From: Stock Journal
April 25, 2014
Editor’s Note: CRE notes the partial victory of administrative process and sound science in US District Court.
From: Courthouse News Service
By WILLIAM DOTINGA
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Beekeepers and environmentalists missed some administrative hoops before challenging honeybee-killing pesticides, a federal judge ruled.
Four beekeepers joined with nonprofits including the Sierra Club, Center for Food Safety and Center for Environmental Health in suing the Environmental Protection Agency last year over its approval of pesticides containing clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
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The EPA – joined by Bayer, Syngenta and other pesticide makers – moved to dismiss the action under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA.
April 23, 2014
From: National Geographic
Bees in Kenya stay healthy despite parasites and viruses that collapse U.S. and European hives.
Jennifer S. Holland
A surprising finding about East African honeybees lends new hope to the fight against colony collapses in the West. Scientists have discovered that bees in Kenya have strong resistance to the same pathogens responsible for the deaths of billions of bees elsewhere in the world. (See “Gold Dusters” in National Geographic magazine.)
April 21, 2014
From: SFGate.com
Paul Driessen
Almonds need honeybees for pollination, but bees that do the work face multiple threats. Properly identifying and addressing the risks is vital for commercial beekeepers, growers who operate this $4 billion-a-year California industry, and all who savor honey and almonds.
Beehives have been hit hard in recent years by many problems, including colony collapse disorder, which occurs when bees in a colony disappear, leaving behind only a queen and a few workers. Last year, U.S. beekeepers experienced an average 30 percent overwinter bee loss.
April 18, 2014
From: The Herald-Sun
Laura Oleniacz
DURHAM — Honeybees are in trouble.
Each year, the United States loses about a third of its honeybee population, said David R. Tarpy, an associate professor and extension beekeeper at N.C. State University.
And while beekeepers have been building the numbers back up, he said, it’s difficult for them to keep up at that pace of loss.
“The overall problem is that colonies are dying off at a greater rate than what is sustainable, and because we need them for pollinators, we need a sustainable honeybee population,” he said.
April 16, 2014
From: SBS
Fears of a mite infestation that could devastate Australia’s bee population are among the concerns to be raised at a senate hearing.
Source: AAP
Bee business and a potential billion dollar threat to agriculture is on the agenda of a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
At a town hall in Murray Bridge, west of Adelaide, senators will start to hear evidence from those in the bee and honey industry, including their fears of an infestation of the disease-spreading Varroa mite.
Ten submissions have been received, with some indicating a mite infestation is most likely to reach Australia via established bee hives carried on international shipping.
April 14, 2014
Editor’s Note: For more information about the Epilobee study, see the Review of Bee Health Decline here.
From: RTE News
A pioneering European Union survey into the impact of pests and diseases on honey bees has found that death rates were lower than feared.
The study in part counters concerns about the collapse of colonies of the crop-pollinating insects.
The study of 32,000 bee colonies across 17 EU member states from late 2012 until summer 2013 found winter mortality rates ranged from 3.5% percent to 33.6%.
The winter of 2012-13 was particularly cold and the highest mortality rates were in northern countries with harsher climates.
April 11, 2014
Editor’s Note: A major European Union study of honeybee health has collected detailed data on the impact of Varroa Destructor on EU bees. Processing and analysis of the dataset is described by the Europan Union Reference Laboratory (EURL) as a “massive effort.” The EU report makes clear that an assessment of “parasitic pressures” on bees from the data is neccessary before causality of bee health decline can be determined.
The complete Epilobee report, “A pan-European epidemiological study on honeybee colony losses: 2012-2013” is attached here. Below is an excerpt from p. 22.
April 9, 2014
From: The Moral Liberal
Perils of commercial beekeeping
BY PAUL DRIESSEN
Honeybees pollinate crops but endure stress, parasites and disease. Solutions are coming.
One of America’s earliest food crops – almonds – is also one of the most important for commercial beekeepers. Almonds depend on bees for pollination, but the explosive growth of this bumper crop taxes the very honeybees the industry needs to thrive.
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April 7, 2014
CRE
CFS’s Academic-Style Neonicotinoid Paper is NOT Data Quality Act Compliant
The Center for Food Safety’s report, “Heavy Costs: Weighing the Value of Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Agriculture” lists two External Reviewers on its Acknowledgements frontispiece along with reference to an anonymous reviewer. With respect to the independence of peer reviewers, OMB’s government-wide, binding Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review[1] states that
In its narrowest sense, independence in a reviewer means that the reviewer was not involved in producing the draft document to be reviewed. However, for peer review of some documents, a broader view of independence is necessary to assure credibility of the process.
April 7, 2014
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