Pesticide to Blame for Honeybee Deaths

[Conley]

If it were a novel, people would criticize the plot for being too far-fetched – thriving colonies disappear overnight without leaving a trace, the bodies of the victims are never found. Only in this case, it’s not fiction: It’s what’s happening to fully a third of commercial beehives, over a million colonies every year. Seemingly healthy communities fly off never to return. The queen bee and mother of the hive is abandoned to starve and die.

Thousands of scientific sleuths have been on this case for the last 15 years trying to determine why our honey bees are disappearing in such alarming numbers. “This is the biggest general threat to our food supply,” according to Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s bee and pollination program.

Until recently, the evidence was inconclusive on the cause of the mysterious “colony collapse disorder” (CCD) that threatens the future of beekeeping worldwide. But three new studies point an accusing finger at a culprit that many have suspected all along, a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids.

In the U.S. alone, these pesticides, produced primarily by the German chemical giant Bayer and known as “neonics” for short, coat a massive 142 million acres of corn, wheat, soy and cotton seeds. They are also a common ingredient in home gardening products.

Research published last month in the prestigious journal Science shows that neonics are absorbed by the plants’ vascular system and contaminate the pollen and nectar that bees encounter on their rounds. They are a nerve poison that disorient their insect victims and appear to damage the homing ability of bees, which may help to account for their mysterious failure to make it back to the hive.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debat...g-bees-solved/

A chemical designed to kill insects is...killing other insects! Connect the dots. They need to fix this before all the bees are dead. If they don't, we really will have a major food shortage.

[Dagny]

Small price to pay for 'progress', eh? Thank Monsanto, Bayer, etc. In their quest to save billions on labor, they will ultimately eradicate humans.

Irony?

[keyser soze]

Complete stupidity and arrogance. Not only are they killing the bees but they are creating seeds that self destruct and can't be saved from year to year in an effort to make humanity dependent on them for seed stock. Beyond stupid, greedy and criminal.

[Conley]

Complete stupidity and arrogance. Not only are they killing the bees but they are creating seeds that self destruct and can't be saved from year to year in an effort to make humanity dependent on them for seed stock. Beyond stupid, greedy and criminal.

Yes, Monsanto and their pushing of those seeds is a major concern of mine too. There is considerable risk there, along with GMO foods that don't have the genetic diversity to withstand a virus, mold, or other pathogen.

[keyser soze]

Don't forget to add in the fact that these GMO foods manufacture insecticides themselves as well. It's dangerous and unlike Europe we weren't given a choice. My neighbor tells me he can't find none GMO corn seed anymore....

[spunkloaf]

There should be a law against engineering seeds which self destruct, or plants that don't reproduce. $#@! capitalism. There are $#@!loads of hungry people in the world. We have enough food to feed everybody, but we don't have enough money to do it. Here we sit stuffing our faces with McDonalds, hoarding seed, and turning food into fuel.