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Three-Quarters of All Honey On Earth Has Pesticides In It (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: About three quarters of all honey worldwide is contaminated with pesticides known to harm bees, according to a new study. Though the pesticide levels were below the limit deemed safe for human consumption, there was still enough insecticide in there to harm pollinators. The finding suggests that, as one of the study authors said, "there's almost no safe place for a bee to exist." Scientists analyzed 198 honey samples from all continents, except Antarctica, for five types of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are known to harm bees. They found at least one of the five compounds in most samples, with the highest contamination in North America, Asia, and Europe. The results are published today in the journal Science.
To get a better sense of just how widespread neonic contamination is, Mitchell and his colleagues analyzed 198 worldwide honey samples collected as a citizen science project between 2012 and 2016. They found that 75 percent of honey contained at least one of the five tested neonics, and 45 percent of samples had two or more. Honey from North America, Asia, and Europe was most contaminated, while the lowest contamination was in South America. Neonic concentrations were relatively low: on average, 1.8 nanograms per gram in contaminated honey -- below the limits set as safe for people by the EU.
To get a better sense of just how widespread neonic contamination is, Mitchell and his colleagues analyzed 198 worldwide honey samples collected as a citizen science project between 2012 and 2016. They found that 75 percent of honey contained at least one of the five tested neonics, and 45 percent of samples had two or more. Honey from North America, Asia, and Europe was most contaminated, while the lowest contamination was in South America. Neonic concentrations were relatively low: on average, 1.8 nanograms per gram in contaminated honey -- below the limits set as safe for people by the EU.
Not so much below the limit that is safe for the bees, hmm?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Dosage matters, unless you are a nutcase like Alex Jones who thinks one atom of aluminum (the most abundant metal on the Earthâ(TM)s surface) will instantly guaranteed give you autism. Itâ(TM)s better to have pesticides and cheaper more plentiful food than famines and global catastrophic starvation and possible extinction via war.
Hi, I'm not often posting but I have an anecdote. About three years ago I bought a house. First two years, no honeybees. This year we had them. Wowsa, great!! When I was young (40 yrs ago) honeybees were all around but haven't seen them for 20+ years.
Can I say what is different? Not sure. We are completely organic, but use horticultural oil for hemlock woolly adelgids & hemlock scale, not currently using but did/might future use spinosad for winter moth and gypsy moth. The exotic (asian, european) insects are very aggressive on native (north american) trees. Often defoliation is complete, no leaves left uneaten. It is hard to judge whether mild pesticides (horticultural oil, spinosad) to save the trees are better or worse than refraint for their (small, but non-zero) effect on honeybees.
Neonicotinoids seem to be a problem and restricting those has a high level of support. Let's start with removing those, and see where we go.
I hear pesticides are rich in antioxidants.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The real question is how do we protect the Earth from human greed, which is the primary cause of most of the planet's ails.
Do you have an alternative plan to protect bees from pests?
The purpose of the pesticides is not to "protect bees". It is to protect the crops from harmful insects. The bees are collateral damage.
I do admit I love honey. If that is greedy of me so be it. Still, we need to protect the bees so they make more.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
We have the ability to detect materials in such minute amounts that we can find traces of almost anything, anywhere. It is definitely an effective way to generate headlines. But is it meaningful in any real sense? There is some botulinum toxin in the air you breathe. The question is always how much.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Given the history of big corporations influencing dosage levels, we do not have to be a conspiracy nutcase (or somewhat fake nutcase) like Alex Jones to realistically assume powerful forces are going to be trying their best to corrupt the whole subject.
Then we have the history of science moving slowly due to funding etc, as well as being wrong for a while on top of the propaganda and corruption making it move slower. Remember when Pb was not a problem? Then we had various levels of acceptable Pb under different situations and finally after a REALLY LONG TIME the conclusion that there really is NO safe acceptable level Pb under most situations.
The stuff hasn't been around long enough to see long term problems and even so, if the problems can be kept close to the margins of error and if symptoms between people differ even slightly you divide the population so that the largest groups fall too close to error margins. I wouldn't put it past Monsanto to add something to make it WORSE to diversify symptoms... someday they WILL do something like this. because profits... duh.
Even old accepted standard tests such as the amount of Vitamin C we should have just have not been revised with better studies involving more than 1 man getting scurvy... plus there is the whole matter of what is a healthy amount vs what threshold is so bad symptoms develop. In this case, it could be the healthy amount is 3x as high as the minimum mean average.... why use a mean average?
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honey samples collected as a citizen science project between 2012 and 2016. They found that 75 percent of honey contained at least one of the five tested neonics,
But unless those samples were from evenly distributed sources, across the world, all they tell us is that the places which returned the largest numbers of samples had the most pesticides.
That does not lead to the conclusion that three-quarters of all the honey (from everywhere) is the same as that sampled.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I know you're being facetious, but the long term effects of actually doing something like that could be bad. Not everyone there will die, and the people who do survive are going to be the ones who were the most ruthless and capable killers. It's essentially tilting natural selection to pick for low empathy and limited amounts of interest beyond the individual. That's the type of person that's never going to integrate into a larger society well.
I had recently read about the historical roots of the people who settled in the Appalachians in U.S. colonial days. They were from the border regions of England and Scotland and grew up in similarly unstable and warlike conditions. Even back then they were pretty much the embodiment of what people consider southern redneck. Like so many other groups at the time, England sent them packing and they were the primary settlers of the regions in the Appalachian Mountains.
"About three quarters of all honey worldwide is contaminated with pesticides known to harm bees"
Of course, one might also point out that at least half, if not more, of earth's population has food and is alive ALSO because of pesticides, generally.
-Styopa
So, if pesticides are killing them, why are they making a comeback...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.globalcitizen.org/...
Just another day in Paradise
Pesticide resistance happens naturally, how about we help bees become resistant to pesticides by GMO-ing them? (And do this multiple times in multiple ways with diverse bee genotypes, so that we aren't producing a bee monoculture.)
Or at least breeding them for that? Rapidly develop pesticide resistant honeybees? And while we are at it, why not help them become resistant to mites/viruses?
I *like* eating. We need bees, why not help them out?
--PeterM
What about some unintended consequences that actually make things worse?
True "organic" (meaning without pesticides or other similar chemicals) honey is a very rare beast. There's basically nowhere on the continental US that can truly be declared organic. Bees can travel such distances (and so can herbicides and pesticides) that an entirely organic foraging area for honeybees is very hard to find. Even if, for example, you have multiple acres of prime foraging area, all if takes is a neighbor spraying glyphosphate, or neonic seeds to have spread, etc.
Since bees will not cross wide expanses of water, islands can be an isolated foraging area. Quite of a bit of honey designated organic comes from Hawaii, for instance.