Colony Collapse Disorder Linked To Pesticide, High-Fructose Corn Syrup

hondo77 writes "Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health '...have re-created the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder in several honeybee hives simply by giving them small doses of a popular pesticide, imidacloprid.' This follows recently-reported studies also linked the disorder to neonicotinoid pesticides. What is really interesting is the link to when the disorder started appearing, 2006. 'That mechanism? High-fructose corn syrup. Many bee-keepers have turned to high-fructose corn syrup to feed their bees, which the researchers say did not imperil bees until U.S. corn began to be sprayed with imidacloprid in 2004-2005. A year later was the first outbreak of Colony Collapse Disorder.'"

Comments

Re:Do bees like tobacco plants?

[reverseengineer]

Imidacloprid is considered neonicotinoid, but its biochemical effects should not be compared to natural nicotine. Just as humans do, insects have a couple of different types of receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, including a nicotinic receptor. Insect physiology favors the nicotinic receptor pathway such that some insectides which are mildly toxic to humans are extremely poisonous to insects. Nicotine can activate these receptors temporarily, which is responsible for its physiological effects. However, imidacloprid irreversibly binds to the nicotinic receptor, which blocks acetylcholine transmission and leads to the insect's death. It appears that sublethal concentrations may still cause significant impairment, similar to myasthenia gravis.

Re:Explained in Article!

[Zibodiz]

As a former beekeeper, I can tell you they don't. They're only fed HFCS during the late winter, once they've run out of honey. A month later, they were making honey again. It didn't used to hurt them at all.

Re:Still needs more research

[Raenex]

I stopped reading at "sugar is a poison".

It is, in the same way that alcohol is a poison. Alcohol can be burned for energy, and in moderation it even has health benefits, but it has to be processed by the liver as a poison.

Sugar consists of glucose and fructose. Fructose is processed by the liver much like alcohol, but the brain isn't affected by fructose so you don't feel the same effects.

Before modern agriculture made sugar so cheap, we primarily got fructose from fruit, which also contained fiber to fill us up and other nutrients. Now sugar is cheap and abundant, and the amount Americans eat per year is staggering, and it almost certainly is the cause of the twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity.

Is Sugar Toxic?

Re:Also Linked To Parasites

[Rei]

It's been linked to about a dozen different things, with each study calling itself "conclusive". It actually starts to get annoying after a while.

Here's the most balanced and detailed article I've seen on this most recent paper so far. In particular, I like Krupke's comments:

“If the relationship was as easy as that, we’d have noticed it long ago. There are areas where neonicotinoids are used, but you don’t have colony loss,” Krupke said. “But what these studies are showing is that because neonicotinoids are absolutely ubiquitous, and we’re seeing sub-lethal effects, is that they’re stressors. They’ve softened up the bees for other parasites.”

Pesticide risk analysis in the United States has focused too much on whether chemicals are immediately, obviously toxic, said Krupke. “Our way of thinking is fundamentally flawed,” he said. “We need to look at sub-lethal effects, and for a longer time period. These pesticides are everywhere, every year. We’ve never used pesticides in the way we’re using them now, where we charge up a plant and it expresses pesticides all year long.”

I think that's a fair view on the subject, and ties in well with all of the other "conclusive" studies.

It's also worth remembering -- not that it helps anything now -- that honeybees are not native to the US. We only need them because of our extreme use of pesticide-heavy monoculture. Pesticides obviously kill off native pollinators, but monoculture is just as bad -- when everything for dozens of miles around, for the most part, all blooms at once and then there's virtually nothing for the rest of the year, you can't support most types of pollinator populations.