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posted by LaminatorX on Sunday October 26 2014, @08:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the bad-and-not-good dept.

Agriculture.com reports:

Neonicotinoids Provide Minimal Soybean Yield Help.

The class of soybean pesticide seed treatments about which speculation has swirled on its impact on the decline of critical pollinator populations in the U.S. has now been deemed "of little or no benefit" to the crop, federal officials said [October 16].

Leaders of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced [October 16] a long-term study of neonicotinoid seed treatments they say have been "linked to a wide range of impacts on pollinators and are a driving factor in bee population declines" has shown the class of chemicals have basically no influence on soybean yield and, in turn, profitability.

[...][The bureaucrats were] quick to say the findings are limited to soybean production, of which 30% of the nation's acres [ ] are typically treated with a neonicotinoid insecticide, many of them "prophylactic," or preventative in nature

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Landmark Study: Honeybee Queens Severely Affected by Neonicotinoid Pesticides 18 comments

AlterNet reports

A research team from the Institute of Bee Health at the University of Bern, from Agroscope at the Swiss Confederation, and from the Department of Biology at Canada's Acadia University [published the results of their study] in an article in the open-access journal Scientific Reports from the Nature Publishing Group [which concludes] that honey bee queens are "extremely vulnerable" to the neonicotinoids thiamethoxam and clothianidin.
[Reprinted in the journal Nature."]

The study shows profound effects on queen physiology, anatomy, and overall reproductive success.

[...] Previous research suggests that exposure to these chemicals [causes] both lethal and sub-lethal effects on honey bee workers, but nothing has been known about how they may affect queens.

The observation that honey bee queens are highly vulnerable to these common neonicotinoid pesticides is "worrisome, but not surprising", says senior author Laurent Gauthier from the Swiss Confederation's Agroscope.

[...] Since there is only a single queen in each colony, queen health is crucial to colony survival.

[...] In 2013, governments in Europe took a precautionary approach by partially restricting the application of the neonicotinoid pesticides thiamethoxam, clothianidin, and imidacloprid, with the mandate to perform further environmental risk assessments.

A new inter-governmental review will take place in the coming months.

Previous: Can Obama Save the Bees?
EPA Finds Little Benefit to Pesticide Linked to Bee Declines


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday October 26 2014, @11:07AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday October 26 2014, @11:07AM (#110206) Journal

    The way Colony Collapse Disorder was reported a few years back, you'd come away with the impression that the problem was mysterious and baffling. No one could figure out why bees were dying!

    That ignorance never sounded plausible to me. It didn't pass the smell test. I thought it much more likely that we knew exactly why bee colonies were dying, but that powerful interests were trying to deny it. Or maybe the media was trying to "sex it up". Science, no just plain grade school reasoning, reduced to political football and media drama.

    Pesticides kills insects. Bees are insects. Therefore, pesticides kill bees. Who'd have thought it?

  • (Score: 1) by art guerrilla on Sunday October 26 2014, @08:13PM

    by art guerrilla (3082) on Sunday October 26 2014, @08:13PM (#110311)

    EPA Finds Little Benefit to Pesticide Linked to Bee Declines

    not really, the monsanto's/etc of the world benefited to the tune of sesquizillions of pieces of silver...
    and *that* is what is important: the health of fictitious legal entities who are korporate persons, my friend, not *actual* persons...

    bees ? yeah, when was the last time a bee donated to a political campaign ? ? ?
    e-x-a-c-t-l-y: no pay, no say...

    sucks to be a bee, but -you know- invisible hands beyond our control, blah blah blah...

  • (Score: 1) by Murdoc on Wednesday October 29 2014, @01:24AM

    by Murdoc (2518) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @01:24AM (#111028) Homepage

    ...they're going home! The Doctor said so.

    Watch out for other planets in the sky.