Bee Deaths Prompt Calls for U.S. to Ban Some Pesticides

[Purveyor]

By Alan Bjerga May 14, 2014 12:00 AM ET

Two years ago, Steve McDaniel’s bees started dropping like flies.

“This has all the marks of a pesticide kill,” he said, describing the piles of dead bees that appeared outside his hives. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

McDaniel, a master beekeeper in Manchester, Maryland, has been safeguarding his honeybee colonies from mites, viruses and other maladies for 35 years. Now he and other beekeepers blame a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids that have gained widespread use in the past decade and have been linked to a mysterious die-off of bees called Colony Collapse Disorder.

They want the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to follow the lead of the European Union in December and ban its use.

Chemical makers Bayer AG (BAYN), Syngenta AG (SYNN) and Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) say neonicotinoids aren’t to blame for the bee deaths and have stepped up their own lobbying to counter calls for a ban as well as legislation now in Congress. Eliminating the products will do little for bees and force farmers and gardeners to go back to products that are more harmful, they say.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-14/bee-deaths-prompt-calls-for-u-s-to-ban-some-pesticides.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. Yes

Follow the lead of the EU.

[pnwmom]

2. And if they ban those pesticides, they won't need Monsanto's GMO crops that resist them.

Poor Monsanto.

[JackRiddler]

3. Good story, thanks, but where's the editor?!

"Two years ago, Steve McDaniel’s bees started dropping like flies."

Really? That's your metaphor for it? Bees dropping like... flies? I'd think they drop like bees!

[longship]

4. Latest study has some real problems.

Read about it here: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/study-claims-colony-collapse-disorder-caused-insecticides

That's not saying the study is wrong, but it is likely not the whole story.

Also, neonicotinoid pesticides are in common use in Australia which has no colony collapse disorder. Also, there are areas of the world which do not use neonicotinoids which do have colony collapse disorder. This lowers the plausibility of neonicotinoids causing CCD to fairly low.

Also, since Australia is geographically isolated, one is led to the hypothesis that CCD is some infection or parasite which has not yet crossed the Wallace Line to Australia, especially since neonicotinoids have certainly crossed that line.

Also, it is a very small, poorly designed study with few controls. Plus, it is not a model of how bees would interact with the pesticides in nature. And the author apparently has some ideological conflicts revealed by his publishing record.

These are the reasons why the recent paper is being hammered.

Science will sort this out eventually. But apparently this study is not bringing us closer to understanding what's happening with the honey bees. The most important thing to realize is that one paper is not necessarily definitive. One has to look at the entire body of research in order to make scientific determinations such as are suggested here. One paper is only definitive when it is built upon by peers. This one does not look promising, and is likely to be discounted.