have a potentially devastating environmental problem on our hands. A problem that needs immediate action. In France the beekeepers took to the streets and burnt their empty bee hives that had once housed all their bees that were now dead. What are we willing to do. Everyone can stop buying and using neonicotinoids. We can all write to the EPA and USDA and tell them of your expectation that they will do something immediately. Tell your congress person you want a bill to ban these poisons. Write letters to your local paper. Do anything you can think of as we must act quickly.

We must take action now and tell the EPA and USDA to ban Bayer's insecticide imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid pesticides. I have two different places linked below that will allow you to have your voice heard by them.

http://www.capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=22033501&type=AN

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5986/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5833