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http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40382086
The most extensive study to date on neonicotinoid pesticides concludes that they harm both honeybees and wild bees. Researchers said that exposure to the chemicals left honeybee hives less likely to survive over winter, while bumblebees and solitary bees produced fewer queens.
The study spanned 2,000 hectares across the UK, Germany and Hungary and was set up to establish the "real-world" impacts of the pesticides. The results are published in Science [open, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa1190] [DX]. Neonicotinoids were placed under a temporary ban in Europe in 2013 after concerns about their impact on bees. The European Commission told the BBC that it intends to put forward a new proposal to further restrict the use of the chemicals.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 01 2017, @05:22AM (9 children)
If neonicotinoids are bad. Then there's surely a lot of other stuff which is yet undiscovered and bad for bees.
Glyphosate?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Saturday July 01 2017, @06:53AM (2 children)
That's like saying smoking-related diabetic nephropathy is something to worry about after someone points out that smoking is strongly correlated with heart disease. Nothing has had as big an impact on bees as the neonicotinoids. Saying "other stuff is dangerous too" is unhelpful and derailing.
Back in the 1990s I had a conversation with the president of the provincial beekeeper's association, and the correlation was, even then, seen as direct and 100%. A farmer starts using neonics, hives on their farm start dying. Maybe not all of them, but way more than average and way more than on the neonic-holdout's farms. They were freaking, because there was nothing like it ever before and nobody in government or business was taking their observations seriously.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 01 2017, @07:43AM (1 child)
My point is that there might be more toxins worth to investigate. So as to not remove neonicotinoid just to get another worse replacement. And other toxins may show up when the worst one is removed from use.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday July 01 2017, @01:39PM
and with the way the money grubbing goes, you have to maintain vigilance against evil... ALWAYS.
Lobbying with money should not be allowed: it mutes those without it
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Saturday July 01 2017, @09:54AM
Naah, it's all OK, some schmuck speaking for Big Pharma has said theres nothing to worry about:
(Score: 3, Informative) by fraxinus-tree on Saturday July 01 2017, @01:22PM (4 children)
Some logic applied: Glyphosate is a herbicide. Bees are insects, not herbs. Neonicotinoids are insecticides, i.e. a lot better suspect.
Up to now the bees survived a lot of agricultural chemistry by either dying right away from something (so "something" is never more tried near bees) or working as usual when treated with something else (so "something else" is tried some more and then applied in a scale).
Neonicotinoids are in the middle: bees work ALMOST as usual, but in the long run some hives get irreversibly depleted of bees. Details are still not clear. The effect went unnoticed for a while, untill the substances developed a stable market. Now, they have a lot of friends (because they are effective) and debugging the problem is a lot harder.
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Saturday July 01 2017, @04:56PM (1 child)
Debugging? I see what you did there...
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Saturday July 01 2017, @05:56PM
Pun not intended. I know, I know, but in my brain "debugging" and "bug" do not really relate to insects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 01 2017, @05:05PM (1 child)
no, it's never been a big mystery to non-whore beekeepers. the poison industry has just suppressed and ignored the obvious evidence.
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Saturday July 01 2017, @06:08PM
I don't say it is a mystery what insecticides of almost any kind do to the bees. Solving a problem that affects a lot of parties is more complex than just nailing the substance. Do we need to kill the neonicotinoids completely? Alter their application, quarantine periods? Do we have some remedy which can be applied to the bees themselves?
(Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Saturday July 01 2017, @08:14AM (1 child)
A quick search found an article from 2016 but there are probably earlier studies. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/08/30/neonicotinoid-pesticides-bee-decline.aspx [mercola.com]
Someone should tell the bees that smoking is bad for them.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday July 01 2017, @12:54PM
Oh yes, and it seems Big Tobacco style propaganda had a lot to do with delaying this admission. Colony Collapse Disorder was a big "mystery" for years, thanks to industry propaganda denying that their pesticide products had anything to do with it, and that there wasn't enough evidence to make that connection. "Doubt is our product."
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 01 2017, @09:10AM (3 children)
This is insect poison, without which we can't feed 8 billion people.
Most crops don't need bees. If you put insect poison on bee-pollinated crops, well, bless your heart.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday July 01 2017, @07:03PM (1 child)
> This is insect poison, without which we can't feed 8 billion people.
There are other options besides using insecticides exactly as we are now, or not using them at all. Neonicotinoids have only been in use since the late 1990s; they replace less specific insecticides (which affect birds and mammals).
> Most crops don't need bees.
Wikipedia has a lengthy list of crops that are pollinated by bees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees [wikipedia.org]
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollination [wikipedia.org]
The cereals (rice, wheat, barley, corn/maize, oats, millet, rye, sorghum, etc.) are grasses so they don't need bees; certainly those are major crops, but a decline in pollinating insects could mean a shortage of other foods we might wish to eat. If what I read in Wikipedia is true, that's already happening.
> If you put insect poison on bee-pollinated crops [...]
The European Food Safety Authority recommended that neonicotinoids be restricted to use on crops not attractive to honey bees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @04:50AM
Tomatoes are self-fertile. The flower parts sort of crash into each other as they grow.
Bananas, potatoes, and sweet potatoes are all vegetatively propagated. There are flowers, but we don't give a damn if they are pollinated.
Vanilla is pollinated by people with electric toothbrushes. There is some sort of bug that could pollinate it, but that doesn't live in most of the places where we grow the crop.
There are non-bee pollinator animals, including bats.
And of course there is wind, as you mentioned. This happens to provide a huge portion of humanity's food. Grain is what feeds us, directly (starch, sugar, oil) and via meat.
We wouldn't want a world without bees or a world without insecticides. If we had to choose, feeding 8 billion people is far easier without the bees than it is without the insecticides.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 01 2017, @08:07PM
Shill said
Do you get paid for these posts even though you post as AC?
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday July 02 2017, @01:10AM
The headline reads, "Extensive Study Concludes Neonicotinoid Pesticides Harm Bees"
Let's simplify.
"Extensive Study Concludes (bug sprays) Harm (bugs)"
Gathering additional evidence from the summary itself, it appears that there was an extensive study once and for all to see whether it appears that bug sprays intended for bug-harm did in fact harm some bugs, and the answer is leaning towards "yeah, pretty much".
Am I missing something? Did we think that bug sprays did not harm bugs? I understand that fringe deniers gonna deny, but that's true everywhere...