Posted on 08/26/2013 8:59:51 AM PDT by chessplayer
Under pressure from Congress and the honey industry, the EPA is ordering an immediate reduction in the use of widely used pesticides, an admission that bug killers approved by the agency are partly responsible for the disappearance of honey bees.
The Environmental Protection Agency is changing the labeling on pesticides to reduce their use in fields when bees are present, the first significant concession provided to the honey industry which has reported bee kills of over 50 percent among some commercial beekeepers.
It comes too late for many honey bees that pollinated blueberries, nuts and fruit trees earlier this year, and even those that fly into a Home Depot or Walmart garden center to suck the nectar from flowers for sale. According to a new report from Friends of the Earth and BeeAction.org, bee-attractive plants sold at top retailers contain the pesticides EPA now plans to limit.
The EPA plan focuses mainly on the use of "neonics" after plants have sprouted. The have developed a new label that governs the use of the pesticide, especially drifting bug killer dust when applied. The honey industry also wanted seed coating limited because it makes the flowers of treated plants just as poisonous to bees without any field application.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.washingtonexaminer.com ...
This makes me happy, happy, happy!
Now that the EPA has taken notice and begun “saving” the honeybees , honey will become scarce and super expensive. The steady availability of honey at prices that have not increased inordinately shows that the “crisis” is not so severe as advertised. Honeybee hives have always died off at a fairly steady rate and have been replenished by bee breeders. As the die-off has risen the breeders have reacted, as actors in a lucrative market are wont to do, and replaced the die off every year by breeding more new colonies. Now that the EPA is taking over, these breeders will be tightly controlled and their production will suffer severely along with the total number of bees in agriculture. You don’t give over to Satan the production of halos and expect improvement or maintenance of number or quality.
Neonicatinoids are used extensively in structural termite control and in that environment it is not harmful to honey bees but the USA needs to follow Europe’s lead and most certainly ban it from ALL agricultural use.
Yup, ya just can’t sell a little bit of your soul to Satan because he intends to take the whole thing.
I had a real problem with carpenter bees. They were destroying an outbuilding.
I picked up some ‘Bugmaster 240’, made by Enforcer, at a specialty lawn & garden store.
You just squeeze the powder in the holes they bore. That stuff really pole-axed those little pests.
This is our first year bee keeping. Our hive was populated in late April and we have almost reached the needed 60 lbs of honey to make the winter. To give the bees a little more room we put the honey super on yesterday. I know that some hives in the area have not done as well but we have a master bee keeper in our township and he reports a good year.
They take the honey and are feeding the bees a diet of high fructose corn syrup.
Responsible beekeepers do not take all the honey. But the big honey 'producers' pretty much do.
We keep bees and follow this issue closely. The crisis is in fact quite severe. The USDA estimated bee loss last winter at 31 percent, with more than two thirds of beekeepers reporting losses of 14 percent or greater, which is considered the break-even point to stay in business.
Farmers who need to import bees for pollenation are paying increasingly higher prices, and in some cases, such as for California almond farmers, beekeepers and breeders still won't take the business due to fear of losing their hives.
Colony Collapse Disorder wasn't as big a factor as it has been in winters past but the fact is that the United States has half as many managed bee hives as it did in 1940, with more mouths to feed and more demand for services.
Don't be so quick to brush off the issue.
Yet they continue to ban DDT, which so far as I know has never harmed a bee, but could save us from bedbugs and malaria.
Not sure where you’re finding unchanged honey prices, but in the three states we shop in, the prices have skyrocketed over the last 3 years. Even local producers prices are stratospheric.
I’m in Western Pa. We’ve had honeybees living in one wall of our 200+year old house for many years. Every year, the hive grows so large that it splits in two and half the hive flies off. This year, the hive did not split, and there are not many bees flying in and out of the wall. I wanted them gone, but now, as I observe the low number of bees, I admit to being worried.
Is the science on this settled? There are many theories about CCD, and just as many advocacy groups with private agendas. The last time I looked into it, the jury was still out.
Florida. Honey imports have not risen at all- of course there is some question as to whether they are actually bee derived honey. Local production of actual honey has risen only what is to be expected from other prices in the grocery store. I have bought honey steadily for years so am aware.
If it is as you say do you really believe that the EPA taking control will improve things rather than compound the problem?
The primary thing keeping honey prices down is that most of the honey sold in stores isn’t honey. Meanwhile real honey prices are going up as colonies collapse, and more importantly the loss of both managed AND wild bees has the potential of a massive problem for plants reproducing.
Thanks. Regional differences, then.
And, yes: adulterated honey is out there. So is adulterated olive oil...but the price is the same, either way. :-(
I see you’re living up to the old phrase “if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bull#$%^”. Meanwhile you’re still wrong, honey prices ARE climbing and colonies ARE collapsing.
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