“Pesticides and beekeeping have been butting heads for 50-plus years”

August 18, 2016 1:11 PM

The world’s most popular pesticide probably killed England’s wild bees

"Researchers studied 62 species of wild bees across England from 1994 to 2011. Over the last nine years, the decline in population size was three times worse among species that regularly fed on oilseed plants [treated with neonic insecticides] compared to others that forage on different floral resources, the study found. Five species showed declines of 20% or more, with the worst-hit species experiencing a 30% drop in its population."

20% of England's 250 bee species act as pollinators for the country's oilseed crops, according to the study [PDF]. An EU-wide moratorium on neonicotinoid use has been in place since 2013. This week the Financial Times called for an outright ban.

posted by not_the_water (21 comments total)

Neonicotinoids are the new DDT. Ban it, and purge Bayer's payroll of every exec in who participated in covering up its problems and fighting the restriction of it.
posted by tclark at 1:45 PM on August 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is a book that I think should be required reading. It feels like not much has really changed since its publication. We're continually finding new ways to fuck up our environment.
posted by Fizz at 1:54 PM on August 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

purge Bayer's payroll of every exec in who participated in covering up its problems

We could send them all to a small, remote island, where they could personally explain to the locals what happened to their honey.
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:15 PM on August 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

They are pesticides. Pest-icides. Bees are not pests, so the compounds couldn't be responsible.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:41 PM on August 18, 2016

This can't possibly be true, I have read several patronizing comments on Reddit dismissing the idea out of hand.
posted by No-sword at 4:03 PM on August 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

Bees Are Dying - 'Truly, “humans would probably not go extinct” is the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ of apocalyptic diagnoses, the kind of science for which only memes can provide a rational response.'
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:31 PM on August 18, 2016

This is an incredibly poorly written article that conflates the "majority of species" with "the majority of the species" several times.

20-30% population reductions are nothing to feel good about but they are certainly not in the range of "killing all of England's bees" or even "Killing the majority of England's bees" or even "Killing the majority of one type of bee".

I grow indoor succulents and without Neonicotinoids I'd flat out quit my hobby because it would become impossible very quickly. I don't worry much about the bees in my case because they don't get into my apartment but it is also relevant to people growing just about anything else.

When I lived in England I gave up on growing on lilies completely because I just couldn't control the lily beetle infestations. Same for Lupins and aphids.

That was just in my backyard. Now imagine if I was growing food to feed myself and/or the entire rest of my town. No lilies or lupins no big deal. No food?

I hear people go on and on about biologic controls and I wonder if any of them have ever tried them and successfully eradicated an infestation. I tried them repeatedly and they never even made a small dent in a pest problem. Not once and I spent a lot of cash on them and tried and tried.

The removal of Neonicotinoids from the arsenal of pest fighters also has implications beyond merely one type of pesticide. Removing one mode of pest control means increased reliance on others which can result in the breeding of resistant bugs (I think UK home gardeners are now down to one or two remaining legally permitted and less effective pesticides).

I wish there was a solution that was good for the bees and for growers but at the moment there is just messy compromise.
posted by srboisvert at 5:45 PM on August 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wish there was a solution that was good for the bees and for growers
bees: want to live
growers: want to make more money

I pick bees! Not so messy after all!
posted by j_curiouser at 5:50 PM on August 18, 2016 [6 favorites]

I pick bees! Not so messy after all!

Hrm:

As of 2013 neonicotinoids have been used In the U.S. on about 95 percent of corn and canola crops, the majority of cotton, sorghum, and sugar beets and about half of all soybeans. They have been used on the vast majority of fruit and vegetables, including apples, cherries, peaches, oranges, berries, leafy greens, tomatoes, and potatoes, to cereal grains, rice, nuts, and wine grapes. Imidacloprid is possibly the most widely used insecticide, both within the neonicotinoids and in the worldwide market.

I mean, fuck Bayer Crop Science and all (my dad used to work for them; they're scumbags), and I am by and large in favor of a deep rethinking of many, many things about how we do agriculture. But I have to guess that in fact banning it might be kind of messy. That's not even to say a ban shouldn't be put in place; I just wish conversations about the food system could be a little more conscious of scale and complexity, I guess.
posted by brennen at 8:10 PM on August 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

As I noted in a previous post, wasp poisons are also neonicotinoids. So keep that in mind when wantonly blasting the hell out of some poor little paper wasp. Your wildly inflated fear and loathing for all things "stingy" is killing us all.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 8:10 PM on August 18, 2016

I wish there was a solution that was good for the bees and for growers
bees: want to live
growers: want to make more money

I pick bees! Not so messy after all!

you: also eat food, that is grown?

I mean I'm not actually throwing in with the pesticide people here - or with anybody, I know very little about this - but that seems like an obnoxiously glib response to what he was getting at.
posted by atoxyl at 8:45 PM on August 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Last week it was pesticides disturbing the sex life of the bees, making the males less interested. This stuff works on us too. These endocrine disrupters are layered on top of more and more types of substances. We end up eating these, regardless. In the honey, on the produce, in the oils pressed from the plants. In genetics only humans with worth will be able to successfully breed, and live in safe places. Coming right up.
posted by Oyéah at 8:46 PM on August 18, 2016

As I noted in a previous post, wasp poisons are also neonicotinoids. So keep that in mind when wantonly blasting the hell out of some poor little paper wasp. Your wildly inflated fear and loathing for all things "stingy" is killing us all.

I'm pretty sure the stuff in aerosol cans (Raid at least) is a pyrethroid or three, not a neonicotinoids.
posted by atoxyl at 8:48 PM on August 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure the stuff in aerosol cans (Raid at least) is a pyrethroid or three, not a neonicotinoids.

My bad. You are correct atoxyl. However the pyrethroids also kill bees (at least from what I read it seems they do) .
posted by WalkerWestridge at 9:42 PM on August 18, 2016

Well if it's sold to kill wasps I'm not surprised it kills bees. I guess the question is just is it persistently harmful to a similar degree? Because if I'm not mistaken the whole selling point of the neonicotinoids is that they are taken up by plants, rendering them systemically toxic to pests. However as mentioned in your link pyrethroids do also hang around for a while. I'm sure none of this stuff is great for beneficial insects.
posted by atoxyl at 9:59 PM on August 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bayer has an annoying habit of putting conflicting advice on their product labels often the per hectare rate is different from per 100 litre rate.
Don't know about punishing the Bayer executives; they've come up with many essential psychiatric medicines and veterinary medicines; whoops! we'll just forget about them owning the trademark for heroin.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 3:00 AM on August 19, 2016

tclark: "Neonicotinoids are the new DDT. Ban it, and purge Bayer's payroll of every exec in who participated in covering up its problems and fighting the restriction of it."

The overabundant use of neonicotinoids, like the overuse of so many chemicals, is absolutely a huge problem that needs to be dealt with. But banning an extremely effective chemical because it's poorly used is a big mistake. Neonics, for example, are really the only current way to effectively keep hemlock trees alive. Their loss has already been catastrophic in some very particular ecosystems, but at least some have been kept alive in some places where it was feasible. The treatment has negligible effects on bees because hemlocks are wind-pollinated.
posted by Red Loop at 3:21 AM on August 19, 2016

The treatment has negligible effects on bees because hemlocks are wind-pollinated.

True, but how the pesticide is applied is also a factor, as drift to nearby plants can contaminate pollen and other parts of the plant.

As above, I just wish conversations about the food biological systems could be a little more conscious of scale and complexity.
posted by sneebler at 7:56 AM on August 19, 2016

Yep, I tried beekeeping as a hobby, kept two hives alive an entire year and through the winter, but when spring planting started locally (I'm in farm country in Northern Virginia), every last bee died overnight. I checked, and sure enough they were spraying neonic poison on the seeds as it was planted, so the soil, the dust, the seeds, and the surrounding areas were coated with the stuff. I no longer keep bees, and probably won't until this practice is banned. Oh, and it isn't just me, across the street and down three houses is a private road called "Bee Lane" where a bee keeping farmer used to live and operate. He ran his own honey packaging company with a large warehouse and processing facility out on the main road a couple of miles away, ran thousands of bee hives in the area keeping all the orchards and farmers polinated, and a few years ago closed up shop entirely and moved his operation far away, on the grounds that he could no longer keep his bee population alive enough to make it work. The main change was that most of the orchards were bulldozed down and turned into corn fields as more profitable, and the corn required lots more neonic pesticides than the orchards, and the bees just couldn't survive in that environment.
posted by Blackanvil at 12:30 PM on August 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

sneebler: "The treatment has negligible effects on bees because hemlocks are wind-pollinated.

True, but how the pesticide is applied is also a factor, as drift to nearby plants can contaminate pollen and other parts of the plant.

As above, I just wish conversations about the food biological systems could be a little more conscious of scale and complexity."

It is most often either applied to the soil at the base of the tree or sprayed directly onto the trunk. If a tree is small enough to have the foliage sprayed, one could (and should) use horticultural oil or soap. For 400 year-old forest trees, there is no alternative. Biological controls have been tried but have been for the most part unsuccessful.
posted by Red Loop at 3:30 PM on August 19, 2016

"What we can say at this point, is that the use of neonicotinoid seed treatments over hundreds of millions of acres annually, coupled with their extremely high toxicity to honey bees, and their persistence in plants (including nectar and pollen that bees eat) combine to create an environment where it is very difficult for bees to avoid exposure to these highly toxic chemicals. That in itself makes this topic worthy of further investigation."
From: http://articles.extension.org/pages/65034/neonicotinoid-seed-treatments-and-honey-bee-health

Corn, soybeans, wheat, and canola are major crops here in NA. Corn is planted with a planter which can place the seed with air meters or finger meters. Finger meters are mechanical and air use air. There is apparently a lot more dust with the air meters. Finger meters need a lubricant, usually graphite. Which one is better for the bees, I don't know, but there is more to talk about then just the neonicotinoids.
posted by sety at 5:54 AM on August 22, 2016