The human race is really starting to feel the consequences of their actions. One area we are waking up to is the massive amount of pesticides we spray (especially in North America) on our food that has not only been linked to human disease, but a massive die off in the global bee population within the past few years.
A new study out of Harvard University, published in the June edition of the Bulletin of Insectology puts the nail in the coffin, neonicotinoids are killing bees at an exponential rate, they are the direct cause of the phenomenon labeled as colony collapse disorder (CCD). Neonicotinoid’s are the world’s most widely used insecticides. (1)
“The results from this study not only replicate findings from the previous study, but also reinforce the conclusion that the sublethal exposure to neonicotinoids is likely the main culprit for the occurrence of CCD.” (1)
For this study, researchers examined 18 bee colonies at three different apiaries in central Massachusetts over the course of a year. Four colonies at each apiary were regularly treated with realistic doses of neonicotinoid pesticides, while a total of six hives were left untreated. Of the 12 hives treated with the pesticides, six were completely wiped out.
Neonicotinoids insecticides, persist in “extremely high levels” in planter exhaust material produced during the planting of crops treated with these insecticides. This runs contrary to industry claims that the chemicals biodegrade and are not a threat. These pesticide components are found in soil, they are also found in fields where the chemicals are not even sprayed. Bees also actively transfer contaminated pollen from primarily pesticide treated corn crops and bring it back to their hives. Furthermore, bees transfer these pesticides to other plants and crops that are not treated with the chemicals, which goes to show just how persistent these chemicals truly are in the environment.
There has been an enormous amount of research which shows that our current regulations which protect the creatures that pollinate much of our food is extremely inadequate. It’s been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals showing how widely used pesticides have a very damaging effect on bees.
A paper published in the journal Nature discusses how bees are twice as likely to die when exposed to pesticides; two-thirds of the bees are lost when exposed compared to a third when not exposed. The exposed bees are also half as successful in gathering food. (2)
Scientists from the US Department of Agriculture as well as the University of Maryland published a study that linked chemicals, including fungicides, to the large scale die-off of bees that has recently plagued the planet, you can read that study here.
In the United Stats alone, the honey bee population declined by approximately 30 percent, with some beekeepers reporting losses up to 90 and 100 percent. More than 100 US crops rely on honey bees to pollinate them. The study determined that fields ranging from Maine to Delaware contained nine different agricultural chemicals. These included fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides. In some cases they even recorded samples of 21 different agricultural chemicals.
Europe also recently recorded the largest bee loss in their history.
Not only have these pesticides been linked to various health ailments, they are killing bees all over the world. It’s not just bees, the disappearance of Monarch Butterflies has also been linked to Monsanto’s roundup herbicide. It’s time we completely ban something that has absolutely no reason to exist, we can do better than this.
As we continue to take actions like this we continue to see that how we are currently doing things simply cannot be sustained. This type of issue does not just reflect how we treat nature but also reflects how we operate as a whole. If money wasn’t so important, we wouldn’t be finding unnatural ways to do everything on this planet. If we weren’t so concerned with maintaining an economy, issues such as these wouldn’t affect us. This is all a perfect lesson for us to ask “what the heck are we doing to our planet?” We are at a point where our very survival is now threatened because we are fighting so hard to maintain a system we all don’t like anyway.
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.” – Albert Einstein
It’s humbling when you realize human survival is depending on an insect. GOD sure does have a strange sense of humor.
One more reason to look into sustainable organic farming and gardening. If you look up 1 Straw Revolution, the Japanese author was able to grow rice and other crops without chemicals with equal success, if not better, to the most productive modern farms in Japan.
Perhaps this is the new employment for the dependency class. We’ll give them Qtips and send them into the fields and orchards to sex up the plants for us. If our pesticides cause ghetto collapse disorder, I don’t think Monsanto will mind.
“If money wasn’t so important, we wouldn’t be finding unnatural ways to do everything on this planet.”
Money is important because it’s what we use to buy food and keep the lights on. The problem isn’t money – it’s that there are simply too many people to feed.
Don’t have kids.
There are flowers in my yard that attract insects. There are still honey bees but in reduced numbers.There seems to be an increase in both the variety and numbers of bumblebees. Lots of various butterflies. Just an anecdotal observation.
“It’s humbling when you realize human survival is depending on an insect.” —– bb
Sure enough … it is very amazing.
YOUR own personal survival depends on something even more humbling ….. the bacteria in your gut.
Get rid of all the good bacteria and you’ll be dead in no time at all. It is one reason (of several) that I DESPISE Big Pharma and all their fuckin’ anti-bacterial drugs they push on people for every possible reason, even extremely minor ones … because those drugs can’t distinguish between good and bad bacteria. EVERY time a person takes anti-bacterial medication, they weaken their immune system.
What’s all this buzz about?
Four or five years ago a couple farmers in Illinois collected all sorts of research concerning the bee die offs and pesticides being used in the state.
They collected soil samples, analyzed fields, hives, plants, etc.
They contacted the agricultural department to share their info – that chemicals are killing the bees off – and were shunned.
A little time later the USDA showed up Gestapo style, destroyed a bunch of stuff and took all their research and samples – even the stuff that had nothing to do with the bees.
So, Harvard, no shit.
Anyone that is aware of the reality of Big Chem/Big Pharma (same thing), had to have known/felt that there was a connection.
We, our world, is being POISONED. Intentionally, in my opinion.
Believe it and try to protect yourself/your family,or don’t and enjoy your future deteriorating health.
They have us coming and going all so a handful of people can be richer than god and a few hundred can be powerful and richer than we will ever be.
Maybe all the bees read Anonfuk’s post “America – The Grim Truth” and flew en masse to Thailand to eat fish heads and rice…
Okay, pesticides knocked out some bees.
There’s folks around here who raise bees. Because I wanted to strike a deal and buy their wax wholesale, I asked them if they’ve heard about the bee dieoff or had anything happen to their bees…
Answer: Nope. Everything’s going great. Bees out the wazoo. Company up in Frankfort that deals with bee-raising equipment, honey centrifuges, bulk wax, etc, doing a booming business. Saw a stack of beeswax as tall as me and a half dozen loading skids long… Biggest thing they’re worried about is the Africanized honey bee, but consensus seems to be that our winters are too cold for them to survive.
First it was “THE NEW ICE AGE!!!” Then it was a hole in the ozone layer. Then it was polar ice melting. Then it’s global warming. Then it’s climate change. Then it’s the rising sea level. Then it’s fish dieoffs, algae blooms, save the fuckin whales, hug a tree, dude, it’s the BEES!!, big Ag, big Pharma, fluoride in the water, GMO crops….
Just stop already… really.
Just because the nation’s bee crisis has not reached your neck of the woods is no reason to rejoice . Have you heard about the mocking Bird crisis in Kentucky?It’s bad .May turn into a pandemic. The whole state may have to be sealed off and gased.What do you say now BILLY ?
Dude, I’ve heard nothing about some alleged “mockingbird crisis” here in the Bluegrass… I did all kinds of searches to find out something, and as far as the ‘Net is concerned, there IS no ‘mockingbird crisis”…
Seal off the whole Commonwealth and gas it? BAHHH-HAHAHHAH!!!!
Dude… you’re on fire today!
Billy
Might be good to seal off the Commonwealth to keep the tards from getting in, not to mention any names but his initials are bb.
I had bees in my butterfly bush just this morning. Not saying there is not a crisis with the bees.
Anon was I.
NORAHG RESPONDS TO THE AMATEURISH & DISCREDITED HARVARD STUDY
Bee experts have quickly criticized the so-called Harvard Study, which was NOT performed by Harvard University. The study could NOT even be published legitimately in North America, and could only be published in some obscure publication in Italy. Moreover, the author of the study has NO recognized expertise in matters concerning honeybees. Experts complained that the study had exposed bees to an unrealistically high dose of insecticides. The government of Australia noted that ― ( 1 ) The Harvard Study is clearly discredited because bee colonies were fed « astronomical » levels of imidacloprid-laced corn syrup. ( 2 ) The Harvard Study is also discredited because the sample sizes were far too small. ( 3 ) The Harvard Study is further discredited because the symptoms the colonies subsequently suffered did not, in fact, mimic the symptoms of bee colony collapse disorder. http://wp.me/p1jq40-81U Everyone agrees that neonicotinoid insecticides are lethal to bees in extremely large doses. But, in the real world, bees are NOT getting drenched with these insecticides. Overwhelming scientific evidence has consistently indicated that neonicotinoid insecticides are scientifically safe and cause no harm to bees when used properly. The so-called Harvard Study is merely an amateurish attempt to perform bee research. PROHIBITION WILL NOT SAVE BEES. http://tinyurl.com/pxqzh6m For the whole truth regarding bees, go to … http://wp.me/p1jq40-7zT http://wp.me/p1jq40-6WJ http://wp.me/P1jq40-2BA http://wp.me/p1jq40-6H8 http://wp.me/p1jq40-7ty NORAHG is the National Organization Responding Against HUJE that seek to destroy the Green space industry. WILLIAM H GATHERCOLE AND NORAH G Get the latest details at http://pesticidetruths.com/
http://wp.me/P1jq40-2rr https://www.facebook.com/norah.gfon
I suspect that the research is like global warming. The people who fund it call the results.
Doesn’t the German company Bayer AG have major exposure on this? I’m surprised the truth has finally been revealed. Before we started messing with nature, nature worked. Now that these greedy MFing companies are determined to squeeze every last nickel in profit, we’ve bent over ass-backwards to pry more out of nature and as a result catastrophe. I also don’t think the GMO food and “now with added hormones and antibiotics” meme in food will end well.
I was at a movie screening about bees with the director in attendance a few years back. Midway through I realized the problem seemed to be limited to industrial bees: those bees that are trucked around the country, fed high fructose GMO corn syrup, etc.
These industrial beekeepers were losing huge percentages of their bees. Seems like the solution is for them to get together (or act alone) and say something on your farm is killing our bees, so we’re not coming any more until you change. Watch how fast the farmers will change.
Or just continue as before and hope they don’t lose every hive.
Yeah short-term studies should be viewed with some healthy scepticism. Having said that, studies linking neonicotinoids to CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) are nothing new. Neither is the response from the industries that profit from the wide-scale use of systemic pesticides.
Waiting for the industry to self-regulate and admit “we done fucked up” is pointless. Attempting to pressure your political respresentitives is also pointless, as they are in the pocket of agri-business.
All you can hope for is that these practices never gain a foothold in your corner of the world. A lot of European nations are reticent at allowing companies like Monstanto to gain a foothold in their corner of the world, but politicians are weak and lobbyists have an absurd amount of influence.
The basics of why neonicotinoids are a problem for bees below. I suggest you do your own research if you are interested.
Most pesticide use is a reactive measure. You wait until there is problem before you treat it. You don’t spray for beetles if you don’t have a problem with beetles, for example. If you do have a problem with beetles, you try and spray before they lay their eggs to prevent them from being a continued problem to your crop.
A lot of incecticides, like the incect spray you might have in your home are contact poisons. The beetle gets the poison on their body and they die. An example of these are the various chloride and phosphate poisons. They will kill the beetle, but they won’t just kill the beetle. Because of the water soluble nature of the compounds there can be a cumulative effect on the surrounding environment. It will kill off the pest incects, but also the benign incects as well as soil microorganisms. Over time, the use of these poisons can work their way up the food chain until humans are munching on larger than trace amounts of these toxins.
Some pesticides act more as a deterrent. They coat the plant and make it taste bad for the beetle. Pyrethroids (moth balls) and a lot of ‘natural’ remedies fall into this category. They may be great for your home garden, but not very practical for large scale agriculture.
Then you have neonicotinoids. A prophylactic compound, designed to prevent issues before they occur. They are a systemic toxin, absorbed by the plant in order to make the plant toxic. You don’t need to spray for beetles any more because the moment a beetle tries to munch on the plant, it dies. Theoretically, this is small enough doses to not be an issue for humans. It is also supposed to only effect the pest organisms. Only problem is that neonicotinoids are water soluble. this is so they can be absorbed by the plant in the first place. Even if you only spray the toxin in one field, it will eventually spread around and be taken up by other plants in the vicinity, or enter a water source and effect everything that water source touches.
Thing is, even though bees are not munching on the plant, they are interacting with the plant. So they will bring trace amounts of the neonicotinoids back to the hive. Thousands of bees over multiple generations and the cumulative effect of the toxin on the hive begins to have an appreciable impact. This means defective bees that can’t find their way back to the hive, bees with a weakened immune respose to other toxins and diseases and so on. This causes colony collapse, which is a fancy way of saying that the queen can’t produce anough effective workers to keep the hive from starving.
Whoops. Moth balls are napthalene. Pyrethroids are derived from daisies. Sorry about that.
In my experience…..and my guess……….
Sure the poisons will kill the bees … just like they kill bugs, pests, insects. They will kill people also as we eat them and the GMO foods that produce them.
However, I am in a suburban area away from the crops, and also, the manicured sprayed lawns.
I lean towards those that cite the microwaves from the cell towers. Bees and birds have homing devices built into them that help them navigate. The microwaves disrupt their ability to find their way home.
I checked my hives in late winter/early spring. The bees were abundant, had plenty of food and looked normal and healthy. A few weeks later the hives were empty – no dead bees in them. Just empty. The bees left and did not return. Something made them leave and not return.
Medvyed is WRONG ! Interacting with plants DOES NOT mean that traces of the ingredient will be brought back to the hive. Activists should stick to what they know, and they KNOW NOTHING about pest control products.
DDT.
Bees collect pollen and nectar. Pollen and nectar is plant material. Pollen and nectar is brought back to the hive where it is regurgiated to produce honey, or simply fed to larvae without being eaten and spewed up a few times.
Spray a field of GM canola with a systemic and ask an apirist to leave their hives in your field. Most likely, you will be politely instructed to go fuck yourself.