Pesticide Doing Harm to Bees
Honeybees don’t just make honey, they actually pollinate more than 90 flowering crops: citrus, peaches, berries, melons, apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus and cucumbers, to name a few. It works out to about one-third of the human diet. These workers are imperative to farming and this is precisely why there has been much discussion and worry about the decline in honeybee populations, or colony collapse, that we’ve seen in recent years.
Well, the EPA has finally finished their first study and has just published the results; testing a group of pesticides called “neonicotinoids” and how they might affect the bees on a long-term basis they found that on big crops like corn, berries and tobacco the pesticide didn’t harm the bees but when used on cotton and citrus, major harm was done. I shudder to think that the reason the pesticides aren’t harming the bees on big crops is because the poor plants are sucking it all up (and therefore passing it along to us). Because the amount of harm seems to depend on the particular crop, that won’t allow for an outright ban on the pesticide. But take heart, this is the first of four planned studies on the risk of neonicotinoids.
While some groups place all the blame on neonicotinoids (the pesticide works on the bees central nervous system) top bee scientists have said that the chemical is only part of the issue.
From the article:
“University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum, who in 2014 was awarded the National Medal of Science, said last year that two 2015 studies in the journal Nature “are more nails in the systemic neonicotinoid coffin.” One of those studies showed that bees may even seek out the chemical. Berenbaum, who wasn’t part of those studies, said research has long shown that honeybees “display a paradoxical preference for certain neurotoxic phytochemicals, including nicotine and caffeine”, reports MPR.
Perhaps due to this issue the EPA proposed banning, in June 2015, the use of these types of pesticides when crops are in bloom and the bees are being used to pollinate plants.
So, what exactly did the EPA find? There seemed to be a concentration of a pesticide called “imidacloprid”- which is the most common neonicotinoid, and that’s where the issues arise. “If nectar brought back to the hive from worker bees had more than 25 parts per billion of the chemical, “there’s a significant effect,” namely fewer bees, less honey and “a less robust hive,” said Jim Jones, EPA’s assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention.” However at lower rates there seemed to be no harmful effects.
Source: MPR News, US News and World Report, and almonds.com
