Pinning a tale on the bees

wulkowicz

wulkowicz

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Just a note for those interested...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/scienc...tml?ref=science

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For those a bit more interested...

Authorized uses

Imidacloprid is the most widely used insecticide in the world. Its major uses Include:

Agricultural - Defending from locusts, aphids, stink bugs, and a whole host of other insects that eat our crops.

Home Protection - As a primary ingredient in termite and carpenter ant control. As well as cockroach, and moisture loving insects.

Animals - Used to kill fleas Administered to the animals neck.

Turf - The primary product used to control Japanese Beetle Larvae.

Gardens - Works in very low quantities for aphids and other pests.

Arboriculture - The Primary material being used to protect Hemlocks, Maple, Oak, Birch, and especially Ash from deadly tree attacking insects such as the Emerald Ash Borer

When used on plants, imidacloprid, which is systemic is slowly taken up by plant roots via the xylem tissue, and slowly translocated up the Plant.

Application to Trees

When used on trees, it can take 30 – 60 days to reach the top, (depending on the size and height) and enter the leaves in high enough quantities to be effective. Imidacloprid can be found in the trunk, the branches, the twigs, the leaves, the leaflets, and the seeds. Many trees are wind pollinated. But others such as fruit trees, Linden, Catalpa, and Black Locust trees are bee and wind pollinated and imidacloprid would likely be found in the flowers in small quantities. Higher doses must be used to control boring insects than other types.[5]

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Bees and other insects

Main article: Imidacloprid effects on bees

Imidacloprid is one of the most highly toxic insecticides to honey bees with a contact acute LD50 = 0.078 ug a.i./bee and an acute oral LD50 = 0.0039 ug a.i./bee.[26] In 2006, U.S. commercial migratory beekeepers reported sharp declines in their honey bee colonies. Unlike previous losses, adult bees were abandoning their hives. Scientists named this phenomenon colony collapse disorder (CCD).

Reports show that beekeepers in most states have been affected by CCD.[27] Although no single factor has been identified as causing CCD, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in their progress report on CCD stated that CCD may be "a syndrome caused by many different factors, working in combination or synergistically." [28]

Recently, USDA researcher Jeff Pettis published the results of his study, which showed that bees treated with sub-lethal or low levels of imidacloprid had higher rates of infection with the pathogen Nosema than untreated bees.[29] His research was confirmed by Alaux (2010) and Vidau (2011) who found that interactions between Nosema and neonicotinoids weakened bees and led to increased mortality.[30][31]

Researchers Kreutzweiser and Thompson (2009) from the Canadian Forest Service showed that imidacloprid at realistic field concentrations inhibits non-target terrestrial invertebrates that decompose leaf litter. In their study, there was no significant indication that invertebrates detected or avoided imidacloprid-treated leaves.[32]

David Goulson (2012) from the University of Sterling was able to show that trivial effects due to imidacloprid in lab and greenhouse experiments can translate into large effects in the field. The research found that bees consuming the pesticide suffered an 85% loss in the number of queens their nests produced, and a doubling of the number of bees who failed to return from food foraging trips.[33]


Excerpted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid


Bob Wulkowicz
 
I had bees as a kid and have talked to many local keepers about getting back involved. They all see it as a losing battle with there bees. I would like to pass this hobby on to my children, but at what cost? It sickens me that we are all eating GMOs everyday unless we make conscious effort to avoid them. Thanks for the link.
 
Am I supplying lyric and chorus?


What a scientist didn't tell the NY Times on honeybee deaths - Oct. 8, 2010

Jerry Bromenshenk, bee investigator
By Katherine Eban, contributor October 8, 2010: 1:42 PM ET


FORTUNE -- Few ecological disasters have been as confounding as the massive and devastating die-off of the world's honeybees. The phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- in which disoriented honeybees die far from their hives -- has kept scientists, beekeepers, and regulators desperately seeking the cause. After all, the honeybee, nature's ultimate utility player, pollinates a third of all the food we eat and contributes an estimated $15 billion in annual agriculture revenue to the U.S. economy.

The long list of possible suspects has included pests, viruses, fungi, and also pesticides, particularly so-called neonicotinoids, a class of neurotoxins that kills insects by attacking their nervous systems. For years, their leading manufacturer, Bayer Crop Science, a subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG (BAYRY), has tangled with regulators and fended off lawsuits from angry beekeepers who allege that the pesticides have disoriented and ultimately killed their bees. The company has countered that, when used correctly, the pesticides pose little risk.

A cheer must have gone up at Bayer on Thursday when a front-page New York Times article, under the headline "Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery," described how a newly released study pinpoints a different cause for the die-off: "a fungus tag-teaming with a virus." The study, written in collaboration with Army scientists at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center outside Baltimore, analyzed the proteins of afflicted bees using a new Army software system. The Bayer pesticides, however, go unmentioned.

What the Times article did not explore -- nor did the study disclose -- was the relationship between the study's lead author, Montana bee researcher Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, and Bayer Crop Science. In recent years Bromenshenk has received a significant research grant from Bayer to study bee pollination. Indeed, before receiving the Bayer funding, Bromenshenk was lined up on the opposite side: He had signed on to serve as an expert witness for beekeepers who brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer in 2003. He then dropped out and received the grant.

Reporter: scientist "did not volunteer" funding sources

Bromenshenk's company, Bee Alert Technology, which is developing hand-held acoustic scanners that use sound to detect various bee ailments, will profit more from a finding that disease, and not pesticides, is harming bees. Two years ago Bromenshenk acknowledged as much to me when I was reporting on the possible neonicotinoid/CCD connection for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, which folded before I completed my reporting.

Bromenshenk defends the study and emphasized that it did not examine the impact of pesticides. "It wasn't on the table because others are funded to do that," he says, noting that no Bayer funds were used on the new study. Bromenshenk vociferously denies that receiving funding from Bayer (to study bee pollination of onions) had anything to do with his decision to withdraw from the plaintiff's side in the litigation against Bayer. "We got no money from Bayer," he says. "We did no work for Bayer; Bayer was sending us warning letters by lawyers."

A Bayer publicist reached last night said she was not authorized to comment on the topic but was trying to reach an official company spokesperson.

The Times reporter who authored the recent article, Kirk Johnson, responded in an e-mail that Dr. Bromenshenk "did not volunteer his funding sources." Johnson's e-mail notes that he found the peer-reviewed scientific paper cautious and that he "tried to convey that caution in my story." Adds Johnson: The study "doesn't say pesticides aren't a cause of the underlying vulnerability that the virus-fungus combo then exploits...."

At least one scientist questions the new study. Dr. James Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State University, who is currently researching the sublethal impact of pesticides on bees, said that while Bromenshenk's study generated some useful data, Bromenshenk has a conflict of interest as CEO of a company developing scanners to diagnose bee diseases. "He could benefit financially from that if this thing gets popularized," Frazier says, "so it's a difficult situation to deal with." He adds that his own research has shown that pesticides affect bees "absolutely, in multiple ways."

Underlying cause of bee deaths still unclear

Dr. Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist with the health group at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that while the Bromenshenk/Army study is interesting, it fails to ask the underlying question "Why are colonies dying? Is it because they're getting weak? People who have HIV don't die of HIV. They die of other diseases they get because their immune systems are knocked off, making them more susceptible." In other words, pesticides could weaken the bees -- and then the virus/fungus combination finishes them off. That notion, however, is not explored in the new study.

In 2008 the NRDC sued the Environmental Protection Agency after it failed to release Bayer's underlying studies on the safety of its neonicotinoids. The federal agency has since changed course, and NRDC researchers are being allowed to sift through the Bayer studies, an NRDC spokesman says.

The EPA has based its approval of neonicotinoids on the fact that the amounts found in pollen and nectar were low enough to not be lethal to the bees -- the only metric they have to measure whether to approve a pesticide or not. But studies have shown that at low doses, the neonicotinoids have sublethal effects that impair bees' learning and memory. The USDA's chief researcher, Jeff Pettis, told me in 2008 that pesticides were definitely "on the list" as a primary stressor that could make bees more vulnerable to other factors, like pests and bacteria.

In 1999, France banned Imidacloprid after the death of a third of its honeybees. A subsequent report prepared for the French agricultural ministry found that even tiny sublethal amounts could disorient bees, diminish their foraging activities, and thus endanger the entire colony. Other countries, including Italy, have banned certain neonicotinoids.

Bayer v. beekeepers

As for the Bayer-Bromenshenk connection, in 2003 a group of 13 North Dakota beekeepers brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer, alleging that the company's neonicotinoid, Imidacloprid, which had been used in nearby fields, was responsible for the loss of more than 60% of their hives. "My bees were getting drunk," Chris Charles, a beekeeper in Carrington, N.D., and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, told me in 2008. "They couldn't walk a white line anymore -- they just hung around outside the hive. They couldn't work."

Charles and the other North Dakota beekeepers hired Bromenshenk as an expert witness. Bayer did not dispute that Imidacloprid was found among the bees and their hives. The company simply argued that the amount had not been enough to kill them.

As the North Dakota lawsuit moved forward, an expert witness for the beekeepers, Dr. Daniel Mayer, a now retired bee expert from Washington State University, traveled to 17 different bee yards in North Dakota and observed dead bees and bees in the throes of what looked like Imidacloprid poisoning, he told me in 2008. He theorized that after foraging in planted fields where the seeds had been treated with Imidacloprid, the bees then brought the pesticide back to the hive, where it built up in the wax combs.

The beekeepers tried to enlist more expert witnesses, but others declined, according to two of the beekeeper plaintiffs, in large part because they had taken research money from Bayer and did not want to testify against the company. One who agreed -- Bromenshenk -- subsequently backed out and got a research grant from Bayer. Bromenshenk insists the two actions were unrelated. "It was a personal decision," he says. "I, in good conscience, couldn't charge beekeepers for services when I couldn't help them." He adds, "Eventually, the lawyers stopped calling. I didn't quit. They just stopped calling."

In June 2008 a district court judge in Pennsylvania defanged the beekeepers' lawsuit by siding with Bayer to exclude Mayer's testimony and the initial test results from a laboratory in Jacksonville, Fla., that had found significant amounts of Imidacloprid in the honeybee samples.

That same year Bromenshenk brokered a meeting between Bayer and beekeepers. When I interviewed Bromenshenk that year, he said that increasing frustration with the accusations against Bayer, which he described as a "runaway train," led him to contact the company in an effort to create a dialogue between Bayer and the beekeepers. Because of his efforts, in November 2008, Bayer scientists sat down in Lake Tahoe, Nev., with a small group of American beekeepers to establish a dialogue. The issues discussed were "trust and transparency," Bromenshenk told me. "How did Bayer do its testing, and do we trust the results?" Generally beekeepers and scientists have been highly critical of the design of Bayer's studies and deeply suspicious over who is or isn't on Bayer's payroll.

After the meeting, Bayer tentatively agreed to appoint a beekeeper advisory board to help redesign studies so that beekeepers could trust the results. But many beekeepers see the advisory board and grant money as a ruse on Bayer's part to silence its enemies by holding them close. "They have the bee industry so un-united," says Jim Doan, once New York State's busiest beekeeper until CCD decimated his business. "Even the researchers are off working on anything but the pesticide issue."

Bromenshenk's study acknowledges that the research does not "clearly define" whether the concurrent virus and fungus, which were found in all the afflicted bee samples, is "a marker, a cause, or a consequence of CCD." It also notes uncertainty as to how, exactly, the combination kills the bees, and whether other factors like weather and bee digestion play a role.

Scientists like Sass at NRDC believe the mystery is far from resolved: "We're even concerned that based on this, beekeepers will use more pesticides trying to treat these viruses," says Sass.

---------------------Taken from Fortune


Bob Wulkowicz
 
Thank you, Daniel.

An udder mutter:

Don't we have a few hundred papers on what stress does to trees? (For those who want to chant that I'm milking it...)

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Bees Harmed By Neonicotinoid Pesticides, Studies Show

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, March 29 (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered ways in which even low doses of widely used pesticides can harm bumblebees and honeybees, interfering with their homing abilities and making them lose their way.

In two studies published in the journal Science on Thursday, British and French researchers looked at bees and neonicotinoid insecticides - a class introduced in the 1990s now among the most commonly used crop pesticides in the world.

In recent years, bee populations have been dropping rapidly, partly due to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists also fear pesticides are destroying bee populations, but it is not clear how they are causing damage.

Dave Goulson of Stirling University in Scotland, who led the British study, said some bumblebee species have declined hugely.

"In North America, several bumblebee species which used to be common have more or less disappeared from the entire continent," while in Britain, three species have become extinct, he said in a statement.

The threat to bee populations also extends to Asia, South America and the Middle East, experts say.

Bees are important pollinators of flowering plants, including many fruit and vegetable crops. A 2011 United Nations report estimated that bees and other pollinators such as butterflies, beetles or birds do work worth 153 billion euros ($203 bln) a year to the human economy.

In the first of the Science studies, a University of Stirling team exposed developing colonies of bumblebees to low levels of a neonicotinoid called imidacloprid, and then placed the colonies in an enclosed field site where the bees could fly around collecting pollen under natural conditions for six weeks.

At the beginning and end of the experiment, the researchers weighed each of the bumblebee nests - which included the bees, wax, honey, bee grubs and pollen - to see how much the colony had grown.

Compared to control colonies not exposed to imidacloprid, the researchers found the treated colonies gained less weight, suggesting less food was coming in.

The treated colonies were on average eight to 12 percent smaller than the control colonies at the end of the experiment, and also produced about 85 percent fewer queens - a finding that is key because queens produce the next generation of bees.

In the separate study, a team led by Mickael Henry of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in Avignon tagged free-ranging honeybees with tiny radio-frequency identification microchips glued to each bee's back. This allowed them to track the bees as they came and went from hives.

The researchers gave some of the bees a low dose of the neonicotinoid pesticide thiamethoxam which they knew would not kill them and compared them to a control group of bees that was not exposed to the pesticide.

The treated bees were about two to three times more likely to die while away from their nests, and the researchers said this was probably because the pesticide interfered with the bees' homing systems, so they couldn't find their way home.

Henry said the findings raised important issues about pesticide authorisation procedures.

"So far, they (the procedures) mostly require manufacturers to ensure that doses encountered on the field do not kill bees, but they basically ignore the consequences of doses that do not kill them but may cause behavioral difficulties," he said in a statement. ($1 = 0.7525 euros)

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Karolina Tagaris)
 
Shameless plug:

For the fathers and mothers, with daughters and sons, who read this thread, may I recommend the trailer below?

[http://www.queenofthesun.com/store/watch-instant/


Turn on the TV, gather the kids around, give them a honeycomb to break open and chew on; then watch nature take its course. They'll love you for the brain stretching (and the sugar high).


Buy a honeycomb or two on Amazon.


Bob Wulkowicz


Those without kids, can find a main squeeze...
santa.gif
 
Thanks bob and frax and jomoco for shining the light on this. I've raised the collateral damage issue with users (and I am one), but most responses ranged from dismissal to denial. This helps. i'll be treating (wind-pollinated?) maples with Merit today for gloomy scale, with a little more guilt, and a lot more circumspection.
 
I too have been aware of the connection between honey bee decline and imidicloprid. I continue to use it though (with some admitted guilt). Luckily, in my area, we haven't had to deal with EAB, yet. We do use it to treat other borers (among other things). Has anyone used Safari? How effective is it comparatively speaking? I've heard it is quite expensive as well. How does it affect honey bees, does anyone know?

On a side note, I've taken to using and promoting the use of orchard mason bees for pollination of fruit trees. They seem to be a good alternative to honey bees (for some things) in my area.
 
I just saw the film, "The Vanishing of the Bees", which addresses just how dire the domestic beekeeping crisis has become. One figure that gets tossed around is 30% hive mortality per year; however, this number is very low, according to Tom Theobald, a local beekeeper and a national leader on the issue. Beekeepers are now constantly dividing their colonies, in the attempt to replace dead ones. He says the figure would be more like 80%, absent this dividing. I went up to him, after the presentation of the film, and he said, "Time is up". I thought he meant that it was time to close up the Grange building and go home, but he meant that we are at a crossroads right now.

The hope of bee advocates (and who can claim not to be
one?), was that urban beekeepers might be able to keep colonies far enough away from treated agricultural crops to keep them healthy, and help balance the loss of pollinators to an extent. But the urban ones are dying too, and it is very likely related to imidacloprid use, much of it by our industry. One of my wife's colonies disappeared last year; I can't rule out the Merit treatment we did on our Linden, years ago. Haven't seen an aphid in the tree in years, but this fact doesn't stop the company that injected it from sending an annual proposal to inject it again.

We need, as a nation, to apply the precautionary principle to high-stakes crises such as this. But,internally, can we start to grapple with the "merit" of continuing on as we are? As an industry, shouldn't we at the very least let up on the over-selling of Imidacloprid: stop prophylactic use, and decrease the frequency of application down to reflect the residual effect of the chemical?
 
[ QUOTE ]
I just saw the film, "The Vanishing of the Bees", which addresses just how dire the domestic beekeeping crisis has become. One figure that gets tossed around is 30% hive mortality per year; however, this number is very low, according to Tom Theobald, a local beekeeper and a national leader on the issue. Beekeepers are now constantly dividing their colonies, in the attempt to replace dead ones. He says the figure would be more like 80%, absent this dividing. I went up to him, after the presentation of the film, and he said, "Time is up". I thought he meant that it was time to close up the Grange building and go home, but he meant that we are at a crossroads right now.

[/ QUOTE ]

<font color="blue">I'm sorry to say I think we're well past the crossroads; that we're probably past the tipping point based on our ought-to-be awareness of exponential growth, which often gets there before we even know it. Additionally, if did we figure the problems out, there's no time left to fix anything.

We also need to guard against the mono-cause delusion that there's a one-to-one correspondence between a problem and its source. I agree that the pesticides are oversold greedy products that likely are destroying bees--by deaths and by wanderings away. But consider the industrialization of honey harvesting and pollination:

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/pollinating.htm and

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/dining...=all&amp;src=pm and

http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/1866-bee-truck-crash.html .

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Heat Forms Potentially Harmful Substance In High-fructose Corn Syrup, Bee Study Finds ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2009) —

Researchers have established the conditions that foster formation of potentially dangerous levels of a toxic substance in the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that is often fed to honey bees. Their study, which appears in the current issue of ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, may also have implications for soft drinks and dozens of other human foods that contain HFCS. The substance, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), forms mainly from heating fructose.

In the new study, Blaise LeBlanc and Gillian Eggleston and colleagues note HFCS's ubiquitous usage as a sweetener in beverages and processed foods. Some commercial beekeepers also feed it to bees to increase reproduction and honey production. When exposed to warm temperatures, HFCS can form HMF and kill honeybees. Some researchers believe that HMF may be a factor in Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that has killed at least one-third of the honeybee population in the United States.

The scientists measured levels of HMF in HFCS products from different manufacturers over a period of 35 days at different temperatures. As temperatures rose, levels of HMF increased steadily. Levels jumped dramatically at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

The data are important for commercial beekeepers, for manufacturers of HFCS, and for purposes of food storage. Because HFCS is incorporated as a sweetener in many processed foods, the data from this study are important for human health as well," the report states. It adds that studies have linked HMF to DNA damage in humans. In addition, HMF breaks down in the body to other substances potentially more harmful than HMF.


Journal Reference:

LeBlanc et al. Formation of Hydroxymethylfurfural in Domestic High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera). Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2009; 57 (16): 7369 DOI: 10.1021/jf9014526

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Could there be a more pernicious abuse of a natural well-established stability in nature? (Bees evolved from 146 t0 74 million years ago.)

120 degrees for a possibly deadly conversion of the sucrose chemistries? That's two hot afternoon's in a row in Texas now.

Like everything else, we have plans to tinker with all of nature if we can make a buck. </font>


The hope of bee advocates (and who can claim not to be one?), was that urban beekeepers might be able to keep colonies far enough away from treated agricultural crops to keep them healthy, and help balance the loss of pollinators to an extent. But the urban ones are dying too, and it is very likely related to imidacloprid use, much of it by our industry. One of my wife's colonies disappeared last year; I can't rule out the Merit treatment we did on our Linden, years ago. Haven't seen an aphid in the tree in years, but this fact doesn't stop the company that injected it from sending an annual proposal to inject it again.

We need, as a nation, to apply the precautionary principle to high-stakes crises such as this. But, internally, can we start to grapple with the "merit" of continuing on as we are? As an industry, shouldn't we at the very least let up on the over-selling of Imidacloprid: stop prophylactic use, and decrease the frequency of application down to reflect the residual effect of the chemical?

--Fred

<font color="blue">I came across this little excerpt and though I should share it and why---

Materials such as lycopodium spores, wheat flour, cornstarch, egg albumen, and powdered milk have been used to dilute the pollen in order to reduce the cost of hand-pollination. Lycopodium spores generally have proved to be the most satisfactory carrier, although tests have shown definite promise for powdered milk and egg albumen, which cost less than lycopodium. (...Tinker to make a buck. Maybe we can sneak in a container ship of melamine?)

Do you all remember the melamine poisoning from China a few years back? Seems they added melamine powder to foods to increase the test scores for protein quality. It added no proteins; it just fooled the tests--cheaply.

The US first found the consequences in pets dying here and we took a while to figure it out. That melamine was confiscated there and sent to be destroyed, but a funny thing occurred on the way to the capitalist storage forum.

They returned to using melamines again to fool the protein tests, but this time the products weren't pet foods; they were Chinese infant formulas.

They killed a few kids; they executed a few officials; they pretended it made a difference.

That's why I started the thread on capitalists as psychopaths (written in the original NYT story, not as editorialized by me.)

Let me give a new Dirksen's homily; A few hundred species here, a few hundred species there, soon we're talking about real extinction. </font>


© Bob Wulkowicz 2012
 
Thanks for the links; the beekeeper mentioned in the Times article is the same one who raised the alarm about colony collapse, 3 years after the article was written.

Interesting about high fructose corn syrup and heat. There are other problems with it, including the fact that corn itself is, mostly, planted with neonicotinoids; and honey is a complex food that undoubtedly helps bees stay healthy. Beekeepers observe depressed activity in hfcs-fed bees.

Industrial beekeeping is, in part, a response to flooding of our domestic honey market with very cheap, watered-down, mostly Chinese "honey". Local honey producers lost market share, and some chose to pursue the additional revenue stream afforded by selling pollination services.

And you're right, there is no clear single cause. One could argue that the primary cause is mono-cultural agriculture, which is largely what leads to insect populations exploding in the first place. But the common denominator seems to be neonicotinoid proximity. We know this because of observations by beekeepers (for whatever reason: immune system depression, disorientation, decreased energy --whatever). They may not be using proper controls, but they can, for instance, look into a hive and predict with amazing accuracy how long that hive has until its workers all fly off and don't return. Their input, in the absence of some (not all) definitive studies, should be listened to carefully.
 
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