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Popular Pesticides Keep Bumblebees From Laying Eggs (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Wild bees, such as bumblebees, don't get as much love as honeybees, but they should. They play just as crucial a role in pollinating many fruits, vegetables and wildflowers, and compared to managed colonies of honeybees, they're in much greater jeopardy. A group of scientists in the United Kingdom decided to look at how bumblebee queens are affected by some widely used and highly controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids. What they found isn't pretty. Neonics, as they're often called, are applied as a coating on the seeds of some of the most widely grown crops in the country, including corn, soybeans and canola. These pesticides are "systemic" -- they move throughout the growing plants. Traces of them end up in pollen, which bees consume. Neonicotinoid residues also have been found in the pollen of wildflowers growing near fields and in nearby streams. The scientists, based at Royal Holloway University of London, set up a laboratory experiment with bumblebee queens. They fed those queens a syrup containing traces of a neonicotinoid pesticide called thiamethoxam, and the amount of the pesticide, they say, was similar to what bees living near fields of neonic-treated canola might be exposed to. Bumblebee queens exposed to the pesticide were 26 percent less likely to lay eggs, compared to queens that weren't exposed to the pesticide. The team published their findings in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
No bees means no pollination. Farmers recognizing this will voluntarily reduce their use of these pesticides once they consider what manual pollination would entail.
Bees consume pollen. Some even call it 'bee bread'...
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in868
http://www.hhmi.org/biointerac...
The bee population increased 3% in 2017, after dropping 33% in 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://phys.org/news/2017-05-...
In the stock market, and in statistics, that's what's known as a "dead cat bounce".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
there are other pollinators out there.
We could switch to robotic pollinators.
The robots pollinate, but they don't produce honey.
Wow you debunked a scientific claim with an anecdotal claim that looks like nothing more than casual observation. I'm sure you're Nobel is in the mail
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'll bet you didn't know that Rhonda Brooks, the editor of aggprofessional.com, worked in marketing communications for DuPont for a few decades. DuPont manufactures one of the pesticides that's blamed for killing bees.
I see you also linked to a USDA report from August 1. Donald Trump appointed Sam Clovis, who has no science background at all to be the head scientist at the USDA. His work experience was as a campaign staffer for Rick Perry (noted idiot who now heads the Department of Energy). This after the Administration announced that all scientific publications from government agencies could not be released until they were vetted by the White House.
Then, the one actual scientific article you link to actually refutes your points.(read the article, it's short)
You believe what you want to believe, bucko. You're entitled to your own reality and don't let anybody tell you different.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Any relation to Colony Collapse Disorder?
With Bumblebee gone, we might be spared another Transformers movie...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
RoundUp is glycophosphate, not a neonic.
Glycophosphate is a major reason you're as likely to kill your plants as to fertilize them if you dump "free" manure on them... the cows & horses eat grain with RoundUp in it, and their shit ends up being poisonous to plants for a few months until the glycophosphate breaks down.
The world is bigger than a town or a country, we still not know enough about this planet (and we have a lot of studies and information) and more less about the invisible relationships that ties all together to determine if the demise of a bee specie might no react in other parts of the ecosystem.
Might sound incredible but animals can affect ecosystems across the world and huma interaction might bring uncontrollable changes that might bring a chain of problems that we might not be able to solve.
Bumblebees are the most peaceful kind of Apidae. And also one of the most important polllinators because they fly out when other insects are still hibernating due cold temperatures.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
We need to consider this story in abstract - and when we do it is much more disturbing.
In essence, what has happened here is that a pesticide supplier, i.e. a commercial organisation that is required by law to have their products tested and approved by a Federal agency, developed and tested a product which has now been shown to be detrimental to the environment in a pretty significant way.
But what would have happened if the detrimental impact from this chemical had caused sterility in men, for instance? Or early onset dementia? Or some other unpleasant, irreversible side effect? The whole point behind having Federal agencies and licensing requirements is to ensure that no chemicals released into the environment have such results.
It's easy to think that, in the 21st century, these are exaggerated or "doomsday" scenarios. If we thought that, we'd be wrong. Mankind does not learn from past mistakes in this regard. In the mid 1940s, the US released huge volumes of DDT into the environment. The chemical caused the shells of (wild) bird eggs to be super-thin and especially brittle and was responsible for the near-extinction of the Bald Eagle. In the 1950s, the drug thalidomide became widely available - resulting in literally thousands of individuals being born with mal-formed limbs, unable to care for themselves. The list goes on...
Bottom line: the moment we put profit ahead of public safety, scandals follow. As a sophisticated society, with a well-developed and functioning scientific community, there should be no excuses for the situation we see described in this article. The doubly sad and shocking thing is that it seems it will only be when we experience a potentially extinction-level event that we will see a determination to do something about this. By then it might be too late.
Last I checked homo sapiens sapiens was part of the animal world too, no?
For our own benefit, what else?
I presume the implication here is that had we never had the green revolution no unborn humans would've been harmed as the population would've simply never grown to its current size and therefore the green revolution is an evil thing that shouldn't jave happened. But that's simply not true. The green revolution happened out of necessity, it happened because people were starving and we had the means to develop ways to get more food to there's people to reduce starvation and reduce human suffering.
I'm acutely aware of the environmental issues caused agriculture, which is why, for the past couple months I've cut out all meat and roughly 90 % of all dairy. And I intend to maintain this diet, despite the fact that fucking love bacon, it's just that at this point I think someone with as much access to information as I do and living in the west, reducing meat and other animal products intake is while still not starving to death and eating food that tastes alright is both possible and economically feasible, and for someone in my position it's the single biggest consumer choice that I can do to try to control the ecological impact we're having on the biosphere.
However at the same time I'm always frustrated as hell to see people make this bland black and white argument of 'man bad, nature good!" as if we're not a part of nature (and conversely, as if moral judgements themselves are not a man made idea but somehow universal truths) and acting according to our genes just as much as the bees and all the rest. We're doing what we've been the best at doing on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years, which is surviving at all costs. Yes, that has over the millenia meant that we've hunted many a species to extinction destroyed numerous others unwittingly, because despite being the smartest force on the planet we're still just very advanced apes and not omniscient, but what makes the position of the eco-misanthropes so unbearable to me is that they seem to assume we are. Like, do you seriously think men of science, human beings with intelligence and compassion for their fellow man, should've looked at the starving masses of people in the early parts of the last century and gone: "well, I think we have some ideas of how we could grow more food for all these people, but since it might lead to unknown consequences let's just let them die horrific deaths' Such an attitude is essentially genocidal.
More to the point: Population growth provably decreases with a rising standard of living. People have less children in developed countries because they don't need to have 13 of them to make sure that even as 4 of them die in childhood, they still have enough labor to make sure someone farms their land and provides for them at their old age. The number of children globally per couple is coming down fast because advancements in the quality of life and technology are allowing people to not rely so much on manual labor and their own offspring as a sustaining force for their own old age. People in the west have access to an excess of food that would be unimaginable to anyone living in the past, or in the developed world today I can go out today and buy a delicious, ready cooked lunch with a fraction of my day's income without having to even exert any effort into preparing it myself. This used to be the luxury of kings and queens, and for us it's a common activity. yet the people in the west are having the least kids on the globe. I'm not sure I'll ever have biological kids, but if I do the maximum amount is 2, more likely
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Corn is wind pollinated. Bees have nothing to do with it. Hence the tassels.
Bees do consume pollen, but I think you were talking about the worker bees.
The worker bees consume nectar and store the excess to feed the rest of the bees. In the meantime, they bring their pollen basket around which pollinates other flowers.
Great! Let's replace all the bees with the next best pollinator, mosquitoes!
Nicotine has been shown to have a similar effect on mammals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
I know its not the same, but they are part of the same family of chemicals, this should really have been investigated before they were approved for wider use.
bees have different preference. There are some flowers that attract more bumblebees.
Bees consume pollen. Some even call it 'bee bread'...
How....how do we know? Who speaks "Bee" ?
RoundUp is a herbicide. Neonics are pesticides, and are not among the active ingredients in RoundUp.
I know in my yard, the ONLY thing I use neonicotinoids on are my non-flowering ornamental bushes (which are trimmed enough to keep from flowering). Without it, unfortunately most would all be dead due to scale. Yes, I tried everything else and nothing worked until I applied Merit and that stuff is magic. Applied only once a year and the problem is gone.
Maybe the fact that they cannot survive without putting toxic chemicals on them is a hint you should take. How about planting something that doesn't require special toxins to survive. Native plants are usually a good start.
I don't think the casual use by homeowners seeking protection of some established ornamentals is much (if any) exposure to bees.
Based on what evidence? You "don't think" it is a problem why exactly? And we're not talking about one or two homeowners. We're talking about millions of them all across the country using quite a lot of the stuff. Furthermore the chemicals don't just stay were you spray them and they don't magically disappear.
I would not be in favor of any type of across-the-board ban of neonicotinoids if it would mean taking it out of the hands of responsible use in ways that can't possibly be much danger.
Given that there appears to be substantial evidence of important negative effects on critical pollinators, exactly what is the basis of your argument? Because you think your are being "responsible" with them? Particularly in regards to plants that are purely ornamental. There is such a thing a responsible use in the food supply but no such thing exists for ornamental plants including lawn grass. If your lawn requires even occasional spraying then you are Doing It Wrong.
When we open their hives and see that they actively store and eat pollen. Because we can see it with our eyes. Our eyes speak bee.
Mostly.because bumblebees wake up earlier. They are also the first ones to get out in the early spring when bees would freeze to death. That is why bumblebees are so furry.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
1) Whooosh
2) There are small signs in the bee-hives saying "bee bread"?
from TFS: "They play just as crucial a role in pollinating ... [as honeybees]"
That's not what TFS says. "They" refers to wild bees in general (and arguably feral bees too), not specifically the bumblebees from the study - and they are being compared only to "managed colonies of honeybees" rather than honeybees in general.
Quoting the number of managed beehives, which number people work hard to maintain because they need that many hives for their business, says nothing about the survival of individual bees or individual hives.
Actually the bee population is increasing now. OH! - does that not serve your purpose? I guess you're not paying attention to the latest news.
Fuck off.
And he was right! There you are, right on cue!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Beesexuals? Hard to get laid without talking first...
Bumblebees are the most peaceful kind of Apidae. And also one of the most important polllinators because they fly out when other insects are still hibernating due cold temperatures.
They are indeed passive, but they aren't above using their greater size to bulldoze smaller insects out of the way when they decide they want to visit a particular bloom. It can be entertaining sometimes to watch them work.
What I meant, of course, is that they generally only attack people if hurt. And even then they might just as well bite instead of stinging. I really have a lot of fondness for bumblebees.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Wowee, what an Authoritative, Scientific reference! I'm Ever So Convinced by this Amazingly Credible Site!!!
ROTFLMAO
As do I.
I never said or implied it's distasteful to me. Why do you think I explicitly said I've changed my diet to something that - on a personal level - is less pleasurable to me abecause my intelligence tells me based on the data I have access to that it's the less harmful choice for the ecosystem overall and that I think the smart thing to do is to control out rate of population expansion by not having too many kids if I would not think that? We're on the same page with this one, completely.
You didn't, this one's on me. I got the impression that you overall thought of agricultural progress/increase in food output as a negative thing and drew this conclusion based on that. My bad, and I apologize.
This is false. Like I said, I told you I'm planning to have 2 or less kids, or none at all, precisely for this reason, I think the smart choice to control our rate of population growth is not to force people via laws or such to have less kids, as that tends not to work, but to keep increasing the standard of living especially in the poorer regions of the planet as that's where it provably has the largest effect on the amount of childtren, but also for us in the west to voluntarily, knowing all the facts and what's at stake, to have less kids.
Again, 110 % agreed.
Fair enough and thanks for your reply. I misjudged your moral position on the matter based on my previous encouters with similar replies on the topic, which is entirely on me.
We're not in disagreement on the matter in any way that bears further arguing, and I thank you for correcting my false impressions about your position(s). I have bad habit of extrapolating too much based on too little information, maybe as a consequence of spending too much time engaged in online debates, or maybe it's just my ego, but based on this exchange I'll gladly consider myself corrected when it comes to you.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on other matters here on /.!
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
I have a special appreciation for bumblebees as well, as they were my introduction to entomology at an early age. Never once was I stung, even when I deserved it!
Interesting article, though if the case for DDT is as overwhelming as it suggest, it suggests that environmentalists are much more better at propaganda than the major industry of chemical production. So, I checked two things quoted, about Ecuador reintroducing DDT and 2.5 million cases of malaria after Sri Lanka abandoned DDT. I found the first for Ecuador easily, it is a modest figure and seems to be sound. Not so for Sri Lanka, and other sources give a fraction of that figure, e.g. http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09... . This does not leave me with confidence that it is not another anti environmental rant.