Over 30 Million Bees Found Dead In Elmwood Canada

Collective ^ | July 1 2013 | unknown

[Fawn]

Shortly after 50,000 bees were found dead in an Oregon parking lot (read more here), a staggering 37 million bees have been found dead in Elmwood, Ontario, Canada. Dave Schuit, who runs a honey operation in Elmwood has lost 600 hives. He is pointing the finger at the insecticides known as neonicotinoids, which are manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. This also comes after a recent report released by the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) that recorded its largest loss of honeybees ever. You can read more about that here. The European Union has stepped forward, having banned multiple pesticides that have been linked to killing millions of bees. You can view the studies and read more about that here.

The loss comes after the planting of corn. Neonicotinoid pesticides are used to coat corn seed with air seeders. This results in having the pesticide dust blown into the air when planted. The death of millions of pollinators was studied by Purdue University. They discovered that Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms. They analyzed dead bees and found that traces of thiamethoxam/clothiandin were present in each case. The only major source of these compounds are seed treatments of field crops. You can view that study here (1).

Bee deaths are increasing exponentially. An international team of scientists led by Holland’s Utrecht University has concluded that, “large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinators at risk. This is some of the research that led to the European Unions ban of the pesticides, as mentioned and referenced earlier.

[Black Agnes]

Possibly. We haven’t seen any butterflies this spring either. But we live far enough out that nobody really uses lawn chemicals. Yards are ‘bush hogged’. Weeds just get mown down too.

[SpinnerWebb]

they won’t ALL die. only the ones without the Monsanto patented immunity gene.

[Black Agnes]

Some things don’t rely on bees for pollination. Corn, rice, tomatoes, peppers, things that have ‘perfect’ blooms or are pollinated by wind mostly.

But you can hang it up for most fruits and and some veggies. Ditto some herbs and spices.

[cripplecreek]

The loss of 30+ million honeybees is enormous cause for alarm.

Certainly to the beekeeper but its not that many bees in the grand scheme of things and social animals tend to die in large numbers. In the great lakes Alewives die by the hundreds of millions every so often. Its usually the result of a hemorrhagic virus that affects fish and they're particularly susceptible.

[goodnesswins]

Plenty of bees here....course we have lots of lavender growing...they seem to REALLY like lavender

[cripplecreek]

I’d like to try growing Paw Paw trees but it sounds like I may need to hang rotting meat in them to attract flies which pollinate them.

[Black Agnes]

Hubby has a coworker who’s a beekeeper and one of my dad’s friends is also a beekeeper. They live 75m from each other as the crow flies. Both had massive losses in their hives this spring. The first had over 50 hives maintained by him and his family. They have 3 surviving hives. My dad’s friend lost over half of his hives.

If it were just this one beekeeper mentioned in the article I wouldn’t worry.

It’s the loss of honeybees AND the native pollinators that has me concerned.

[Black Agnes]

Your neighbors would cut it and burn it. Trust me. They are FOUL foul smelling.

You won’t make friends or influence people if you have close neighbors.

I’ve thought about planting one on some property my family owns way in the sticks though.

[cripplecreek]

We’re about to have our purple loosetrife bloom. Miles and miles of purple invasion.

[FAA]

To this, and sort of bee related, I was remarking just the other day at the glaring lack of wasps and hornets around this year.

Every year of my life there have been scads of active and annoying hornets/wasps where I live building all manner of nests any and everywhere. I bought 3 cans of long-range spray back in April to get ready for them. But, this year, nothing. No nests. By this time I would have killed out several dozen and I’ve yet to see one.

I don’t know what’s going on......

[Black Agnes]

2 years ago we had plenty of bees. Last year there were noticeably fewer. This year they’re just gone.

Beware.

Plant stuff for them right now if you can. Make them happy.

[sneakers]

We have bees living in the side of our house. The hive was removed when we sided (in the middle of winter). They managed to find their way back in. Usually the hive splits in half and one half flies away. This year, they haven’t swarmed as they usually do. I’m not happy they live in the side of our house, yet it makes me nervous that they don’t have the numbers they used to.

[TigersEye]

If they all die, we all die.

That's the bottom line.

[Wellington VII]

You could call a local bee keepers and he would safely remove the bees and bring them to his bee yard to be hived. Many bee keepers would do so for free.

If you are adventures, you could buy a Langstroth hive and hive the bees yourself. If they are not all that aggressive, it is not all that difficult of a task to accomplish.

Once you have your own hive set up, you will have more honey then you would ever need and great pollinators for your garden.

[hoosierham]

How many millions of acres of heavily chemically treated lawns are there?

And today’s farming is so reliant on massive doses of chemicals most people wouldn’t believe it.More vast,huge,large(you get the idea) tracts of bee-hostile land.

The big companies controlling seeds and sprays say we would all starve without their products. I doubt it.
If nothing else tens of millions could grow gardens if not against HOA a rules and cuty ordinances that define the only acceptable yard as “grass two inches in height”.

Anti-abusive business is not the same as being socialists although simple minds on both sides prefer not having to actually think.

[Texas Fossil]

I am no alarmist and hate the tree huggers, but we are still very very short of bees for this year. Last year we had very few honey bees, wrote that off to the drought. We did have large numbers of solitary bees. Short on both this year.

We run a planting seed business and treat seed with anti-fungal chemical. We do not use systemic insecticides of any type.

We had 2 late freezes. I never remember a freeze here after the 1st of May, but we had one. My 87 year old father said he had never seen a freeze after May 1.

This year possibly a late freeze.

BUT, Monsanto has a seed an processing operation 10 miles from me. They produce cotton seed, with is treated with systemic insecticide for bole worms. It is this class of insecticide.

Am I blaming them? Not sure yet. Holding judgement for later.

TF

[kabumpo]

A long time ago, I used to live on land with hives - it was lovely. I want to go back to the country and keep bees.

[Kriggerel]

Shhhhhh...

You’ll upset the Monsanto shills. :P

[cornfedcowboy]

They must have gotten tired of all that counting, got to 30 million, and then said “screw it”. Over 30 million will cover it.

[Black Agnes]

We had a late frost as well. Not as severe as yours though IIRC. It got down to 35 in my yard and I lost a few tomato plants in the lower part of my garden to it.

The blueberries had already bloomed though. We had about 1/2 of those actually set. Lower than normal.

As I mentioned up thread. Hubby wants to get a hive and keep our own. Just so we keep them local to us. I wouldn’t even get honey from it if I could just be sure my stuff would get pollinated. Bees could keep the honey.

Playing squash pimp is a pain. Not to mention the gallons of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries that I did NOT get this spring because of lack of pollination. I know my raspberries weren’t lost to frost as they didn’t bloom till 2w after our frost. They just didn’t have any pollinators on them.