Colony collapse disorder is a serious threat to the health of honey bees. And any serious threat to honey bees is a threat to me. And to you, for that matter.
There is very significant evidence that neonicotinoid pesticides are directly implicated in colony collapse disorder, and you should know that the United States Environmental Protection Agency is currently reviewing an official petition from a Swiss chemical company, Syngenta, asking for approval to allow their neonicotinoid chemical, thiamethoxam, to be used in new ways that would vastly increase residues of this chemical on a wide variety of food crops. An excerpt from the official Federal Register notice is below.
Most people, reading the official "notice," wouldn't immediately understand what is at stake (and that includes yours truly). However, the League of Conservation Voters put out an alert about this notice, to try to get the public involved. What the notice below means is that Syngenta wants to sell its stocks of thiamethoxam, currently banned in Europe, right here in our country. If this petition is approved, there are likely to be massive bee colony die offs in every region where the pesticide is used.
LCV is giving you an opportunity to take action, and to urge the EPA to deny the Syngenta petition. I encourage you to do that, by clicking the link.
I also encourage you to think about whether we should continue to allow synthetic chemicals of any kind to be introduced into the World of Nature, the world that sustains all life. For the most part, we don't actually know what the synthetic chemicals introduced into our environment are doing, but in the case of one of them, thiamethoxam, it's pretty clear to me that the chemical attacks honey bees.
My position on this is very clear: any attack on honey bees is an attack on me.
And on you, too, for that matter!
Here's that Federal Register Notice
Vol. 79, No. 172 / Friday, September 5, 2014:
Amended Tolerances 1. PP 3F8205. (EPA–HQ–OPP–2013– 0758). Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC., P.O. Box 18300, Greensboro, NC 27419, requests to amend the tolerances in 40 CFR 180.565 for residues of the insecticide, thiamethoxam (3-[(2-chloro- 5-thiazolyl)methyl]tetrahydro-5-methylN-nitro-4H-1,3,5-oxadiazin-4-imine) and its metabolite[N-(2-chloro-thiazol-5- ylmethyl)-N′-methyl-N′-nitro-guanidine, by increasing the existing tolerances in or on alfalfa, forage from 0.05 to 10 parts per million (ppm); alfalfa, hay from 0.12 to 8 ppm; barley, hay from 0.40 to 1.5 ppm; barley, straw from 0.40 to 3 ppm; barley, grain from 0.4 to 0.9 ppm; corn, field, forage from 0.10 to 4 ppm; corn, field, stover from 0.05 to 4 ppm; corn, sweet forage from 0.10 to 5 ppm; corn, sweet, kernel plus cob with husks removed from 0.02 to 0.03 ppm; corn, sweet, stover from 0.05 to 4 ppm; wheat, forage from 0.50 to 3 ppm; wheat, hay from 0.02 to 8 ppm; wheat, straw from 0.02 to 6 ppm. Concurrently, Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC., requests to amend the tolerances in 40 CFR 180.565 by removing tolerances for residues of the insecticide, thiamethoxam (3-[(2- chloro-5-thiazolyl)methyl]tetrahydro-5- methyl-N-nitro-4H-1,3,5-oxadiazin-4- imine) in or on grain, cereal, group 15, except barley at 0.02 ppm; sunflower at 0.02 ppm; and vegetable, legume, group 6 at 0.02 ppm, upon approval of the tolerances listed under ‘‘New Tolerances’’ for PP 3F8205. Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC., has submitted practical analytical methodology for detecting and measuring levels of thiamethoxam in or on raw agricultural commodities. This method is based on crop specific cleanup procedures and determination by liquid chromatography with either ultra-violet (UV) or mass spectrometry (MS) detections. The limit of detection (LOC) for each analyte of this method is 1.25 nanogram (ng) injected for samples analyzed by UV and 0.25 ng injected for samples analyzed by MS, and the limit quantification (LOQ) is 0.005 ppm for milk and juices, and 0.01 ppm for all other substrates. (RD) 2. PP 4E8236. (EPA–HQ–OPP–201
http://aprillancebees.com/beekeeping-information/
No, colony collapse disorder is not a "serious threat" to the honey bee population [1]. No, the Lu et al. paper is BAD SCIENCE and does nothing close to showing that neonicotinoid pesticides uniquely cause colony collapse disorder [2]. Such an oversimplification is ridiculous because CCD occurs in some countries where neonics aren't even used, and is absent in some countries where neonics are widely used [3]. There is no single cause of CCD [4].
ReplyDelete1. http://www.science20.com/jon_entine/part_i_bee_deaths_mystery_solved_neonicotinoids_neonics_may_actually_help_bee_health-149615
2. http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-harvard-study-on-neonicotinoids-and-ccd/
3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2013/04/11/science-collapse-disorder-the-real-story-behind-neonics-and-mass-bee-deaths/
4. http://www.biofortified.org/2014/06/are-neonicotinoids-the-sole-factor-responsible-for-colony-collapse-disorder/