Honeybees

Wie wir mit Nikotin unsere Insekten auslöschen

Unsere Wissenschaft hat ein künstlich hergestellten Agrargift-Wirkstoffes namens Neo(nikotin)oid entwickelt und Ackerbauern setzen es erfolgreich ein. Die Pflanze nimmt den Wirkstoff bei Behandlung in sich auf und verteilt es in alle Blätter. Die Insekten sterben dann bei Kontakt oder Fressen an der Pflanze. Das geniale an diesem Wirkstoff ist seine Nikotin-artigkeit. Und Nikotin ist ein hochwirksames Nervengift. In der Landwirtschaft werden Insekten mit dem getötet, was ein Teil der Menschheit freiwillig und gut bezahlt raucht. Arg. Leider wirkt es zu erfolgreich. Unsere Honigbienen kämpfen wegen einen Parasit namens Varoa-Milbe mehr oder weniger um das eigene Überleben. Und dieses Nerven-Agrargift welche Ackerbauern einsetzen= Mais beizen, fördert zusätzlich den Untergang der westlichen Honigbiene.

Charles Clover: I don’t expect the people we pay to protect our environment to operate complacently

Most of us would not like to think we might be implicated in the decline of honeybees worldwide, or in the decreasing numbers of bumblebees, butterflies and farmland birds nearer home, but two scientific papers published at the end of last month suggest we are. The scientists’ findings about the effect of the latest generation of pesticides on bees and other pollinators mean we should all re-examine what we buy. For someone who, as concern has grown, has tried to keep a sense of proportion about the possible effects of a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids — nicotine-like substances that were introduced in the 1990s
— the sense of betrayal runs deep. I expect multinational pesticide companies to play down evidence they don’t like and to play up the importance of pesticides when it comes to feeding the world. I don’t expect the people we pay to protect our environment to operate complacently on the same assumptions. What we are talking about is nothing less than the poisoning of the countryside on a scale greater than Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring, her classic exposure of the first generation of synthetic pesticides. Three million acres of Britain are treated with the new pesticides. Their true effects were missed by regulators despite the erection, under the European Union, of the greatest edifice of environmental legislation yet. No wonder an English scientist quoted in the normally cautious journal Science predicts that these two scientific papers will cause “an absolute firestorm”. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation recently published a review of research into the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees, with recommendations for action (attached). Attached also is an article on the influence of Bayer Cropscience on Dutch policy makers (which appeared the magazine "Vrij Nederland" on April 4, 2012).

De grootste ramp in de geschiedenis van de chemie

Eind maart kopte de voorpagina van de Salt Lake Tribune, een vooraanstaande Amerikaanse krant: "Hoogste frequentie in het land, 1 op de 32 jongens in Utah heeft autisme." En nog een andere nationale noodtoestand kwam op dezelfde dag in de pers: "Nieuwe bestrijdingsmiddelen veroorzaken bijensterfte." Volgens Dr Brian Moench, voorzitter van de Artsenbond in Utah, hebben beide rampen een gemeenschappelijke noemer.
Uit een studie van de universiteit Stanford met 192 paren van een tweeling, waarvan de een autistisch was en de ander niet, is gebleken dat het risico op autisme voor 38% bepaald wordt door erfelijke factoren, en het milieu voor 62% van het risico verantwoordelijk is. Een genetische epidemie bestaat niet, omdat genen niet snel veranderen. Dus moet de alarmerende stijging van autisme het resultaat zijn van verhoogde milieurisico's die genetische defecten versterken.
Gedurende de kritieke eerste drie maanden van de zwangerschap maakt een menselijk embryo 250.000 hersencellen per minuut aan zodat er in de vijfde maand 200 miljard zijn. Er is geen stofje dat dit biologische wonder nog verder kan verbeteren, maar giftige stoffen kunnen wel de placenta passeren en dat proces aantasten, waardoor hersencellen gestrest of ontstoken raken, zich minder goed ontwikkelen, geringer in aantal zijn, en minder verbindingen met elkaar aangaan, die allemaal uitmonden in een verminderde hersenfunctie. De mogelijkheden om de daaruit voortvloeiende defecten later te repareren zijn beperkt.

Harvard School of Public Health: Imidacloprid veroorzaakt sterfte van bijenvolken

Imidacloprid, een van de meest gebruikte neonicotinoide pesticiden, veroorzaakt sterfte van bijenvolken. Onderzoekers van de Harvard School of Public Health zeggen dat hun nieuwe onderzoek "overtuigend bewijs" levert voor het verband tussen imidacloprid en Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). "Er is echt niet veel van dit bestrijdingsmiddel nodig voor een effect op bijen", zegt Alex Lu, universitair hoofddocent milieubiologie aan Harvard's Department of Environmental Health, "Minder dan wat er normaal aanwezig is in het milieu." Het Harvard team heeft de onderzoeksresultaten in het juni nummer van het Bulletin of Insectology gepubliceerd (bijlage). De gegevens van Lu et al. bewijzen dat de voor bijensterfte benodigde hoeveelheid imidacloprid lager wordt naarmate de blootstellingstijd toeneemt. Dit was in 2001 al aangetoond door de groep van Luc Belzunces in Frankrijk (bijlage).

Imidacloprid and Colony Collapse Disorder - Scientists Call for Global Ban on Bee-Killing Pesticides

Imidacloprid, one of the most widely used neonicotinoid pesticides, has been named as the likely culprit in the sharp worldwide decline in honey bee colonies since 2006. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health say their new research provides “convincing evidence” of the link between imidacloprid and colony collapse disorder. “It apparently doesn't take much of the pesticide to affect the bees,” says Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology at Harvard’s Department of Environmental Health, “Our experiment included pesticide amounts below what is normally present in the environment.” The Harvard team’s research results will appear in the June issue of the Bulletin of Insectology (article attached). Lu and his research team hypothesized that the rise in CCD resulted from the presence of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid introduced in the early 1990s. Bayer CropScience has reviewed the study. According to the company, the study is factually inaccurate and is seriously flawed, both in its methodology and conclusions. In stark contrast, Dutch toxicologist Henk Tennekes says that Alex Lu and co-workers have demonstrated that there is no safe imidacloprid dose for bees, and that this crucial discovery should lead to an immediate ban on the neonicotinoids. The alternative is an environmental catastrophe that is going to affect us all, the toxicologist says. "The data, both ours and others, right now merits a global ban," said Alex Lu."I would suggest removing all neonicotinoids from use globally for a period of five to six years. If the bee population is going back up during the after the ban, I think we will have the answer." The leader of one of the Science studies, Mickaël Henry, at INRA in Avignon, France, agreed with Lu that action is urgently needed on neonicotinoids. "We now have enough data to say authorisation processes must take into account not only the lethal effects, but also the effects of non-lethal doses." In other words, testing whether the pesticide use kills bees stone dead immediately is no longer good enough, given the hard evidence now available that sub-lethal doses cause serious harm. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation recently published a review of research into the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees, with recommendations for action (attached).

Bob Watson: Defra will review whether or not the current British position on neonicotinoids is correct or is incorrect

The coming together of a major problem and a leading problem-solver can be a significant moment, and we witnessed one such last week with the news that Professor Bob Watson is going to have a close personal look at the issue of neonicotinoids, the new nerve-agent pesticides, and their effect on bees and other pollinating insects. For Bob Watson is a towering figure, and that is the bigger significance: he is the world's leading expert on policy responses to global change, on what we should do about climate change, the loss of wildlife, the destruction of ecosystems and the need to feed a world of nine billion people – and in particular, on how we should respond as a society when all these difficulties come together, as they are now. On Monday, the Defra website carried its own story headlined: "Myth Busters", saying the Independent story was not true. It said: "The truth: Bob Watson did not order a review of the evidence......he asked to receive regular updates on new research into the possible effects on insects which are not the target species of pesticides." This is what Bob Watson told me on Friday: "The real Defra position is the following. We will absolutely look at the University of Stirling work, the French work, and the American work that came out a couple of months ago. We must look at this in real detail to see whether or not the current British position is correct or is incorrect." If that's not a review of the evidence, what is? The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation recently published a review of research into the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees, with recommendations for action (attached).

New evaluation of bee mortality in the field

Sudden losses of bees have been observed in spring during maize sowing. The death of bees has been correlated with the use of neonicotinoid-coated seed and the toxic particulates emitted by pneumatic drilling machines. The contamination of foragers in flight over the ploughed fields has been hypothesized. The airborne contamination has been proven, both with bees inside fixed cages around the field and in free flight near the driller. A new trial involving mobile cages has been established and consists of making rapid passes with single bees inside cages fixed to an aluminium bar. The bar was moved by two operators at different distances from the working drilling machine. A single pass was shown as sufficient to kill all the bees exposed to exhaust air on the emission side of the drill, when bees were subsequently held in high relative humidity. The extent of toxic cloud around driller was evaluated at the height of 0.5, 1.8 and 3.5 m and proved to be about 20 m in diameter, with an ellipsoidal shape. The shape may be influenced by working speed of the drill and environmental parameters, and is easily shown by adding talc powder to the seed in the machine hopper. A new driller equipment was evaluated consisting of two tubes inclined towards the soil that direct the exhaust air towards the ground. The survival rate of the bees was not substantially increased using the modified drill and was lower than 50%. Chemical analyses show up to 4000 ng of insecticide in single bees with an average content around 300 ng. Similar quantities were observed at increased distances from the modified or unmodified drillers. This new evaluation of bee mortality in the field is an innovative biological test to verify the hypothetical efficiency (or not) of driller modifications.

Net nu Bleker ons in slaap probeert te zoemen over pesticiden en bijensterfte, luidt in Amerika de noodklok

Het zit Henk Bleker ook niet mee. Vorige week dacht hij het verlossende woord te spreken in een verhit debat over de oorzaak van het grote uitsterven van bijenvolken. Wetenschappers, milieuactivisten, imkers en politici vliegen elkaar in de haren over de vraag of dat mysterie soms iets te maken heeft met het grootschalige gebruik van een nieuw type landbouwgif, de neonicotinoïden. Dat bijenvolkeren massaal het loodje leggen moet ook de staatssecretaris van Landbouw grote zorgen baren, want zonder de bijtjes geen bestuiving van voedselgewassen als wortel en bloemkool. Bleker gaf een team wetenschappers de opdracht de zaak tot de bodem uit te zoeken. Afgelopen woensdag bracht hij de Kamer de blijde boodschap. Zijn wetenschappelijke raadslieden hadden alle literatuur uitgeplozen en daarin geen bewijs gevonden voor een verband tussen de massale sterfte van bijenvolken en neonicotinoïden. Er was dus ook geen reden het gebruik ervan in te dammen. Bleker blij, de boeren blij. Maar de inkt van zijn brief was nog niet droog of het wetenschappelijke toptijdschrift Science publiceerde twee studies waaruit blijkt dat de gewraakte pesticiden bijenvolken wél ernstige schade toebrengen. De ene studie volgde met een chip honingbijen die een realistische dosis kregen van het door multinational Syngenta ontwikkelde gewasbeschermingsmiddel Cruiser. Ze bleken de weg naar de korf beduidend moeilijker te kunnen vinden en overleden daardoor vaker. De andere studie diende hommels de stof Imidacloprid toe die Bayer in zijn pesticiden gebruikt. Het aantal nieuwe koninginnen nam af met maar liefst vijfentachtig procent. Kwamen de Science-publicaties soms als een donderslag bij heldere hemel en konden Blekers adviseurs niet beter weten? Wie zijn eigenlijk de wijzen waarop de staatssecretaris zich verlaat?

Brian Moench: Autism and Disappearing Bees: A Common Denominator?

A few days ago the Salt Lake Tribune’s front page headline declared, "Highest rate in the nation, 1 in 32 Utah boys has autism." This is a national public health emergency, whose epicenter is Utah, Gov. Herbert. A more obscure story on the same day read: "New pesticides linked to bee population collapse." If you eat food, and hope to do so in the future, this is another national emergency, Pres. Obama. A common denominator may underlie both headlines.

An Open Letter to Tom Vilsac, USDA and Lisa Jackson, EPA by Anthony Samsel

Dear Tom Vilsac,
I am writing you as a scientist and as an agribusiness-man who has used both aldicarb and neonicotinoid systemic insecticides commercially and who has suffered losses of honey bees foraging on treated crops. I have had personal experience using systemic insecticides on a commercial scale having been the owner of several agricultural businesses in the Northeast USA.

In the 1990's on two separate occasions I witnessed complete colony collapse of my bees. The first incident losing over a half a million bees that foraged on two acres of potted perennials which were treated with Imidacloprid. The second time I lost several hives to a neighbors 'Grubex' 1 control treated clover lawn. After seeing the total collapse of the hives we stopped using Imidacloprid and all other systemic pesticides. I no longer use any pesticides, or biocides and now practice sustainable organic methods of agriculture.