Pesticides linked to ‘large-scale population extinctions’ of wild bees

Insects play a key role in pollination of crops but many species are believed to be in trouble


A major 18-year study has found evidence linking controversial "neonicotinoid" pesticides with “large-scale population extinctions” of wild bees for the first time.
The insecticides have been shown to have “sub-lethal” effects on bees, which are vital pollinators for many crops, in laboratory-style conditions and small-scale studies.
But their actual effect in the real world was not well understood – until now.
The use of neonicotinoids has been restricted by the European Union and banned in some places, such as the US state of Maryland, because of growing concern about their effects on bees.

Last month the UK Government refused an application to use the pesticide – by the National Farmers Union – for the second time this year, although it has previously approved its use. However campaigners fear the restrictions will be lifted after the UK leaves the EU.
The study looked at nearly 32,000 surveys of 62 wild bee species that were carried out across much of England between 1994 and 2011 inclusive.
The researchers examined the effect of the first widespread use of neonicotinoids as a treatment on oilseed rape seeds in 2002. This was mainly designed to protect the crop from another insect, the cabbage stem flea beetle.
But, writing in the journal Nature, the researchers concluded: “Our results provide the first evidence that sub-lethal impacts of neonicotinoid exposure can be linked to large-scale population extinctions of wild bee species, with these effects being strongest for species that are known to forage on oilseed rape crops.”
The researchers divided the countryside into five-kilometre squares, which they classed as a “population” of bees, and looked at how they changed over time.


Wild bees have suffered a general decline in recent years, but the study found that this was three times worse for species that regularly feed on oilseed rape, such as the buff-tailed bumblebee, compared to those that forage on various different flowers.
For five species investigated, including the spined mason bee and the furrow bee, the study found neonicotinoid use was linked to at least 20 per cent of local population extinctions of wild bees.
The number of populations of the worst affected species, the sharp collared furrow bee, fell by 45 per cent between 1994 and 2011 with the researchers estimating 31 percentage points of the decline was linked to neonicotinoids and 14 points to other causes.
The researchers said the extinctions they referred to were local ones near to oilseed rape fields, rather than extinctions across England as a whole.
The lead author of the Nature Communications paper, Dr Ben Woodcock of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said: “As a flowering crop, oilseed rape is beneficial for pollinating insects. 
“This benefit however, appears to be more than nullified by the effect of neonicotinoid seed treatment on a range of wild bee species. 
“Although we find evidence to show that neonicotinoid use is a contributory factor leading to wild bee species population decline, it is unlikely that they are acting in isolation of other environmental pressures. 
“Wild bees have undergone global declines that have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, pathogens, climate change and other insecticides.”

Paul de Zylva, nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said the study “adds a huge new peak to the existing mountain of evidence showing the risk these chemicals pose to our bees”. 
“This is the strongest ever evidence of harm to bees from neonicotinoid pesticides in British fields,” he said.
“If the government genuinely wants to safeguard Britain’s bees, it must keep the ban on neonicotinoid pesticides regardless of what happens with Brexit – and tighten the way pesticides are tested and licensed for use.”
However the NFU insisted farmers had to use neonicotinoids or something similar.
Dr Chris Hartfield, the NFU’s “bee health specialist”, said: “This study is another interesting piece to an unsolved puzzle about how neonicotinoid seed treatments affect bees. 
“It does not show that neonicotinoids are causing widespread declines in pollinator populations and it certainly does not show that neonicotinoid use has caused any extinction of bees in England.”
He added that without many “plant protection products” farmers’ ability “to produce wholesome, affordable food for the nation will continue to stagnate”.
“While this study claims to provide an important contribution to the evidence base underpinning the current EU moratorium on some uses of neonicotinoids, experts reviewing all the evidence have concluded that there are still major gaps in our knowledge and a limited evidence base to guide policymakers,” Dr Hartfield said.
Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides that are similar to nicotine.
And Nick Mole, of the Pesticide Action Network UK, said the current debate was similar to the situation in the 1950s when the tobacco industry attempted to deny that smoking harmed human health.
“How much more proof, more evidence, does the NFU need? Are they waiting until there are no more bees?” he said.
“This is just one more independent review that shows clearly the harm that neonicotinoids are doing.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/insecticides-bees-population-extinction-link-farmers-toxic-neonicotinoid-oilseed-rape-a7193951.html


The devastating effects of Neonicotinoids on bees has been known for some time, this just reinforces it.   The farmers are nuts!   No Bees - no us, don't they get that!

Morning Mix
‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes
By Ben Guarino  September 1
On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers.

Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that colony collapse disorder was not the culprit — in that odd phenomenon, workers vanish as though raptured, leaving a living queen and young bees behind.

Instead, the dead heaps signaled the killer was less mysterious, but no less devastating. The pattern matched acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary — Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply, in Summerville — 46 hives died on the spot, totaling about 2.5 million bees.

Walking through the farm, one Summerville woman wrote on Facebook, was “like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness.”

A Clemson University scientist collected soil samples from Flowertown on Tuesday, according to WCBD-TV, to further investigate the cause of death. But to the bee farmers, the reason is already clear. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchester’s own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes.

On Sunday morning, parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled, a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact. The United States began using Naled in 1959, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that the chemical dissipates so quickly it is not a hazard to people. That said, human exposure to Naled during spraying “should not occur.”

In parts of South Carolina, trucks trailing pesticide clouds are not an unusual sight, thanks to a mosquito-control program that also includes destroying larvae. Given the current concerns of West Nile virus and Zika — there are several dozen cases of travel-related Zika in South Carolina, though the state health department reports no one has yet acquired the disease from a local mosquito bite — Dorchester decided to try something different Sunday.
It marked a departure from Dorchester County’s usual ground-based efforts. For the first time, an airplane dispensed Naled in a fine mist, raining insect death from above between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. The county says it provided plenty of warning, spreading word about the pesticide plane via a newspaper announcement Friday and a Facebook post Saturday.

Local beekeepers felt differently.
“Had I known, I would have been camping on the steps doing whatever I had to do screaming, ‘No you can’t do this,'” beekeeper Juanita Stanley said in an interview with Charleston’s WCSC-TV. Stanley told the Charleston Post and Courier that the bees are her income, but she is more devastated by the loss of the bees than her honey.

The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. “Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,” Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, “I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.”

Officials in Miami are hoping pesticides sprayed from the skies will be enough to kill the mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus there. Florida health officials have identified 15 Zika cases spread by local mosquitoes. (Reuters)
Officials in Miami are hoping pesticides sprayed from the skies will be enough to kill the mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus there. Florida health officials have identified 15 Zika cases spread by local mosquitoes. Florida officials spray insecticide to kill mosquito larvae, as they also try to salvage their tourism industry from the ravages of the disease. (Reuters)

Spraying Naled from the air is not unprecedented, particularly when covering areas that cannot be reached by truck. In a single year in Florida, more than 6 million acres were fumigated with the chemical, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency argued in January that the technique should be used to curb Zika in Puerto Rico.

But the insect neurotoxin cannot discriminate between honey bees and bloodsuckers. A profile of the chemical in Cornell University’s pesticide database warned that “Naled is highly toxic to bees.”

Although the insecticide was known to kill bees, to South Carolina beekeepers spraying had not been as significant a concern as parasites, disease and other hive threats. As South Carolina Beekeepers Association President Larry Haigh told the Post and Courier in June 2015, many counties will spray at night, when honey bees do not forage for pollen. Plus, given sufficient warning, beekeepers will shield their hives and protect the bees’ food and water from contamination.

Sunday was different. Summerville resident Andrew Macke, who keeps bees as a hobby, wrote on Facebook that the hot weather left bees particularly exposed. Once temperatures exceed 90 degrees, bees may exit the nest to cool down in what is called a beard, clustering on the outside of the hive in a ball. Neither Macke nor Stanley had covered their hives.

And then came the plane.
“They passed right over the trees three times,” Stanley said to ABC 4 News. After the plane left, the familiar buzzing stopped. The silence in its wake was like a morgue, she said.  As for the dead bees, as Stanley told the AP, her farm “looks like it’s been nuked.”

A Summerville resident started a Change.org petition calling for Dorchester County to halt aerial Naled spraying. It is unclear whether those who lost bees are pursuing other recourse.

How countries are combating the Zika virus

Update: Dorchester County administrator Jason Ward wrote to The Washington Post in a statement on Thursday, clarifying that the county sent out a press release at 9:15 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 26.

“The beekeepers that were on the county’s contact list that were in the zone to be sprayed were called with one exception. Mr. Scott Gaskins, who runs the Mosquito Control program, failed to call Mitch Yawn, Ms. Juanita Stanley’s business partner,” Ward said in the email.

“The second issue regarding beekeepers like Mr. Andrew Macke revolves around the fact that the county did not have these locations on its list. However, we have reached out to the Lowcountry Beekeepers Association and they provided us with the names and locations for other beekeepers in Dorchester County.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/01/like-its-been-nuked-millions-of-bees-dead-after-south-carolina-sprays-for-zika-mosquitoes

Very disturbing the thoughtlessness that has gone into such knee-jerk behavior in places that just 'felt the need to do something - anything, even if it was utterly STUPID'   FFS

there are several dozen cases of travel-related Zika in South Carolina, though the state health department reports no one has yet acquired the disease from a local mosquito bite — Dorchester decided to try something different Sunday.

So let's react to a Known Fact, that the people that we have in our country traveled to locations and were bitten by 1 of the only 2 known types of mosquito's that breed & carry the ZIKA virus ...so we'll areal spray NALED because we ain't too bright over here in South Carolina - yuk-yuk-yuk!

Those idiots in South Carolina spraying mozzies because a few locals are scared of a virus that currently lives a few thousand miles away..

Typical braindead reaction from the bible belt/white supremacist/nuke the enemy politicians -- wanting to appear that they are getting on top of some imaginary problem that may or may not happen..

And kill off thousands of square miles of countryside in the process !

IT'S LIKE they never learnt anything from the DDT disasters of the 1950s and '60s...        

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Those idiots in South Carolina spraying mozzies because a few locals are scared of a virus that currently lives a few thousand miles away..

Typical braindead reaction from the bible belt/white supremacist/nuke the enemy politicians -- wanting to appear that they are getting on top of some imaginary problem that may or may not happen..

And kill off thousands of square miles of countryside in the process !

IT'S LIKE they never learnt anything from the DDT disasters of the 1950s and '60s...        

AGREE ...what a bunch of absolute 'FUCK-WITS'; the number of small honey bee production farms relaying on those industrious little insects to just do their jobs --- to be so heinously wiped out by a white collar group of 'FUCK-WITS' over thinking - over reacting to ZIKA virus that hasn't been detected north of Florida! 

Not that I agree with the antics/methods of Timothy McVeigh; I do understand his heightened frustration with our government!

4EVER2 wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Those idiots in South Carolina spraying mozzies because a few locals are scared of a virus that currently lives a few thousand miles away..

Typical braindead reaction from the bible belt/white supremacist/nuke the enemy politicians -- wanting to appear that they are getting on top of some imaginary problem that may or may not happen..

And kill off thousands of square miles of countryside in the process !

IT'S LIKE they never learnt anything from the DDT disasters of the 1950s and '60s...        

AGREE ...what a bunch of absolute 'FUCK-WITS'; the number of small honey bee production farms relaying on those industrious little insects to just do their jobs --- to be so heinously wiped out by a white collar group of 'FUCK-WITS' over thinking - over reacting to ZIKA virus that hasn't been detected north of Florida! 

Not that I agree with the antics/methods of Timothy McVeigh; I do understand his heightened frustration with our government!

I seem to remember a certain R/W poster who said exactly the same (before your time here) about Anders Brevic, and recieved a whole bucket load of abuse and so on for his efforts....

but hey you are L/W and so exempt from such sentiments......

and yet.....as I have SHOWN...the first ones to become abusive in this scenario is............the left...funny that
by Lord Foul
on Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:24 pm
Search in: Politics - U.S. and CanadaTopic: Trump: If blacks don't like America...get out!

Scrat is Back!

you will post within the rules....or end up not posting at all....just sayin
by Lord Foul
on Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:22 pm
Search in: Forum Fight ClubTopic: Scrat is Back!

Topic derailment - GOADING - dredging up BS from long ago that has no
bearing on the subject matter nor anything to do with the discussion!

Sad, but so true to form!  Expectation = FAILURE but it meets the status quo

you really cant see the point can you.....

IT IS relevant...not, I suppose so much to you since you were not here then....

but it IS relevant to the rst of those who were involved

and is merely another manifestation of the lefts hypocrisy...

as to all that bull shit above...get a flamin life.

it is 100% irrelevant...

first it is NOT abusive (perhaps your posting would improve if you learned what constituted abuse, instead of screaming abuse at every perceived slight, )

and secondly it has bog all to do with posting within the rules ...since NO rule was broken....


GROW UP.

act your age not your shoe size


there ...theres some abuse so you can feel vindicated.....

Immature personality disorders are regarded as more likely to improve with time. Examples of these are located within Cluster B (dramatic, emotional or erratic disorders) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and include:

• Antisocial personality disorder: a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.
  
• Borderline personality disorder: a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person (generally over the age of eighteen years, although it is also found in adolescents) characterized by depth and variability of moods.
  
• Histrionic personality disorder: a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, usually beginning in early adulthood.
  
• Narcissistic personality disorder: involving excessive preoccupation with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity.
  

[*]

Characteristics of Immature Personality Disorder

Easy charm and good humor tend to mask a lack of self-awareness and emotional instability. The person with immature personality disorder adapts poorly to novel situations they find stressful. Their lack of emotional development also leaves them with a fairly fragile temperament and they are prone to quick shifts in mood. This is a person who finds great difficulty accepting responsibility for their actions and who will use immature defenses, such as blaming others, or lashing out verbally or physically as ways to cope. Such defenses are quite common in children and often in adolescents but are viewed as highly undesirable in adults.

[*]
You must have been an 'interesting little boy' ...I lay odds on that you were quite a handful given your ability to ...well, to show your maturity around here!

right ho 4ever


you deserve banning for what is clearly and obviously "mod baiting"

you have been "trying it on for months now"


I wont tolerate it any more....

you are sick and twisted in the head...

and have engaged in attempts to undermine what you see as mods with a political POV you dislike...

you want a forum where EVERYONE agrees with YOUR POV

well it aint going to happen here


NOW......that said

YOU show ME how exactly why and TO WHOM the post i made was "abusive"

THEN show exactly how and why it broke ANY rule

IF you cant, firstly you are making unsubstantiable "claims"
and secondly you revael that you are indeed "mod baiting"

I'll give you this LAST chance

the next "mod baiting" post , to ANY mod will result in a ban...

She's been doing it to me for the last two or three days.
She's boring the pants off me.

Lord Foul wrote:right ho 4ever
you deserve banning for what is clearly and obviously "mod baiting" Right, because it's always a ONE SIDED AFFAIR with you; you can hand it out but we/me are just supposed to allow you to verbally abuse whomever you chose too and we're supposed to LIKE and STFU.  No - Not how the rules work - not what the rules state!
you have been "trying it on for months now"  And there you go, always with your over blown-massive hysteria rants that have no validation and can be easily proven WRONG just by looking at my posting archival - and your go APE SHIT every time you get challenged. 
I wont tolerate it any more.... Oh, you've been dogging my every posts for some time ...quite the trolling persona and when your sarcastic joking is nothing more then abusive put downs and mean jabs I'm supposed to just ignore your sorry ASS?
you are sick and twisted in the head...  EXACTLY, you've just attacked me - as your usual method of abusing/bullying/stomping the holy crap out of members and expect us to lay down while you do this - NOOOO, you have the same rules for decorum to follow that ALL OF US DO!  You seem unable to READ and FOLLOW THE RULES!
and have engaged in attempts to undermine what you see as mods with a political POV you dislike... Maybe if you can't handle adult discussion - especially political ones you should AVOID THEM; seems the real issue is your inability to handle a adult discussion and you wanting to STOMP THE CRAP OUT OF ME PERSONALLY ...quite telling by the immature name calling and the method you have of dropping in to a discussion - not to talk but to attack - yet that's MY FAULT?  No, dude - that's your problem and you've come rolling in with it, I didn't give it to you
you want a forum where EVERYONE agrees with YOUR POV
well it aint going to happen here  Ahhhh, more of that blow up male ego explaining my POV and how I want a forum to run; seems it a 'self-inflicted' one for you and nothing I can do to help you modify your own personality problems, but if you can't maintain yourself in a proper adult way then perhaps you just aren't suited for a community discussion group - PERIOD that's all on you.
NOW......that said
YOU show ME how exactly why and TO WHOM the post i made was "abusive"
THEN show exactly how and why it broke ANY rule
IF you cant, firstly you are making unsubstantiable "claims"
and secondly you revael that you are indeed "mod baiting"
I'll give you this LAST chance  OMG, you really can't manage to comprehend what your rant about - what you spew - your caustic mean spirited posts and then you want ME TO PROVIDE YOU WITH PROOF; SWEET JESUS, THAT'S LAME --- REALLY LAME
the next "mod baiting" post , to ANY mod will result in a ban...

Hey, you've got the power - you've had the ability to abuse it since it was awarded to you ...you've done nothing but troll my every post when one of the 'parachute pack' whined about how 'mean and nasty' I was to one of their dearly beloved best buddies --- just ain't it a shame you couldn't be bothered to read how many ugly ass-swipes that they dropped in on me prior to my finally responding to their BS ---

NAAAA, you and your little Eddie, just keep playing favorites and then the crap over flows and you both get to attack and call members heinous names and never ever apologize for your horrible behavior out here on the entire community!

BECAUSE YOU HAVE YOUR FAVORITE TEAM PLAYERS THAT WILL ALWAYS HAVE YOUR BACK AND TOTAL SUPPORT REGARDLESS OF HOW VILE AND DISRUPTIVE YOU BOTH HAVE BEEN AND HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO BE!
Your posting history PROVES what I've stated - Your own posting history proves how UN-moderator like you both have been and yet I've been posting around both of your immature attitudes to the best of my ability!  SUCK IT UP BUTTER CUPS - you both are just as horrible as what you're blaming me for!