Posted on 10/22/2012 4:55:15 PM PDT by Renfield
Yet more top-quality research shows current regulation is woefully inadequate in protecting the creatures that pollinate much of our food.
Here we go again. Yet more research has been published in the world's most prestigious, peer-reviewed journals showing that extremely widely-used pesticides have very damaging effects on bees, yet the only response from the government is inaction.
The new paper, published in Nature, shows that bumblebees foraging naturally and exposed to realistic doses of pesticides suffer in two key ways. First they are about twice as likely to die: two-thirds of the bees are lost when exposed to two pesticides compared to only a third when not exposed. Second, the exposed bees are half as successful in gathering food.
The new results reveal, again, shameful failings in the regulatory regime. The ecotoxicology tests currently required only look at honey bees. Yet bumblebees, the subject of the new research, are just as important in providing the pollination that creates much of the food we eat. Tomatoes, for example, rely on bumblebees. Furthermore, bumblebees are very different, bigger in size individually, but living in colonies of just dozens, compared to the tens of thousands in honey bee colonies....
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Guardian alert.
We are not talk in’ the A science types here.
Not even the D science types.
Remember why journalists are journalists.
“first they are about twice as likely to die” .... Just a guess here but I am thinking they will all end up dying
LOL maybe they’re zom-bees.
The State of Califonia sprayed Malathion all over Los Angeles aound 20 years ago. I know that didn’t see any honeybees for years and have only seen butterflies again over the last two or three years, and fairly seldom at that.
It seems FR will now be essentaily down for the next few hours during the debate.
I have always loved seeing gentle European honeybees going about their business. I don’t know what caused the collapse in their populations in the US but I know that for a number of years I rarely saw any. This year, for the first time in years, I’ve started seeing them in greater (but still relatively small) numbers. I hope they’re on the way back.
Since my days as a barefoot boy my eyes were always attuned to look for bees as I walked to avoid stepping on them and getting stung (a hard-won motivation). I’m still that way and whenever I spot one while mowing our lawn I make sure to not run over them with the lawnmower.
I just hope that next spring I see even more of these gentle and beneficial creatures.
That's the best time to just watch the debate, and not freep.
There was that same problem here in the Northeast a few years ago and I believe it was discovered there was some kind of fungus that was killing the bees. However here in New Jersey(The Garden State) I believe the critters have rebounded.A marvelous little creation of The Almighty the honeybee is. A kind of lesson in industrious humility and usefulness.
In the last 3 years, honeybees in my area have disappeared. I didn’t see the first honeybee this year until the middle of July, and I plant things (lemon balm, bee balm, etc) to attract bees. I have an orchard and this year nothing got pollinated. Three years ago there were thousands of bees in my yard all season; I couldn’t walk barefoot out there for fear of stepping on bees in the clover.
The farmers in our area have all gone to GMO corn. Neonicotinoid pesticides are added to the seeds and emerge with the plant as systemic pesticides. All a bee has to do is brush up against the plant, and it is fatally contaminated. Clothiodan and other neonicotinoids are toxic to bees at as little as 3 parts per billion, but death doesn’t happen immediately. Contaminated bees fly back to the hive, and contaminate the other bees that touch them. It’s a wonder there are any bees left.
This all boils down to the sinister greed and dishonesty of Monsanto executives and major shareholders. Monsanto recently bought Bee Logic, the largest bee research business, to keep its scientists quiet about the harm that “modern” agribusiness is doing to our environment. We are at a crisis point.
Start growing your own food if you can.
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