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EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Insecticides

Posted by Unknown on from the bees-threatened-to-sting-them-to-death dept.

PuceBaboon writes "The BBC is reporting that the EU has voted to ban pesticides containing neonicotinoids for at least two years, in an effort to isolate the cause of CCD (colony collapse disorder; the alarming disappearance of bees over recent years). Despite intense lobbying by the chemical companies, a 3-million signature petition helped swing the vote in favor of the ban."

11 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm happy to see that this important decision was made based on sound science.

    Or maybe it was made by weighing corporate lobbying against petition signing. That's probably fine too. After all, it's not like this was an important decision that should have been made based on sound science.

    1. Re:Oh, good by alittlebitdifferent · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The decision is the science...we should test this hypothesis by removal of the chemical from the environment.....then we review. Talking about doing science but not actually doing anything isn't really science in my opinion. In a lab, it is easy to test into bankruptcy without drawing any definitive conclusion as the natural environment cannot be 100% replicated. Removing it from the _actual) environment is the only true test (in my opinion) and using this approach we are actually performing a scientific activity on which to base future decisions.

    2. Re:Oh, good by icebike · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You don't even have to remove the chemicals from the environment. They aren't used around bee pollinated crops anyway. The chemicals come from thousands of miles away.

      Beekeeper greed induced them to winter their bees using corn syrup so that they could sell off more honey. The production of corn syrup did not remove the pesticides completely, and beekeepers started feeding that to their colonies.

      Long life pesticides should not survive food production, but because it was harmless to humans, nobody was watching too closely when beekeepers started raiding the honey and substituting corn syrup.

      --
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    3. Re:Oh, good by Meshugga · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We don't use corn syrup in europe, as it's production is limited and you can't buy it in stores. Solutions of white sugar or molasses are commonly used by beekeepers around here.

    4. Re:Oh, good by arf_barf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A friend of mine has 20 bee hives on his property (Norther Europe). He has been doing this for over 20 years as a hobby and was also affected by various colony disorders from parasites to full on collapses. A few years back, he made an experiment and did not remove honey from the hives (it was a last resort). Surprisingly some of the colonies fully recovered. Anyhow, 20 hives is a very tiny data sample, but it does make you wonder...

    5. Re:Oh, good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      here's another data point: My mother had at one time as many as 8 hives in rural southern Ontario, Canada. On one occasion, she lost 2 or 3 hives to some fungal infection (the details escape me) and in another year she lost some to mites before buying more mite resistant breeds. Not only did she never feed her bees on any substitute, much of the time she wouldn't harvest as great a percentage of the honey through the season as commericial honey producers do. Her hives were also located in an area with a high proportion of dairy farms, many of them Mennonite farms, so her hives would have had far less exposure to commercial crop pesticides and herbecides. She never once experienced colony collapse, always had a higher survival rate from the various perils than most of the other honey producers in her local cooperative. Anecdotally, she claimed that her hives would usually be able to replace the honey she harvested faster than other hives in the cooperative.

      As a working theory; it does seem plausible that working hives to the very limit puts a great deal of stress on the colony, leaving them more vulnerable to mites, fungus, pesticides et al. In addition, people laud honey for it's anti-microbial properties, so it seems quite reasonable to suppose that it provides some medicinal effect for the bees that sugar solutions just can't match. Tale away all of the good food, feed them only substitutes and as little of possible of that and it doesn't surprise me at all that they are far more vulnerable to environmental threats.

    6. Re:Oh, good by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Your friend's experiment strikes me as very interesting. I hope someone else is looking at that.

      Some beekeepers here in Ontario has been doing the same thing. My cousin's commonlaw is a beekeeper. He suffered the parasite/hive collapse problem too, and instead of raiding the hive, he left them alone for two years. Surprisingly about 70% of his hives recovered, or were recoverable with the introduction of a new queen. This is on a small scale of around 50 hives. He's up around 300 hives now. The other 30% were lost due to parasites, and in one case a rather grumpy bear.

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      Om, nomnomnom...
    7. Re:Oh, good by Xest · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That'd be true if it was done right, but the decision is a complete and utter screw up.

      Only 3 types of neonicotinoid insecticides have been banned - imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam. The problems with the ban are twofold:

      1) There are other neonicotinoids such as thiacloprid that work in an almost identical manner to imidacloprid. These will be used instead, hence if neonicotinoids are the problem, then this temporary ban is going to give misleading results as the problem will still exist due to other neonicotinoids in use.

      2) For some reason the ban covers amateur gardeners and use on house plants and agricultural use of flowering crops, but not non-flowering crops. I can't for the life of me fathom why very light use on the order of only millilitres by people on house plants is banned, but not the millions of acres of European farm land that grows non-flowering crops. This means bees are still going to pass through vast swathes of farm land that are covered in this stuff - but don't worry, if one flies into your house at least it wont get caught by the stuff in there. Stupid, really stupid.

      So you'll have to excuse me if I can't help but feel this experiment has been engineered to fail and to piss off the public. There's literally no logic in allowing it's use to remain on so many millions of acres, and to allow continued use of other neonicotinoids when you're supposedly trying to isolate them as part the problem. There's also no logic in allowing it to remain on such cereal crops etc. whilst preventing the average joe using it as pest control in their house or in tiny amounts and tiny areas of their garden or greenhouse where the impact will be negligible - this seems designed simply to piss off the public.

      The cynic in me says this is the EU commission trying to pretend it's listening to the public whilst creating a climate of support for the chemical companies involved. Companies like Bayer will be able to scream "Look, we told you it wasn't our insecticides, the problem is still there!" even though it'll likely be there other insecticides like thiacloprid that are the very reason the problem is still there. Amateur gardeners and house plants owners will get repeatedly fucked off that they now have much more limited options in dealing with invasive pests such as mealy bugs, red spider mite and so forth which can and have gained immunity to thiacloprid due to the fact it's now the only thing on the market for amateur growers. As a result you have amateurs up in arms that they now have no pest control outside thiacloprid - other insecticides exist for commercial use that aren't available to amateur growers so immunity on commercial crops isn't a problem as they can cycle through the options.

      It's just a complete failure of a decision all around. I'm 100% behind the cause of helping bees, and I don't like how much pesticides are sprayed not just that are systemic and end up in our food chain like all those I've discussed here, but that end up in our environment too. Despite this I can't support this ban because it seems engineered to fail and may set back public opinion on the issue by decades. This is not the solution.

  2. National Pollinator Week by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Although bees are endangered, they aren't the only ones pollinating.

    Celebrate National Pollinator Week, June 17 - 23, 2013!

    These hard-working animals help pollinate over 75% of our flowering plants, and nearly 75% of our crops. Often we may not notice the hummingbirds, bats, bees, beetles, butterflies, and flies that carry pollen from one plant to another as they collect nectar. Yet without them, wildlife would have fewer nutritious berries and seeds, and we would miss many fruits, vegetables, and nuts, like blueberries, squash, and almonds . . . not to mention chocolate and coffeeall of which depend on pollinators. . .

    Pollinators, such as most bees and some birds, bats, and other insects, play a crucial role in flowering plant reproduction and in the production of most fruits and vegetables.

    Examples of crops that are pollinated include apples, squash, and almonds. Without the assistance of pollinators, most plants cannot produce fruits and seeds. The fruits and seeds of flowering plants are an important food source for people and wildlife. Some of the seeds that are not eaten will eventually produce new plants, helping to maintain the plant population.

    In the United States pollination by honey bees directly or indirectly (e.g., pollination required to produce seeds for the crop) contributed to over $19 billion of crops in 2010. Pollination by other insect pollinators contributed to nearly $10 billion of crops in 2010. . . more

    Wild Bees Are Good For Crops, But Crops Are Bad For Bees

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  3. Not a complete ban by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This class of pesticides will still be permitted (in most countries) for use on crops that bees have no interest in.

    These pesticides are extremely effective and yet very benign (as long as you're not a bee). It would be unfortunate if they were entirely banned.

  4. Re:So who was right? by Guy+Harris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So were the scientists at the chemical companies right or were the 3 million people who signed a petition right?

    Or were the scientists claiming links between neonicotinoids and colony collapse disorder right?