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Roundup Weed Killer Could Be Linked To Widespread Bee Deaths, Study Finds (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: A new study [published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin posit that glyphosate -- the active ingredient in the herbicide -- destroys specialized gut bacteria in bees, leaving them more susceptible to infection and death from harmful bacteria. Researchers Nancy Moran, Erick Motta and Kasie Raymann suggest their findings are evidence that glyphosate might be contributing to colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon that has been wreaking havoc on honey bees and native bees for more than a decade. They hope their results will convince farmers, landscapers and homeowners to stop spraying glyphosate-based herbicides on flowering plants that are likely to be pollinated by bees.
"No large-scale study has ever found a link between glyphosate and honey bee health issues," Bayer said in a statement, adding that the new study "does not change that." Bayer noted the study relied on a small sample of individual bees and that it does not meet regulatory research criteria on pesticides stipulated by international guidelines developed by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and other international organizations. Additionally, the company suggested it is "questionable whether the concentrations of the substance tested could at all be absorbed by bee populations in the open over a relevant period of time." According to the report in the journal, the researchers focused on honey bees and used "hundreds of adult worker bees from a single hive" and treated them with varying levels of glyphosate. Editor's note: In June, Germany's pharmaceutical giant Bayer purchased Monsanto, the company that developed Roundup.
"No large-scale study has ever found a link between glyphosate and honey bee health issues," Bayer said in a statement, adding that the new study "does not change that." Bayer noted the study relied on a small sample of individual bees and that it does not meet regulatory research criteria on pesticides stipulated by international guidelines developed by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and other international organizations. Additionally, the company suggested it is "questionable whether the concentrations of the substance tested could at all be absorbed by bee populations in the open over a relevant period of time." According to the report in the journal, the researchers focused on honey bees and used "hundreds of adult worker bees from a single hive" and treated them with varying levels of glyphosate. Editor's note: In June, Germany's pharmaceutical giant Bayer purchased Monsanto, the company that developed Roundup.
Normally big companies don't bother responding to scientific studies. The fact that they did in this case, attempting a character assassination to boot, suggests they are scared. They might even have their own internal data supporting such results.
If that is the case, I can barely imagine the multiple international class action suits that will follow. It will make the smoking debacle look small.
For once The findings have vastly worse implications than the headline. Namely, Round-up isn't poisoning the Bee's themselves it's impairing their symbiotic microbiome. You too have a microbiome, as does the every plant, the soil, and wasps too.
What's interesting here is that previous studies had found that ROund up did kill cells at high doses it wasn't the glycophase that was doing modt of it. It was the packaging "inert" ingredients many of which were detergent-like. It's not a surprise that detergents might harm isolates cells in high concentration.
this one finds the Glycophase itself harms some unknown bacteria that in turn makes the microbiome tank, and the bee's die.
That is a big deal. Much bigger deal than the previous findings.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I know we are not supposed to kill wasps, as they are pollinators and help to control insects
Actually, most wasps in North America - especially more northern states - are not pollinators. They are predators but they don't pollinate anything. And being as they are not limited in their ability to sting (as most bees are) they can be a much more significant threat to humans. In other words, fire away. Get the wasp killer from your local big-box store and go to town. Generally the sites where wasps (especially the exceptionally common paper wasp) build their nests are not attractive nesting sites for any kind of bee, so the collateral damage is generally pretty low.
The exception to the non-pollinating wasps are the wasps that pollinate figs (this is actually why figs are never vegetarian - you can't eat a fig without eating wasp eggs). If you live someplace where figs cannot grow, there is almost no chance that the wasps in your area pollinate anything.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It doesn't necessarily follow.
I know more about mosquito control, since I worked in that industry for decades, but in that field the common pesticides are chosen because they have low toxicity for non-target species and low potential for bioaccumulation because once deployed in the environment they break down rapidly into non-toxic byproducts. I assume that herbicides are approved using similar criteria.
Now herbicides are targeted at the plant kingdoom, and bees are in the animal kingdom. Glycophosphate in particular targets a metabolic pathway that is found in plants and fungi, but not animals. That tells you exactly zero about whether it's harmless to animals; it might kill animals in a completely different way. You have to conduct tests.
Tests show that glycophosphates have a high LD50 (i.e., low toxicity) for animals, but that's acute toxicity. It takes a lot of Roundup to kill an animal outright, but that doesn't mean it can't affect the animals behavior and reproduction in ecologically disruptive ways. If you exposed all humans to a drug which was harmless but made men impotent, human populations would crash even if the drug had an infinitely high LD50.
If this sounds complicated, that's because it is. But that's no reason to throw our hands up in the air and assume everything will be OK. At this point nobody's in any position to state anything definitive about the impact of glycophosphates on bees; this study has successfully opened a question we don't have an answer for yet. But if we study this problem, we'll get a definitive answer. Either way some people might not like that answer, but at least it's a rational basis for making policy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Glyphosate has been in use since 1973 and bee colony disorder is a relatively recent phenomenon starting around 2006
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
According to the above wiki article Bayer's patent on glyphosate expired in 2000 and other companies jumped on the bandwagon and released their own pesticides using it so it's possible that it just had to reach enough critical mass for it to appear - but it was used so widely in crops which will sometimes hire bee colonies to pollanize the fields that I'd be surprised it didn't come up earlier.
Just plain wrong. I could find triclopyr-based products rather easy. There's also picloram-based products.
After looking at them all though, I ended up going with glyphosate. For what I was doing, it seemed about as dangerous as the other herbicides.
I still have a bottle of the concentrated stuff, which I use only as a stump killer. To be fair, I'd rather be exposed to people using herbicides like me - directly applied to the plant via brush, no spraying, no broad application - than like my neighbors, who spray it across their yards because front lawns are supposed to look like golf courses.
Roundup has been linked to Parkinson's Disease and suspected to be linked to other human neurological diseases as well. Now it looks like it is killing pollinators too. It's probably time to find a better weed killer.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Certain species of wasps do feed on plant nectar as bees do. As such, they compete with bees for food resources. In some cases, they attack bee hives. And since they are much less efficient pollinators than bees, I'm siding with the bees.
Nuke the wasps.
Have gnu, will travel.
My question is whether the damage to the microbiome necessarily leads to bee fatality. I'm not sure--from my minimal understanding--whether that has really been demonstrated here. This study is important, but it does seem to be very limited in its actual findings. There needs to be testing to see what else damages the microbiome and what are the immediate and long term consequences of this damage. As usual, some of the reporters seem to be too rash in making simplistic claims about the dangers of the chemical. It's easy to see glyphosate as part of the faceless evil of the big corporation, but the truth is that even the people at Monsanto have no interest in killing off the bees. Bees are a vital part of agriculture (and I don't think Monsanto has brought their Roundup brand genetically-modified glyphosate-resistant extra-killer honey bees to market yet).
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
Where do they spray roundup on the corn to make it dry down. normally it drys down naturally in the fall. no need to waste money spraying it on the corn then.
PS I grew up on a farm.