Editor’s Note: USDA’s blog post, below, discusses the complex, multi-variate challenges to bee health–with a particular emphasis on the role of the Varroa destructor. The USDA discussion of bee health serves contradicts the discredited work found in the Lu et al study conducted by Harvard University.
Two years ago CRE initiated a detailed review of the role of Varroa mites in bee health decline. Subsequent to the review CRE advised EPA that:
Finally, a substantial number of recent scientific studies conclude that Varroa Mites are the major cause of bee health decline, not clothianidin. Consequently there is no basis for suspending the registration of clothianidin.
May 14, 2014
Editor’s Note: The Australian government recently released a comprehensive assessment of neonicotinoids and pollinator health. The report study, Overview Report: Neonicotinoids and the Health of Honey Bees in Australia, attached here, dismiss the Lu et al (2012) (“Harvard”) study as not credible.
The Australian government report was included in CRE’s comments to DEFRA, the UK’s Deparment of Food and Rural Affairs, on their pollinator protection consultation. CRE’s detailed science-based comments on neonicotonoids and honey bee health are attached here.
May 13, 2014
From: Pacific News Center
University of Guam
Guam – In a United Nations report The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, Pavan Sukhdev speaks to the invaluable service bees provide for humankind.
“Not a single bee has ever sent you an invoice. And that is part of the problem – because most of what comes to us from nature is free, because it is not invoiced, because it is not priced, because it is not traded in markets, we tend to ignore it.”
May 12, 2014
From: Mississippi Business Journal
JACKSON — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given approval of an emergency exemption that will allow Mississippi beekeepers access to a miticide to help control varroa mite infestations in honeybee colonies.
The product receiving emergency exemption under Section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is manufactured by BetaTec Hop Products. HopGuard II uses cardboard strips treated with potassium salt of hop beta acids to control varroa mite infestations. The strips are inserted into honeybee colonies or packages of adult worker bees prior to installation in a honeybee colony.
May 9, 2014
Editor’s Note: A new study by academicians from Mississippi State University, the University of Tennessee and the University of Arkansas (Gore, et al) demonstrates the economic value of neonictotinoids used in the Mid-South is available here.
The Gore study belies a report from the Center for Food Safety (CFS), “Heavy Costs: Weighing the Value of Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Agriculture” claiming “that numerous studies show neonicotinoid seed treatments do not provide significant yield benefits in many contexts. European reports of crop yields being maintained even after regional neonicotinoid bans corroborate this finding.”
May 7, 2014
From: BlackSeaGrain
“Why are there problems for bees associated with the growing corn but not canola, when both are planted using neonic-treated seed?”
A great question: asked from the floor during a recent Pollination Guelph panel discussion of which I was a part. The question brought everything into focus, writes Terry Daynard, former University of Guelph crop science professor and associate dean.
The implied assumption – more bee problems with corn versus canola – is quite well supported. Although 70-80% of Canadian neonic seed treatment occurs in Western Canada, mostly with canola, the complaints about neonic-linked bee deaths are almost all from Ontario and Quebec where corn is more dominant.
May 6, 2014
From: OPB
Capital Press
Instead of banning the neonicotinoid class of pesticides, Congress should follow Oregon’s example and use a collaborative and science-based approach to improving honeybee health, the executive director of the Oregon Association of Nurseries said.
OAN director Jeff Stone told a congressional subcommittee that the state’s nursery industry depends on pollinators, but also relies on chemical agents to kill pests and protect plant health.
“This chemical class, when used properly, is vital to the success of our industry,” Stone told members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology and Foreign Agriculture.
May 5, 2014
From: South Dakota Public Broadcasting
By Amy Varland
Pollinators, like honeybees, face a barrage of obstacles every day while just trying to do their jobs – pollenating Earth’s plants and perpetuating their colonies. Keeping the queen bee happy, the hive clean, and the young fed while dodging stressors like pesticides and parasites is no easy task.
Holly Holt is a graduate student in the Etymology Department at Penn State. Holt says the numbers of pollinators, like honeybees, are declining world-wide. She says stressors including pesticides, aggressive agricultural practices, parasites, and pathogens are constant threats that can cause habitat fragmentation in pollinator populations here in South Dakota and across the globe.
May 2, 2014
Editor’s Note: Under American regulatory policy formalized in President Obama’s Executive Order on regulatory review, regulators adopt a regulation only after “a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs,” not simply because they can. The EU’s pollinator protection policy is now openly ignoring the leading role in bee health decline of varroa destructor.
From: Food Chemical News
April 30, 2014
Editor’s Note: Agricultural retailers educate farmers on proper use of agricultural chemcials to protect crops and the environment. Bees need farmers to receive science-based education and advice as illustrated below in a poorly-informed letter from the National Farmers Union of Canada which called for a “5-year moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid seed treatments on corn and soybeans in Ontario and Quebec” even though neonic bans are associated with the loss of bee colonies. By contrast, a former associate dean for research and innovation in the Ontario Agricultural College at University of Guelph explained:
April 28, 2014
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