AND THE HONEY BEES. WITH THE CREATION OF THESE FRANKENSTEIN CROPS AND FRANKENSTEIN WEEDS,  ISN'T EMERGING A MAJOR QUESTION ABOUT ACCUMULATION? NO ONE REALLY KNOWS THE ANSWER TO HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH FOR EARTH LIFE? AND THAT THE PILING ON OF HERBICIDES NOW AGAINST RESISTANT WEEDS, MADE RESISTANT THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED HERBICIDES, YOU ARE INCREASING PESTICIDES OUT THERE IN THE WORLD WITH UNKNOWN CONSEQUENCES?

Well, certainly. When the Environmental Protection Agency registers pesticides, it does quite a bit of testing. But even if that testing does reveal potential risks and has a lot of value, it certainly also has substantial limits. One of those limits is that we often don’t have a good handle on how the interaction between different pesticides can effect organisms. That is not really tested by EPA.

EPA-Approved Fungicides Can Kill Brood and Young Bees

Another bee expert at the University of California in Davis has discovered that some EPA-approved fungicides that don't kill adult honey bees, do kill bee larvae and young bees. Eric Mussen, Ph.D., is an entomologist and Extension Apiculturist at UC-Davis. He is concerned that some EPA approval criteria only applies to adult honey bees and does not protect the larvae brood and young bees.

Interview:

Eric Mussen, Ph.D., Entomologist and Extension Apiculturist, University of California, Davis, California:  "If you have something like a fungicide, which does not hurt an adult bee when it's sprayed in the field, then they (EPA) think it's just safe for honey bees. And in some cases, that has not been the truth.
Not too long ago, I ran some experiments in the (UC-Davis) lab and found that two of the fungicides that are commonly used out here for controlling diseases on the almond trees, if you get too much of it into the laval food of honey bees, it killed the larvae.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT CURRENTLY THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY HAS TESTING REGULATIONS THAT ARE APPLIED TO THE ADULT HONEY BEE, BUT YOU ARE FINDING THAT THOSE LEVELS (OF FUNGICIDE) THAT EPA ACCEPTS ARE KILLING THE BROOD AND THE YOUNG BEES.

That's only  happened in a few chemicals, but I guess the answer to that is yes and what we were hoping would be that there would also have to be some kind of data generated before a registration (of a pesticide) was processed that talked about what happens (if the pesticide) gets into the immatures.

WHEN YOU EXPLAINED THE RESEARCH YOU DID AND WHAT YOU FOUND TO EPA, WHAT DID EPA SAY?

Well, they said they wanted to see some evidence or some data. So, I sent them the evidence. And I cannot see that anything has changed since then and that was a couple of years ago.

Nicotine-Based Pesticides Interfere
with Honey Bee Memories

In the past six years, a new group of nicotine-based pesticides have emerged called neonicotinoids. The most common is imidachloprid. Ironically, these were originally manufactured to be less lethal. But about four years ago, French and Italian beekeepers complained that imidachloprid crop spraying was killing their honey bees. So the French and Italian governments banned the nicotine-based pesticides.

American scientists now studying the Colony Collapse Disorder wrote in their first preliminary December 15, 2006, report that even though  the  neonicotinoids will not kill adult bees directly on flowers and plants:

"Recent research tested crops where seed was treated with imidacloprid. The chemical was present, by systemic uptake, in corn, sunflowers and rape pollen in levels high enough to pose a threat to honey bees. Additional research has found that imidacloprid impairs the memory and brain metabolism of bees, particularly the area of the brain that is used for making new memories.

"Implication: If bees are eating fresh or stored pollen contaminated with these chemicals at low levels, the pesticides might not cause mortality, but might impact the bees' ability to learn or make memories. If this is the case, young bees leaving the hives to make orientation flights might not be able to learn the location of the hive and might not be returning, causing the colonies to dwindle and eventually die. It is also possible that this is not the sole cause of the dwindling, but one of several contributing factors. �?

I asked Jerry Hayes, Chief of the Apiary Section for Florida's Department of Agriculture in Gainsville, about the nicotine-based pesticide’s ability to disable honey bee memory.

Interview:

Jerry Hayes, Chief, Apiary Section, Florida Dept. of Agriculture, Gainsville, Florida:  "The interesting thing about the Colony Collapse Disorder is that bees are leaving the colony and not coming back, which is highly unusual for a social insect to leave a queen and its brood or young behind. They are seemingly going out and can't find their way back home.
Imidachloprid, when it is used to control termites, does exactly the same thing. One of the methods it uses to kill termites is that the termites feed on this material and then go out to feed and can't remember how to get home. And it also causes their immune systems to collapse, causing what would be normal organisms to become pathogenic in them (bees).

HAVE FARMERS BEEN USING IMIDACHLOPRID MORE THAN THEY HAVE IN THE PAST?

I think a couple of things. First, its use has changed. At first it started out as a seed treatment to protect the seed as it germinated and developed. Now it is being used as a foliage spray, it's being used as a systemic, it's being combined with fungicides, which increases its efficacy. So, it's use has changed. Especially systemically, it does what it's supposed to do - it takes care of agricultural pests, which we want it to do. But there seems to be a disconnect sometimes that researchers and horticulturists forget that a honey bee is an insect. And of course, there are other insects out there that are valuable pollinators as well.

So, systemically this material (imidachloprid) is found in the nectar - in many cases in low doses - not something that would kill a honey bee. So the question is: What does chronic exposure to  the honey bee, either as an adult, or as the bees bring the material back to the nest to store and feed to developing young bees over time -  what does chronic exposure (to pesticides) do to the colony?

National Academy of Sciences Concerned
About General Decline of North American Pollinators

Beyond the honey bees, Something is killing all the pollinators. Pollinators include honey bees, bumble bees, hornets, wasps, butterflies, hummingbirds and even bats. Something is happening in the environment that is causing all of those different species to decline - and currently the most dramatic event is the massive disappearance of honey bees.

Jerry Hayes, Chief of the Apiary Section for Florida's Department of Agriculture in Gainsville, told me he was asked in 2006 to speak before the National Academy of Sciences about the serious decline of North American pollinators.

Interview:

Jerry Hayes, Chief, Apiary Section, Florida Dept. of Agriculture, Gainsville, Florida:  "I was able to make a presentation to the National Academy of Sciences last year. They produced a report about the loss of pollinators in North America.  The federal government asked the National Academy of Sciences to look at this from a strategic standpoint.

How much of our food production do we want to turn over to other countries that might be friendly now and not friendly in the future? That's similar to our energy production problems right now. So, the federal government is looking at this and  my question is: Are honey bees the canary in the coal mine? What are honey bees trying to tell us that we humans should be paying more attention to?