The only item on this ridiculous laundry list that deserves to be
considered at all is the last one which has been introduced newly
into the environment and for which we are now discovering increased
toxicity in combination well beyond expectations.
Bluntly the pesticide protocol is now entering an era of maximum
damage and rapidly declining effectiveness. This year the CCD
problem became a bee pandemic and is impacting everywhere. Worse
there is no evidence of it running itself out as yet. It is
certainly not biological as that will run itself out and we have no
sign of that.
Neonicotinoids are a leading contender because of the way in which
they are applied, but it turns out that in combination with other
types the effect is exaggerated.
The more serious take home is that conversion to the organic protocol
needs to be accelerated. That alone will solve this crisis in our
food supply. This can be done deliberately with tweaking subsidies. I would establish a ten year subsidy decline curve that organic operators get to avoid.
In the meantime, grow a wild belt along the rows to allow wild bees
and wasps to prosper. It escapes me why this is not a practiced to begin with.
Feds blame
combination of parasite, virus, bacteria, pesticides for strange bee
disappearance
By Seth Borenstein
WASHINGTON - A new
federal report blames a combination of problems for a mysterious and
dramatic disappearance of U.S. honeybees since 2006.
The intertwined
factors cited include a parasitic mite, multiple viruses, bacteria,
poor nutrition, genetics, habitat loss and pesticides.
The multiple causes
make it harder to do something about what's called colony collapse
disorder, experts say. The disorder has caused as much as one-third
of the nation's bees to just disappear each winter since 2006.
Bees, especially
honeybees, are needed to pollinate crops.
The federal report,
issued Thursday by the Agriculture Department and the Environmental
Protection Agency, said the biggest culprit is the parasitic mite
varroa destructor, calling it "the single most detrimental pest
of honeybees."
The problem has also
hit bee colonies in Europe, where regulators are considering a ban on
a type of pesticides known as neonicotinoids that some environmental
groups blame for the bee collapse. The U.S. report cites pesticides,
but near the bottom of the list of factors. And federal officials and
researchers advising them said the science doesn't justify a ban of
the pesticides yet.
May Berenbaum, a top
bee researcher from the University of Illinois, said in an interview
that she was "extremely dubious" that banning the pesticide
would have any effect on bee health. She participated in a large
conference of scientists that the government brought together last
year to figure out what's going on, and the new report is the result
of that conference.
Berenbaum said more
than 100 different chemicals — not just the pesticides that may be
banned in Europe — have been found in bee colonies. Scientists find
it hard to calculate how they react in different dosages and at
different combinations, she said.
Some of these
chemicals harm the immune systems of bees or amplify viruses, said
Penn State University bee expert Diana Cox-Foster. swamy, a top USDA
official, said the scientific consensus is that there are multiple
factors "and you can't parse any one out to be the smoking gun."
USDA bee researcher
Jeff Pettis also cited modern farming practices that often leave
little forage area for bees.
Dave Gaulson of the
University of Stirling in Scotland, who conducted a study last year
that implicated the chemical, said he can't disagree with the overall
conclusions of the U.S. government report. However, he said it could
have emphasized pesticides more.
The environmental
group, Pesticide Action Network North America blasted the federal
government for not following Europe's lead in looking at a ban of
certain pesticides.
Pollinators, like
honeybees, are crucial to the U.S. food supply. About $30 billion a
year in agriculture depends on their health, said Ramaswamy.
Besides making honey,
honeybees pollinate more than 90 flowering crops. Among them are a
variety of fruits and vegetables: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans,
asparagus, broccoli, citrus fruit and cranberries. About one-third of
the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee
is responsible for 80 per cent of that pollination.
"It affects
virtually every American whether they realize it or not," said
EPA acting administrator Bob Perciasepe.
Zac Browning, a
fourth-generation commercial beekeeper who has hives in Idaho, North
Dakota and California, said the nation is "on the brink" of
not having enough bees to pollinate its crops.
University of Maryland
entomologist David Inouye, who was not part of the federal report,
said he agrees that there are multiple causes.
"It's not a
simple situation. If it were one factor we would have identified it
by now," he said.
Inouye,
president-elect of the Ecological Society of America, said the
problems in Europe and United States may be slightly different. In
America, bee hives are trucked from farm to farm to pollinate large
tracts of land and that may help spread the parasites and disease, as
well as add stress to the colonies, while in Europe they stay put so
those issues may not be as big a factor.
At the news
conference, Berenbaum said there's no single solution to the U.S. bee
problem: "We're not really well equipped or even used to
fighting on multiple fronts."
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