Bumblebees

Some of the honeybees were lying on their backs, trembling and twitching. Others were crawling slowly on the ground, unable to fly. Many were motionless, lying dead in piles. Many more had simply disappeared, apparently unable to find their way back to their hives. This was the gruesome scene commercial beekeeper Steve Ellis came upon on the morning of May 7, 2013.
The sight stunned Ellis, who has owned and operated Old Mill Honey Company in Barrett, Minnesota for 35 years. "Normally in the spring, we typically expect bees to build up and get stronger," he recalled. "For a beekeeper to watch his bees be devastated in the springtime — it's like watching a little child get extremely sick and debilitated. It takes a real mental toll on you."
But almost immediately, Ellis discovered the culprit: That morning, a farmer had planted corn in a field directly adjacent to his bee yard, which housed roughly 1,300 hives at the time. He was well aware that most corn seeds are treated with a pesticide called neonicotinoids. And that day, the wind was blowing from the cornfield toward Ellis' bees, the beekeeper wrote in an incident report he sent to the US Environmental Protection Agency. The bees' only sources of food were nearby willow trees, which, Ellis surmised, had become coated with pesticide-contaminated dust. "We took a close look to see how the bees were behaving when they were trying to forage them. It was shocking what we found," Ellis said in a video he took that day documenting the massacre. "Bees literally incapacitated when they come in contact with the flowers."

We have recently been surveying what chemicals the local farmers in East Sussex use each year. Chemicals applied to two fairly typical fields, one with winter oilseed rape, one with winter wheat, in a single growing season (2012/13). I should stress that these are perfectly normal farms; not especially intensive, situated on the edge of the South Downs, an area of gentle hills, hedgerows and wooded valleys. Beautiful, rural England; Constable would have liked it here. But let’s look at it from a bee’s perspective, focussing on the oilseed rape, since this is a crop they will feed on when it flowers: firstly, the crop is sown in late summer with a seed dressing containing the insecticide thiamethoxam. This is a systemic neonicotinoid, with exceedingly high toxicity to bees. We know it is taken up by the plant, and that detectable levels will be in the nectar and pollen gathered by bees in the following spring. In November, despite the supposed protection of the neonicotinoid, the crop is sprayed with another insecticide, the charmingly named Gandalf. Gandalf contains beta-cyfluthrin, a pyrethroid. Pyrethroids are highly toxic to bees and other insects, but there should be no bees about in November so that is probably OK. The following May, when it is flowering, the crop is sprayed with another pyrethroid, alpha-cypermethrin. Less than three weeks later, the crop is blitzed with three more pyrethroids, all mixed together, a real belt-and-braces approach. Why use one when three will do? The crop is still flowering at this point (it was a late year), and would be covered in foraging bumblebees and other pollinators. In between, the crop is also treated with a barrage of herbicides, fungicides, molluscicides and fertilizers – 22 different chemicals in total.

Il Centro di Riferimento Tecnico per l’Apicoltura Problematiche Ambientali e Nutrizionali di Unaapi ha sviluppato negli anni una più che proficua ollaborazione con tutti gli enti, soggetti istituzionali e scientifici che si sono variamente impegnati per rimediare alle cause che provocano il collasso di api e impollinatori. Vai riconosciuta alla ricerca scientifica italiana – perché significativamente pubblica e non condizionata? - una notevole capacità di monitoraggio e d’indagine. Grazie anche all’insieme di ricerche italiane si sono affermate alcune semplici, ma determinanti, modalità di studio, quali: l’insensatezza della traslazione all’alveare della dose letale 50 manifestata dalle singole api; la distinzione fra mortalità invernali e in stagione attiva; l’impatto ambientale della contaminazione in epoca di semina con concianti sistemici; la considerazione della possibilità che sia: “la goccia prodotta dall’uomo che fa traboccare il vaso”; le variegate vie di posizione “abitualmente” non considerate ecc… Il CRT Unaapi ha quindi ritenuto indispensabile proporre una disamina dello stato delle conoscenze sui comprovati e possibili effetti dei pesticidi sulle api, per:
• Denunciare infondatezza e falsità delle rassicurazioni sulla: “certa assenza di conseguenze”.
• Evidenziare quanti e quali sono gli aspetti non considerati rispetto ai possibili effetti dei pesticidi (puntuali o
ancor peggio: cronici) su api, impollinatori e vivente.
• Invitare apicoltori e cittadinanza tutta ad andare oltre la vaga lamentela, documentandosi adeguatamente.
Ringrazio i ricercatori che hanno redatto tale imponente e istruttiva, complessa ma fruibile, rassegna. A quanti si misureranno con la lettura l’auspicio di far tesoro di tale mole di accertamenti scientifici…

This spring most Canadian corn and soybean growers will be planting another crop of pesticide-coated seeds, even as researchers raise new warnings that the practice may have deadly side effects for bees and other wildlife. The heated debate around the use of the neonicotinoid-coated seeds, developed by Bayer CropScience and introduced here about a decade ago, has divided farmers, beekeepers and scientists, and turned Canada into a kind of environmental battlefront.

C’est un communiqué d’apparence anodine, rendu public le 2 avril par l’Union internationale pour la conservation de la nature (UICN). La vénérable organisation de défense de la biodiversité, célèbre pour le maintien de sa « liste rouge » des espèces menacées, y dresse un sombre état des lieux de la situation des bourdons d’Europe, importants pollinisateurs : 30 des 68 espèces du genre Bombus présentes sur le continent y sont en déclin et 12 menacées d’extinction. « Le changement climatique, l’intensification de l’agriculture et les changements dans l’utilisation des terres agricoles sont les menaces principales auxquelles ces espèces sont confrontées », précise l’UICN dans son communiqué.

Zu diesem Ergebnis kam eine Studie der Umweltorganisation Greenpeace, bei der 35 verschiedene Pflanzen in zehn Ländern analysiert worden sind. Der Greenpeace-Report „Giftiger Garten Eden - Eine Analyse der bienenschädlichen Pestizide in Gartenpflanzen auf dem europäischen Markt“ hat verschiedene bienenattraktive Pflanzenarten wie Veilchen, Lavendel und Primeln aus Gartenzentren, Baumärkten und Supermärkten untersucht. Nur zwei der 86 Proben waren frei von Chemikalien, der Rest wies einen regelrechten Cocktail an Pestiziden auf. 14 Prozent der europäischen Proben enthielten Pestizide ohne Zulassung in der EU. Unter den am stärksten belasteten Proben fand sich eine Probe aus Österreich aus der Gärtnerei Starkl mit 15 verschiedenen Pestiziden, davon sechs, die im österreichischen Zierpflanzenbau nicht zugelassen sind. Mehr als die Hälfte der Proben wiesen Neonicotinoide auf, die EU-weit teilweise verboten wurden und laut der Umweltorganisation als „inakzeptables Risiko für Bienen und andere Bestäuber gelten“. Die Produktion in Glashäusern ist vom Verbot allerdings ausgenommen. „Gartenfreunde werden ungewollt zu Mittätern gemacht“, kritisierte Huem Otero, Landwirtschaftssprecherin von Greenpeace.