• Animal Tracks •

Our bees last year cleaning comb

If you have been reading our newsletter for a while you may recall that we have bee hives. Unfortunately right now, we don't have any bees, just the hives. AS well, if you have been following the news on bees you may recall that there have been a sequence of challenges that bees have been facing. Varroa mites and tracheal mites are two insect parasites that have had a significant impact on honey bee populations. To read reports today you don't get the perspective that should accompany this information. Varroa mites were discovered in 1905 in Java, 1951 in Singapore, 1962 in Hong Kong and the Philippines, China 1965, India 1966, North Korea 1967, Japan, Viet Nam & Cambodia 1968, Thailand 1969, Czechoslovakia 1972, Bulgaria 1973, Paraguay & Brazil 1975, Argentina 1976, Uruguay 1977, I'm skipping a number of countries in Europe and Asia but we arrive at 1987 when this mite was first discovered in the US. Two points I see in this; 1. welcome to globalism and the sharing of problems that nature might have insulated us from; Java is an island! and 2. this problem has been known to be around for over 100 years.

Next let's look at tracheal mites. Tracheal mites have been known to be a problem since 1917. In 1922 the US Honey Bee Act prohibited importation of all life stages of honey bees into the US helping to create a political boundary to keep our bee populations safe. However, the mites were first found in Texas in 1984 and have continued to move north throughout North America. Again I point out that this problem has been around for almost 100 years. It is also critical to note that a study in Arizona in 1995-1996 demonstrated that most local populations of honey bees in fixed locations were mite free, due in part to requeening hives from mite resistant hives, but that migratory populations [for commercial pollination] had mite levels of 50 - 90% that were killing those colonies. A lesson I see here is that the concentration of an agricultural practice, in this case commercial bee hive rental for pollination [the echo of 'get big or get out'], has contributed to the spread of and persistence of a parasite problem.

Now, in the US, we are facing Colony Collapse Disorder(CCD). Hives are dying. Not just dying though, one of the symptoms of CCD is that a hive will remain with honey but no bees. It seems that they are getting lost. The vast majority of hives that are collapsing are adjacent to or near corn fields. Most of the corn grown in the US is grown for feed, not for direct human consumption, and most of that US crop is now GMO corn. However, to jump to the conclusion that GMO corn is the culprit may not be helpful or correct.

Researching the literature that is available for the past several months I found that in France, Imidacloprid was banned for use due to killing bee populations in sunflower crops. Having seen the many hectares of sunflowers in southern France I can easily understand what a crisis would result from killing off the bee population. Imidacloprid is a product of Bayer Crop Science which fought mightily against the ban because it would cost them $500M per year in product sales. Bayer Crop Science is the world's leading insecticide company. Since its launch in 1991, products containing imidacloprid have gained registrations in about 120 countries and are marketed for use on over 140 agricultural crops. With annual sales of more than 600 million Euro (2001), imidacloprid is one of the top selling products of Bayer CropScience4. It is marketed under a variety of names including Gaucho, Admire, Confidor, Merit and Winner. Imidacloprid is also the active ingredient in the new Bayer Advanced™ line of insecticides including Bayer Advanced™ Garden Rose & Flower Insect Killer Concentrate. Please note that there is a difference between Bayer Advanced Garden Rose & Flower Insect Killer and the Bayer Advanced Garden 2-in-1 Systemic Rose and Flower Care Ready-to-Use Granules. The latter contains the ingredient Disulfoton (also known as Di-Syston, a 1953 Bayer product formerly found in Ortho Rose Pride; This is a highly toxic insecticide .

Imidacloprid is a systemic, chloro-nicotinyl insecticide with soil, seed and foliar uses for the control of sucking insects including rice hoppers, aphids, thrips, whiteflies, termites, turf insects, soil insects and some beetles. It is most commonly used on rice, cereal, maize, potatoes, vegetables, sugar beets, fruit, cotton, hops and turf, and is especially systemic when used as a seed or soil treatment. The chemical works by interfering with the transmission of stimuli in the insect nervous system. Specifically, it causes a blockage in a type of neuronal pathway (nicotinergic) that is more abundant in insects than in warm-blooded animals (making the chemical selectively more toxic to insects than warm-blooded animals). This blockage leads to the accumulation of acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter, resulting in the insect's paralysis, and eventually death. It is effective on contact and via stomach action.

Do you hire a lawn care company? Do you know what chemicals they put on your lawn to control grubs? Have you purchased a lawn 'protection' or tree 'protection' chemical from Bayer Crop Science (do you read the label thoroughly?) and applied it yourself?  Does anyone else find it hypocritical to refer to these services and products using the words CARE and PROTECTION? Using these products is only protecting the profit margin of the manufacturer and that is what they really care about.

Specific research has demonstrated that Imidacloprid is toxic to upland game birds, may be very toxic to aquatic invertebrates and is highly toxic to bees. It has been discovered that this pesticide persists for years in the soil and therefore can increase in concentration in a field over time if used regularly. Also, due to plant uptake, it is found in pollen and this is concentrated in bees. And yet, in spite of the fact that a few years after France banned the use of this pesticide in sunflower production their bee populations are not experiencing anywhere near the same mortality, the "experts" say that there isn't concrete proof that this or any pesticide is responsible for CCD. They site the observation of other factors such as fungal infections and mite populations that might be in some way related to the die off. Of course, say I, if you weaken an organism it becomes prey to any and all other opportunistic predators it encounters, that's how evolution works.

Which concept of interrelationship spurs me to raise the issue of the attempt to dismiss the ethos of the organic movement in Grist for the Mill.

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