Insecticides

Silent skies

Why is it that birds are falling from the skies, their numbers crashing in mass extinctions? Henk Tennekes has an answer: He cites evidence in his book that the species suffering dramatic losses (mostly out of public view) in the past two decades -- sparrows, swifts, starlings, and many other insectivores -- are struggling to find food; insects such as beetles, springtails, and earthworms are being wiped out by neonicotinoid insecticides, chiefly imidacloprid and clothianidin.

"The excessive imidacloprid levels noted in surface water of ... [places] with intensive agriculture have been associated with insect decline and [subsequently] a dramatic decline of common grassland birds."

The author, a toxicologist in the Netherlands, documents the threat neonicotinoids pose, even at very low levels, their mode of action similar to that of chemical carcinogens. These persistent nerve poisons, applied since 1991 as systemic seed and soil treatments, cause ecological damage in two major ways: They kill insects of all kinds by devastating their nervous systems, and they migrate from soil into waterways, then dispersing throughout local ecosystems.

Bird deaths: the fallout

It’s biblical, it’s big news and it’s giving plenty of fodder to conspiracy theorists. But are mass deaths of wildlife an early warning sign of the damage humankind is doing to the planet? When thousands of birds fall out of the sky – as they’ve been doing across the world this last week – it’s eerie to say the least.

But the mass bird deaths may not be just a freak of nature; they could be an indication of how we’ve poisoned our planet.

Birds are disappearing and dying off en masse across the world because the insects on which they depend for vital protein are being wiped out by toxic pesticides, according to new scientific evidence.

EU beekeeping associations are calling for an urgent revision of pesticide regulations

The European Beekeeping Coordination (EBC), a task force of professional beekeeping associations from across the EU, is calling for an urgent revision of the way pesticides and their active substances are authorised in the EU. In a leaked memo EPA scientists state that “information from standard tests and field studies, as well as incident reports involving neonicotinoids insecticides (e.g., imidacloprid) suggest the potential for long-term toxic risk to honey bees and other beneficial insects” and they criticise existing approvals research as deficient and request additional tests “for additional chronic testing on bee hive activity (e.g., effects to queen, larvae, etc.).”

Acetamiprid and thiacloprid can be as toxic to honey bees as imidacloprid and thiamethoxam

Laboratory bioassays conducted to determine the contact honey bee toxicity of commercial neonicotinoid insecticides showed that the nitro-substituted compounds were the most toxic to the honey bee with LD50 values of 18 ng/bee for imidacloprid and 30 ng for thiamethoxam. The cyano-substituted neonicotinoids exhibited a much lower toxicity with LD50 values for acetamiprid and thiacloprid of 7.1 and 14.6 µg/bee, respectively. However, piperonyl butoxide and propiconazole increased honey bee toxicity of acetamiprid 6.0- and 105-fold and thiacloprid 154- and 559-fold, respectively, but had a minimal effect on imidacloprid (1.70 and 1.52-fold, respectively). A broad survey of pesticide residues conducted on samples from North American apiaries during the 2007–08 growing seasons revealed the presence of 121 different pesticides and metabolites within wax, pollen, bee and associated hive samples, including acetamiprid, thiacloprid, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, piperonyl butoxide and propiconazole. Thus, under practical circumstances, acetamiprid and thiacloprid can be as toxic to honey bees as imidacloprid and thiamethoxam.

U.S. Bee Culture Magazine's Review of Henk Tennekes' Book "Disaster in the Making"

It is notable that this book and information on the scandal at EPA regarding registration of Bayer’s clothianidin become available at about the same time. EPA, brought on the carpet for grossly mishandling the registration due process of this chemical in part because of information first published in Bee Culture by Tom Theobald in July, certainly has some ‘splainin to do on their process, and the bureaucratic rug they swept their mess under when they allowed Bayer free rein with this deadly cocktail. And Bayer, too, has some ‘splainin to do on their gross negligence on performing even the minimum testing for honey bee safety before they even got a conditional registration from EPA seven years ago. It was, as Tom says, research fraud at its best. There are some beekeepers in this country that are convinced that this chemical, and others like it are closely associated with CCD. There’s evidence to support that. Dr. Tennekes would probably agree. His slim book catalogs a tragedy of monumental proportions regarding the loss of the insect-feeding (invertebrate-dependent) bird populations in all environments in the Netherlands. And he ties the disappearance to agriculture generally, and the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid in particular. Clothianidin is no different, he says. He brings together the disasters of surface water contamination and the decline of nearly all life forms associated with that resource, but then he also includes the decline of insect feeding woodland birds in Britain, the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, and France. It is a telling, and gruesome story. The insects are gone. And now, so are the birds. The question is...what, or maybe who, is next?

Het toegenomen gebruik van thiacloprid heeft normoverschrijdingen in grond- en oppervlaktewater tot gevolg

Volgens het CBS is het gebruik van het neonicotinoide insecticide thiacloprid gestegen van 320 kg op 1.191 ha in 2004 tot 7954 kg op 59.041 ha in 2008. Als acht ton thiacloprid jaarlijks over Nederlands akkerland verspreid wordt, kan met het EUSES model (European Union System for the Evaluation of Substances) worden berekend dat er een gemiddelde concentratie (in steady state) van 210 nanogram thiacloprid per liter in oppervlaktewater (zie bijlage) en van 815 nanogram thiacloprid per liter in grondwater zal ontstaan. De MTR (maximaal toelaatbaar risiconiveau) norm voor oppervlaktewater is 25 nanogram thiacloprid per liter. Dat betekent dus dat volgens het EUSES model bij het gebruik van thiacloprid op het niveau van 2008 normoverschrijdingen onvermijdelijk zullen zijn. MTR overschrijdingen werden in 2008 inderdaad vastgesteld bij Sint Kruis (Zeeuws Vlaanderen), bij Separatiedij (Zeeland), tussen Zevenhuizen en Moordrecht, tussen Moerkapelle en Waddinxveen, bij Steenderen (Gld), en bij Assen. Deze normoverschrijdingen vormen een dodelijke bedreiging voor insecten.

Soil-Applied Imidacloprid Is Translocated to Nectar and Kills Nectar-Feeding Parasitoids

Behavior was altered and survivorship was reduced when parasitoids, Anagyrus pseudococci (Girault) (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), were fed flowers from buckwheat, Fagopyrum esculentum L. (Polygonaceae), treated with soil applications of imidacloprid (Marathon 1% G). Parasitoids at 1 d had significantly reduced survivorship of 38 ± 6.7% on label rate and 17 ± 4.2% on twice label rate compared with 98 ± 1.2% on untreated flowers. Parasitoids trembled 88% on label rate and 94% on twice label rate compared with 0% on untreated flowers.

Un nouveau livre sur les causes de la mort des abeilles et des oiseaux en Europe

Le premier novembre paraîtra le livre du toxicologue hollandais Dr Henk Tennekes, „A disaster in the making“ qui traite des causes de la mort des oiseaux et des abeilles dans toute l’Europe. Le Dr Tennekes y montre que le recul considérable de nombreuses populations avicoles est lié à la décimation que les pesticides infligent aux insectes. Les populations de coléoptères, mouches, papillons et teignes, dont se nourrissent les oiseaux, ont reculé principalement en raison de l’emploi des néonicotinoïdes. Le premier producteur de néonicotinoïdes, parmi lesquels les molécules actives imidaclopride, thiaclopride et clothianidine est la firme Bayer Cropscience. L’imidaclopride passe pour le pesticide le plus vendu dans le monde, et la société Bayer en a retiré pour la seule année dernière 606 millions d’euros. La clothianidine, également produite par Bayer, avait provoqué il y a deux ans la mort à grande échelle des abeilles d’Allemagne du Sud. Le Dr Tennekes exige une interdiction immédiate de ces traitements: « Les risques qu’entraînent des pesticides tels que l’imidaclopride et le thiaclopride sont énormément sous-estimés. Une catastrophe environnementale nous menace et la firme Bayer en est responsable. Il faut à mon avis interdire de toute urgence les néonicotinoïdes si l’on ne veut pas voir les abeilles et les oiseaux continuer à s’éteindre. »

Phil Chandlers interview with Henk Tennekes on systemic insecticides

Phil Chandler is author of The Barefoot Beekeeper and has a busy discussion forum for natural beekeeping on his web site at http://www.biobees.com. The subject of Phil Chandlers latest podcast is Dr Henk Tennekes, who was born in The Netherlands, and after graduating from the Agricultural University of Wageningen in 1974, he performed his Ph.D. work at Shell Research Ltd in the UK. He later worked for 5 years at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg. The culmination of Dr Tennekes' research was his recent discovery that the way the neonicotinoid insecticides work has much in common with that of chemical carcinogens - cancer-causing agents.

Controversial pesticides linked to 'total ecological collapse' of insects and birds

Widespread use of insecticides is affecting bee populations but also causing decline in numbers of birds, butterflies and moths, warns Dutch toxicologist. A new book is blaming the significant decline of bird and bee numbers across Europe on the use of certain pesticides in agriculture. In The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making, toxicologist Dr Henk Tennekes suggests that dangerous insecticides known as neonicotinoids are seriously affecting bird and insect life, and their continued use could result in an ‘environmental catastrophe’.