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.

Comments

The market can handle this

[Anonymous Coward]

No bees means no pollination. Farmers recognizing this will voluntarily reduce their use of these pesticides once they consider what manual pollination would entail.

Re:The market can handle this

[youngone]

Farmers don't operate in a market.
Corn, Soy and canola are all heavily subsidised in both Europe and the US.
Interestingly the Shorthaired Bumblebee was extinct in the UK, but because it had been introduced to New Zealand in the 1880's a new population could be started.
That might not be that interesting actually.

Re:The market can handle this

[jvin248]

The largest crop in the US is not Corn or Soybeans, it's lawn grass. Many of the lawn and garden chemicals homeowners like to use, or are used on plants homeowners pick up at the local big box retailer, contain these chemicals harmful to pollinators.
The statistic is somewhere around 70% of the foods in the typical American Diet need pollinators. No pollinators then pretty limited menus.

Re:The market can handle this

[ShanghaiBill]

No bees means no pollination.

Wrong. Many crops don't require bees for pollination. For instance, corn pollen is carried in the wind. Other crops, such as alfalfa are pollinated by bees, but don't need pollination to produce the crop (the leaves and stems) and may produce more foliage without pollination. So why should these farmers give a crap about a beekeeper a mile away that they don't even know? Hint: They don't.

It is already ILLEGAL to spray these pesticides without notifying the beekeepers, but enforcement is lax, and when a beekeeper finds a million dead bees in her hives, it is almost impossible to find out which farmer was responsible.

These pesticides should be banned except for some very narrow uses.

Disclaimer: My mom is a beekeeper. I help her with her hives, so I know a bit about these issues.

Re:The market can handle this

[Arzaboa]

My thought is that no plant in the right environment should need any *cide's. Even if every neighbor only doses one bush, it does have a cumulative effect large enough to matter. Most would use the same argument, a smart guy like me should be able to use it so... Think about the people you hear say that and roll your eyes at. Just because bees aren't in there, others are, and just because they aren't bees, doesn't mean they aren't having the same effects on them. This stuff is just bad. So while you aren't a farm causing a 25% loss, even a 5% loss matters. Just because we haven't studied the other 'pests', as well doesn't mean they aren't as important. If they exist, there is a biological reason they are in your bushes.

Tailoring a yard for the local environment with local plants, or food, has so many benefits. Plants that are naturally occurring don't need all this "help", and stay under control with light pruning/cutting. Local plants only need what rain falls locally. It certainly may not look the same as mom's house, but that doesn't mean its not very pretty. It is hard for humans to change what makes them comfortable.

With that said, I get the shortcuts. It is hard to do. We are not setup for it in this country for many reasons. Everyone wants a nice looking piece of grass, but no one has the time. Stores stock cheap products, mostly produced all in the same cycle of plants that need their fertilizer, that are roundup-resistant. Its easy to keep control of a cycle like that. There is no incentive to change it for the large companies involved selling what most can "afford" or just that is stocked. The expensive stores are just that, so by definition, most shop at large retailers for plants where they can get their discount for a homogeneous selection of plants.

Its not your fault. It is by design.

Re:The market can handle this

[Talderas]

The investigation of pesticides is more driven at colony collapse which is the sudden disappearance of the workers leaving the queen and a few nurses the reasoning for it are still misunderstood. This research at least provides some path to explain why the bees disappeared. If the queen is producing fewer eggs, the workers may be able to sense that is occurring and leave the hive either going feral, dying, or attempting to merge with another colony with a healthy queen because it is very rare that the bees in a hive will leave while there's still brood in cells.

When the colony dies, a bunch of dead bees in the hive, it's far easier to autopsy the hive and determine a cause. You could find the presence of varroa mites, indicators that the bees are suffering from dysentery or nosema, American/European foulbrood, starvation, or a loss of a queen which could not be replaced. There's numerous other reasons as well but unless you perform the autopsy on what you find you can't determine the cause. Blindly blaming pesticides for a bunch of dead bees is pointless when you have the option to find the cause of the colony death.

Re:The market can handle this

[dryeo]

One of the problems with residential use is all the idiots who can't follow directions. Label says 50:1 mixture, they say that 10:1 must be better. Don't know much about neonicotinoids but do know that with most systematic herbicides, it's actually self defeating as it kills the tops before it transfers to the roots.
Took a pesticide applicators course a long time ago and it was consistently stressed that pesticides are a last resort.

Re:Cue the bee decline denialists

[PopeRatzo]

Actually the bee population is increasing now.

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/...

Re:Watch your language please

[MightyMartian]

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

Re:Why you are an idiot

[PopeRatzo]

[agprofessional.com]

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.

Re:this is great

[dunkelfalke]

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.

So like nicotine and mammals

[Togden]

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.

Show the evidence

[sjbe]

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.