Honey Bee

Europe Bans Bee-Harming Pesticides; US Keeps Spraying

—By Tom Philpott

| Fri May. 3, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

Darios/Shutterstock

On Monday, the European Commission voted to place a two-year moratorium on most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides, which are a widely used class of chemicals suspected of contributing to a severe global decline in honeybee health.
In the wake of Europe's decisive action, the US Environmental Protection Agency dithered. Well, it did release a joint report with the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday, generated from a "National Honey Bee Health Stakeholder Conference" the two agencies held last fall. The report fingered no single culprit behind colony collapse disorder, the name for the steep annual bee die-offs that have been stumping beekeepers since 2006. Instead, it pointed to a "complex set of stressors and pathogens," including poor nutrition (mainly from loss of flowering weeds due to increased herbicide use), viruses, gut parasites, and, yes, pesticides. But it includes a summary of a presentation by USDA scientist Jeff Pettis noting that "several studies" have shown that low-level exposure to neonics make bees more vulnerable to the common gut parasite Nosema. (Pettis himself is the coauthor of one of those studies.)
Yet, as Natural Resources Defense Council senior scientist Jennifer Sass put it in a Thursday blog post, the joint EPA/USDA report limits itself to "recommendations about best management practices and technical advancements for applying pesticides to reduce dust," while avoiding "recommendations that would reduce the overall sales and profits for chemical makers."
Nor does the report express much urgency; it promises an "action plan [that] will outline major priorities to be addressed in the next 5-10 years."

In the United States, neonic-treated crops cover a land mass equivalent to as much as twice the size of California.

Meanwhile, the European Commission's decisive action came amid what the Guardian called a "fierce behind-the-scenes campaign" to stop it from Syngenta and Bayer, the Europe-based chemical giants that market them. The move was prompted by a January report by the European Food Safety Authority, which identified "high acute risks" for bees from exposure to neonic-treated crops like corn and sunflower. And studies from independent researchers implicating neonics in declining bee health have mounted.
Even before the decision, France, Italy, Slovenia, and Bayer's home country, Germany, had all suspend use of the chemicals pending more research on bee health. Now neonics will face severe restriction in all 27 European Union countries for two-year period starting December 1, 2013, during which time the commission will continue its assessment of their impact.
The move trains a harsh light on the EPA, which approved the chemicals based on what its own scientists have called flawed research and is currently reviewing them in light of the threat to bees and other pollinators. Earlier this month, an agency spokesperson told CBS News that the review would take five years—meaning that they'll continue to be used widely on farmland in the US during that period. As I reported a while back, neonic-treated crops cover between 150 million to 200 million acres of farmland in the US each year—a land mass equivalent to as much as twice the size of California.
I contacted the EPA to ask whether the EC decision might speed the agency's timeline on reassessing neonics and their threat to bees. The response, in an emailed statement: "At this time, the data available to the EPA do not support a moratorium." The time frame for completing the reassessment remains in place, the statement added, with this caveat: "If at any time the EPA determines there are urgent human and/or environmental risks from pesticide exposures that require prompt attention, the agency will take appropriate regulatory action, regardless of the registration review status of that pesticide."

US approves new pesticides linked to mass bee deaths as EU enacts ban

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Published time: May 11, 2013 02:04
Edited time: May 12, 2013 15:36

Reuters / Heinz-Peter Bader

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Animals, Ecology, Health, Biology, Corruption, USA, Science, Food

In the wake of a massive US Department of Agriculture report highlighting the continuing large-scale death of honeybees, environmental groups are left wondering why the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to approve a "highly toxic" new pesticide.
The continuing mass death of honeybees, known scientifically as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and a “pollinator crisis,” could well strain production of over 100 crops in the US including apples, zucchinis, avocados and plums. The agriculture value of these products is estimated at over $200 billion globally per year.
As RT recently reported, a new USDA report has taken a broad look at the decline of bee colonies in the country, highlighting a dire situation as the number of colonies has plummeted from 3 million in 1990 to 2.5 million this year. Demonstrating that the decline is a long-term issue, that same report points to the existence of 6 million honey bee colonies in 1947.
Though dire, the report does not offer any immediate solutions, as scientists continue to examine the potential causes for the mass colony collapses, during which adult bees abandon their hives, along with the queen, brood and food supplies.
The USDA cites “multiple factors… including parasites and disease, genetics, poor nutrition and pesticide exposure,” while also citing last summer’s drought as a contributing factor.
Many environmental groups seem convinced that pesticides are a main factor in the continuing colony collapse situation. One group, Beyond Pesticides, has called the EPA’s recent green light for use of a new insecticide known as sulfoxaflor irresponsible in light of its “highly toxic” classification for honey bees.
In late April, the European Union voted to enact a two-year moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides (sulfoxaflor is considered by many to be a "fourth-generation neonicotinoid") in light of scientific studies that indicate their harm to bees.
As in the US, a number of European countries have also been monitoring declining health and colony collapses in their bee populations, including France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Groups such as the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) have praised the continent-wide ban.

Reuters / Heinz-Peter Bader

“The EU vote comes after significant findings by the European Food Safety Agency that these pesticides pose an unacceptable risk to bees and their use should be restricted. Along with habitat loss and pathogens, a growing body of science points to neonicotinoid pesticides as a key factor in drastically declining bee populations,” said a statement by PAN.
Meanwhile, major pesticide manufacturers scoff at the two-year European ban.
“As a science-based company, Bayer CropScience is disappointed that clear scientific evidence has taken a backseat in the decisionmaking process. This disproportionate decision is a missed opportunity to reach a solution that takes into consideration all of the existing product-stewardship measures and broad stakeholder concerns.”
Unlike the straight-cut decision taken by the EU, the same USDA report highlighting plummeting bee colony numbers in the US seems to undermine the possibility of even a temporary ban on potentially harmful pesticides.
According to one veteran environmental reporter, Bryan Walsh of Time Magazine, the USDA report in introducing several “potential” factors in CCD skirts the issue of pesticides altogether.
“The USDA report mostly withholds judgment on neonicotinoids, citing the need for more research, and the Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a very slow review of the evidence,” says Walsh.
The review cited by the agency is slated to take an additional five years. Meanwhile, the domesticated bee population in the US has reached a 50-year low.
According to Walsh, in a normal year the commercial bee industry would expect to lose 10 to 15 per cent of its colonies, but over the past five years mortality rates have increased dramatically, ranging from 28 to 33 per cent.
Unlike in the EU, where at least in terms of policy lawmakers were not willing to take a chance on pesticides, the USDA’s report points to various possible causes for the massive colony collapse, including: A parasitic mite called Varroa destructor; a bacterial disease called European foulbrood; and the use of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, a neuroactive chemical.
Yet, almost paradoxically, the USDA seems to lend further study a time frame which seems glacial compared to its own dire estimates of mass bee die offs.
“Currently, the survivorship of honeybee colonies is too low for us to be confident in our ability to meet the pollination demands of US agricultural crops,” the USDA report said.

EU governments failed to agree a ban on three widely used pesticides linked to the decline of honeybees

Sources close to the discussions said 13 EU governments favored a ban and nine voted against. Britain, Germany and three other states abstained. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/13/owen-paterson-ban-pesticides-bees

Beekeepers are experiencing the highest rate of loss yet this year.( See our new interactive map) It is time to stop using known contaminants and err on the side of caution for the pollinators. We should not be looking to grab the last bit of sales from the farmers pockets when the consequences of big Agri business will harm all facets of our life. Food Security lies in the pollinator health , soil health and diversity not in the economic portfolios of Bayer , Syngenta, BASF and Shell Oil.

Cool!

From  Science News Magazine

DNA tags may dictate bee behavior

Chemical alterations affect genetic activity but not content

By Tina Hesman Saey

Web edition: September 18, 2012
Print edition: October 20, 2012; Vol.182 #8 (p. 10)

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Worker bees surround a queen (numbered). Paint splotches distinguish a forager bee from a nurse. New research suggests chemical tags on DNA may be involved in training worker bees for new jobs.

Christofer Bang

Reversible changes that dictate how genes function may determine what jobs honeybees do in the hive.
Worker honeybees are literally born to be nurses that take care of larvae. After two to three weeks, the workers become foragers. That career change is accompanied by the addition of chemical tags called methyl groups to some of their genes, says a team of researchers led by epigeneticist Andrew Feinberg of Johns Hopkins University and biologist Gro Amdam of Arizona State University in Tempe and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Aas.
The addition of chemical tags, tweaks known as epigenetic modifications, changes genes’ activity but doesn’t alter the genes themselves. In honeybees, these modifications are also reversible: Forager bees that go back to being nurses also revert to the epigenetic pattern seen in nurses, the researchers report online September 16 in Nature Neuroscience.
Although other researchers have previously detected different patterns of chemical tags between nurses and foragers, this is the first time behavior changes have been linked to reversal of those patterns.
“This is an exciting paper because it implicates epigenetics in the establishment and stability of distinct behavioral predispositions,” says Gene Robinson who studies bees, genes and behavior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The new study does not show that methylation changes cause bees to behave differently, but it does show that behavior and epigenetic modifications are both reversible and associated with each other.
For the new study, Amdam and her colleagues set up bee colonies in which all the workers were the same age. The researchers continually removed larvae just before hatching so no relief workers could be added to the workforce. Dots of paint distinguished foragers from nurses. An analysis of the chemical tags in bee brains showed that the nurse-to-forager career transition was associated with dropped or added epigenetic tags on 155 different genes.
When all the foragers were out of the colony, Amdam and her colleagues snatched the remaining nurses. After a few days of confusion, some foragers returned to their old nursing jobs. That reversion was accompanied by DNA methylation changes in 107 genes, including 57 involved in the original nurse-to-forager change, the team found.
Epigeneticists would have predicted a result similar to these findings, says Wolf Reik, an epigeneticist who studies wasps at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England. “This is not surprising, but it is actually quite exciting to see it,” Reik says.
Researchers in Australia had previously described epigenetic differences between queens and workers, a difference Feinberg and Amdam’s analysis failed to uncover. Reik and Solenn Patalano, also of the Babraham Institute, attribute the different findings to the age of the bees in the studies. The Australian group studied established workers and queens, while the new study examined newly emerged bees. Epigenetic patterns are shaped over time by experience, age and interactions with the environment. So the differences noted in the earlier study might reflect the different experiences queens and workers encounter in their lifetimes.
Similarly, Ryszard Maleszka, an epigeneticist at the Australian National University in Canberra who led the earlier studies, isn’t convinced that reversing epigenetic tags causes bees to revert to old behaviors. Rather, flexible tags may reflect the reverted nurses’ switch from flying alone in a visually exciting world to returning to a dark, crowded nest alive with smells. 

Citations

B. R. Herb et al. Reversible switching between epigenetic states in honeybee behavioral subcastes. Nature Neuroscience. doi:10.1038/nn.3218

Suggested Reading

R. Ehrenberg. Bee genes may drive them to adventure. Science News. Vol. 181, April 21, 2012, p. 16. Available online: [Go to]
T. Hesman Saey. Environmental DNA modifications tied to obesity. Science News. Vol. 178, October 9, 2010, p. 15. Available online: [Go to]
T. Hesman Saey. Bees forage with their guts. Science News. Vol. 177, April 24, 2010, p. 16. Available online: [Go to]
T. Hesman Saey. Epic Genetics. Science News. Vol. 173, May 24, 2008, p. 14. Available online: [Go to]

Looking for Nectar

Let your garden flower! 

Feed the bees!

GMOs, Pollinators & Us

 Thinking of planting ?  Think native species or heirloom varieties. Think can this plant encourage diversity in my yard and help bring in beneficial insects and pollinators? Below is an old article but relevant nonetheless.

Biotech Corn Kills Monarch Butterflies -- What's It Doing To Us?         By Charles W. Moore © 1999 Charles W. Moore

A study published in the May 20 edition of the British scientific journal Nature by Cornell University researchers suggests that Monarch butterflies may be threatened by pollen from genetically modified (GM) corn. The "Bt-corn" studied by the Cornell researchers has genes from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) spliced into the corn genes to protect against European corn borers, which are destroyed by the genetically-engineered plant's toxic tissue. Unfortunately, Bt-corn also produces pollen containing crystalline endotoxin from the bacterium genes. This pollen is carried by the wind to other plants, including the Monarch butterfly's favorite food, milkweed. The endotoxin in the transformed pollen, according to the researchers, enters the caterpillar's gut, the wall of which consequently changes from a protective layer to an open sieve, allowing pathogens to be released into the insect's body.

Researchers dusted GM corn pollen onto the leaves of milkweed, which grows best in "disturbed" habitats, like the edges of cornfields. Half the Monarch butterflies died and the rest grew to only 50% normal size. A Swiss study also indicated that lacewing insects can be killed by Bt-corn. At least 18 different Bt-engineered crops have been approved for field testing, and since last year, GM corn, potatoes and cotton are approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for commercial use. Bt-potatoes with genes added to produce GNA lectin ( a natural poison found in snowdrops) have been found to kill ladybirds -- a highly beneficial non-target species. Cornell assistant professor of entomology John E. Losey, who headed the study, says that pollen from Bt-corn could represent a serious risk to populations of Monarchs and other butterflies.

"Like all grasses," says Losey, "corn is wind- pollinated, and the pollen can be blown more than 60 yards from the edge of cornfields.... That's why we are concerned about this problem." Concerns have been voiced that genes in GM corn could contaminate organic food crops. "Monarchs are considered to be a flagship species for conservation. This is a warning bell," commented Linda S. Rayor, Cornell instructor in entomology. "Monarchs themselves are not an endangered species right now, but as their habitat is disrupted or destroyed, their migratory phenomena is becoming endangered."

Virtually every person in North America is already eating GM corn and a growing number of other genetically altered foods, which are mixed indiscriminately with non-GM strains. Genetically engineered foods are not labeled as such -- something the biotech industry has lobbied strenuously and successfully against, including pressure to pass laws that prohibit producers of non- genetically engineered foods from saying so on their labels. North American consumers have been astonishingly sanguine about these developments, unlike our European cousins who have protested and rioted against the import of U.S.-grown GM corn and soybeans. Personally being of the philosophical persuasion that "you are what you eat," this writerÕs comfort level about genetically engineered foods is not high, and I would not knowingly eat them, but I probably am eating them anyway. The point is, nobody, including scientists and government agencies like Health Canada, really knows whether these foods are safe or not. As some European anti- biotech protesters put it: "We are not your guinea pigs!" Unfortunately, here in the U.S. and Canada we are. Biochemist John Fagan of Cornell commented some time ago that genetically engineered foods are "very risky because these genes have never been part of the food supply before. We don't know if they are allergenic or toxic... they should test them as vigourously as they test a new drug. They aren't doing that." Or as Vermont businessman and organic gardener Don Mayer puts it: "It is again a situation where money, greed and science combine to create subtle Frankensteins. Genetically engineered food is a threat, not only to butterflies but ultimately to ourselves as well. Personally, I do not trust a company like Monsanto with our gene pool!" American geneticist Wes Jackson has argued that "while ninety-nine percent of these experiments will be harmless, then one will be in the category of ozone destruction."

Jackson suggests that the primary motive behind most genetic engineering of food crops is to splice in resistance to weed-killing herbicides so that their manufacturers can sell more chemicals to farmers. For instance, Monsanto's "Roundup Readyª" soybeans and corn (still banned in Europe) are altered with a gene that makes the plant resistant to Monsanto's Roundupª herbicide. Which makes Monsanto's defense that bt-corn's built-in toxicity allows fewer applications of chemical pesticides ring a bit hollow, although technically true. The problem, as I see it, is that while butterflies and ladybugs have very short lifespans and toxic effects of agents affecting them show up almost immediately, low-level toxicity to humans often takes years or even decades to show effect. To my mind an "innocent-until-proven-guilty" policy with respect to genetically altered foodstuffs amounts to biological Russian roulette.

© 1999 Charles W. Moore All Rights Reserved

Just for Fun

LET BROOD REARING BEGIN!

Pollen covered beauty!

Pollen for honey bees is the staff of life. It signals the beginning of brood rearing. Brood is the tech talk for laying eggs and the feeding of the growing pupae in the hive. It is a very exciting time for those of us that love the bees.

If you look around your yard you may not recognize those plants that are in bloom and giving this precious material to the honeybee. Trees as well as flowers provide pollen and it comes in many beautiful colors! Look out at the Maple, those beautiful red buds are full of pollen. Below is a list from Wiki

Pollen is part of the cycle of life that intertwines us all. The beginning of regeneration in the Spring gives the bees their source of life. We must then care for these plants as well as the bees. They can not be considered separately! Lawn care is big business in this country. Consider the methods that the average American uses for lawn care. Even garden clubs find it acceptable practice to use pesticides to maintain their flowerbeds and yards. This is not conducive to the survival of the honeybee or any of our wondrous pollinators. If you eat honey, pollen, propolis or any of the products of the hive you may be ingesting residues of those pesticides. This is not due to the beekeepers but the American love affair with "better living through chemistry". What you do in your yard MATTERS!

We do not use chemicals in our hives. We believe this harms rather than helps the girls in the long run. It is a choice not all beekeepers make. It is one that we make on a number of levels.

•  Our first priority is our family, I would not want to feed honey to my children if I used chemicals in the hive.
• Honeybees would not do this in nature
• It can be harmful just in their application to the beekeeper
• Studies have shown Pests adapt, get worse not less

So as we go into Spring and the Garden Bug makes you itch to get outside consider the Honeybee. Avoid the  Round-up this year, leave the plastic mulch off, start a compost, leave the Deet on the shelf( try a bubble machine) and in general think, "What would this do to a honeybee, it's food source and WHY do I NEED it?

Trees and shrubs - Spring

Common name	Latin name	Blooming months	Pollen color	Availability	Source for honeybees
Maple	Acer spp.	Feb - Apr	light yellow	feral	fair
Manitoba Maple (Box elder)	Acer negundo	Feb - Apr	light olive	feral	good
Norway maple	Acer platanoides	Apr - May	yellow green, olive	feral	fair
Red Maple	Acer rubrum	Mar - Apr	grey brown	feral
Grey Alder	Alnus incana	Feb - Apr	brownish yellow	feral
American Chestnut	Castanea dentata	May - Jun		mostly ornamental
Sweet Chestnut	Castanea sativa	May		feral	good
Common Hackberry	Celtis occidentalis	Apr - May		feral
Flowering Quince	Chaenomeles japonica, Chaenomeles lagenaria, Chaenomeles speciosa 'Nivalis', Chaenomeles x superba	Apr - May		feral	good
American Hazel	Corylus americana	Mar - Apr	light green	feral and ornamental	fair/good
Hawthorn	Crataegus spp.	Apr - May	yellow brown	feral	fair