Let
it be said that the battle of the reports is well under way and it is
been fought out in the middle of my old stomping grounds in Ontario.
Last
year Bayer ran an expensive exercise in Ontario in which the selected
hives were exposed for exactly two weeks before removed to pristine
conditions to show no effect. That should have worked perfectly save
for the obvious avoidance of continuing exposure driving accumulation
levels that kill. In fact prior work readily predicts just this
result.
This
is a far more deadly set of statistics simply because it proves that
proximity is directly linked to CCD. We are no longer going at it
backwards.
One-third more dead
bees: Researcher looks at insecticide impact
By Fanny Arnaud, The
Canadian Press June 24, 2013
Seeding is over for
this year on Canadian corn and soy farms. But a student's research
suggests the consequences on bees could last a long time.
He has collected data
that showed apiaries installed less than three kilometres from
insecticide-treated fields had a three times higher rate of
mortality.
Human beings should
take note. Pollination is responsible for 70 per cent of cultivated
plants, and for 35 per cent of humans' overall food consumption.
Fewer bees means fewer plants - notably apples, strawberries,
cucumbers - and could ultimately mean a drop in the food supply.
The Quebec master's
student, Olivier Samson-Robert, had attempted to put a figure on the
noted decline in bee populations and determine how much of it was
linked to a certain type of insecticide.
The Laval University
student released the first part of his study about bees' mortality
around fields treated with neo-nicotinoid insecticides, one of the
most widely used insecticides worldwide.
"The
neonicotinoid insecticide causes a higher mortality rate,"
Samson-Robert said in an interview.
Neonicotinoid
insecticides have been allowed in Canada since 2004.
They are chemically
similar to nicotine, which has a long tradition in agriculture.
Tobacco has been used as an insecticide since at least the 15th
century, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Samson-Robert said
that insecticide is ubiquitous, with 99 per cent of corn seeds and 50
per cent of soy seeds in Quebec coated with it.
Particles from that
insecticide escape into the air when the seeds are planted,
Samson-Robert said.
He said particles from
insecticides fall onto bees, or onto the flowers that bees are
visiting. Particles are present as well in the water that bees drink.
Health Canada's Pest
Management Regulatory Agency announced an evaluation of the situation
in 2012 after bees' increased mortality was reported.
"Health Canada is
closely monitoring treated-seed planting and conducting analyses of
bee incidents that are occurring this year," spokesman Sean
Upton said in an email.
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