Author Topic: Why the Buzz About a Bee-pocalypse Is a Honey Trap  (Read 3393 times)

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Offline apisbees

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Why the Buzz About a Bee-pocalypse Is a Honey Trap
« on: July 28, 2014, 06:42:51 am »
Why the Buzz About a Bee-pocalypse Is a Honey Trap
Populations of the pollinators are not declining and a ban on neonic pesticides would devastate U.S. agriculture.

By Henry I. Miller
July 22, 2014 7:26 p.m. ET

Dr. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He was the founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/henry-i-miller-why-the-buzz-about-a-bee-pocalypse-is-a-honey-trap-1406071612
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Offline tecumseh

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Re: Why the Buzz About a Bee-pocalypse Is a Honey Trap
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2014, 05:41:04 am »
not much information there apisbee.  all I get is one very short paragraph.  I would assume based on the person title and association with the Hoover Institute that this person's view would be tainted by his political views.  they have some very smart people at Stanford but in many cases their very right leaning political thinking does cloud their judgement.  some are too smart.... but not smart enough to recognized that their thin professional expertise really does not apply out side that particular expertise.   in a few weeks I will be spending some time just down the road from Hoover Tower....   

Offline apisbees

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Re: Why the Buzz About a Bee-pocalypse Is a Honey Trap
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2014, 08:05:47 am »
I had the feeling that they would do that so I copied the full story so I will post it here.

Why the Buzz About a Bee-pocalypse Is a Honey Trap
Populations of the pollinators are not declining and a ban on neonic pesticides would devastate U.S. agriculture.
By
Henry I. Miller
July 22, 2014 7:26 p.m. ET
On June 20 the White House issued a presidential memorandum creating a Pollinator Health Task Force and ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to "assess the effect of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, on bee and other pollinator health and take action, as appropriate."
Why the fuss over bees? Is the U.S. in the midst of a bee-pocalypse? The science says no. Bee populations in the U.S. and Europe remain at healthy levels for reproduction and the critical pollination of food crops and trees. But during much of the past decade we have seen higher-than-average overwinter bee-colony losses in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as cases of bees abruptly abandoning their hives, a phenomenon known as "colony collapse disorder."
Citing this disorder, antipesticide activists and some voluble beekeepers want to ban the most widely used pesticides in modern agriculture—neonicotinoids ("neonics" for short)—that account for 20% of pesticide sales world-wide. This would have disastrous effects on modern farming and food prices.
What are neonics? Crafted to target pests that destroy crops, while minimizing toxicity to other species, neonics are much safer for humans and other vertebrates than previous pesticides. But citing supposed threats to honeybee populations, the European Union imposed a two-year ban in December 2013, and activists are trying to convince regulators in Canada and the U.S. to follow suit.
Yet there is only circumstantial or flawed experimental evidence of harm to bees by neonics. Often-cited experiments include one conducted by Chensheng Lu of the Harvard School of Public Health that exposed the insects to 30-100 times their usual exposure in the field. That does poison bees, but it doesn't replicate real-world colony collapse disorder, which in any case seems now to be declining. According to University of Maryland entomologist Dennis vanEngelsdorp, no cases have been reported from the field in three years.

 
Reuters
The reality is that honeybee populations are not declining. According to U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization statistics, the world's honeybee population rose to 80 million colonies in 2011 from 50 million in 1960. In the U.S. and Europe, honeybee populations have been stable—or slightly rising in the last couple of years—during the two decades since neonics were introduced, U.N. and USDA data show. Statistics Canada reports an increase to 672,000 honeybee colonies in Canada, up from 501,000, over the same two decades.
In February, the Australian government issued a report on bee health from the only continent unaffected by the Varroa destructor mite, a pathogen of bees. It found that, "Australian honeybee populations are not in decline, despite the increased use of [neonicotinoids] in agriculture and horticulture since the mid-1990s."
In April the EU released the first Continent-wide epidemiological study of bee health in Europe, covering 2012-13 (before the EU's neonic ban went into effect). Seventy-five percent of the EU's bee population (located in 11 of the countries surveyed) experienced overwinter losses of 15% a year or less—levels considered normal in the U.S. Only 5% of the EU's bee population (located in six northern countries) experienced losses over 20%, after a long, severe winter.
A ban on neonics would not benefit bees, because they are not the chief source of bee health problems today. Varroa mites are, along with the lethal viruses they vector into bee colonies. If neonics were dangerous, how to explain that in Canada, Saskatchewan's $19 billion canola industry depends on neonics to prevent predation by the ravenous flea beetle—and those neonic-treated canola fields support such thriving honeybee populations that they've been dubbed the "pastures for pollinators."
A neonic ban would, however, devastate North American agriculture and the communities that depend on it. Neonics are the last line of defense for Florida's citrus industry against the Asian citrus psyllid, an insect that spreads a devastating disease of citrus trees called huanglongbing, or HLB. They're also the first line of defense in Texas and California, where HLB is beginning. Without neonic protection, tomatoes in Florida and vegetable crops in Arizona, California and the Pacific Northwest would be imperiled. If whitefly infestations weren't kept in check with neonics, much of the U.S. winter vegetable production would be lost.
Grape-growing in California and the Pacific Northwest could be devastated by the viral scourges of leaf-roll and red blotch without neonic pesticides to control the leafhoppers that spread them. Without neonic protection against thrips in cotton, water weevil in rice and grape colaspis in soybeans, yields in the mid-South could be so damaged that farmers would either go out of business or turn to already abundant crops like corn.
The knock-on effect wouldn't stop there. The production of citrus and tomatoes in Florida and rice and cotton in the mid-South and elsewhere is tied to processing plants, refrigerated warehouses, packing houses, cotton gins, rice mills, and a transportation and shipping infrastructure that supports agriculture. If the crops processed by these support industries were to become economically nonviable without crop protection, rural counties across the southeastern U.S. would be decimated.
All this would be painful for consumers, who would see their food costs rise significantly. And by making farm exports more expensive and less competitive, it would damage the U.S. economy. All reasons to worry about unleashing the EPA in a fight in which activists who have the ear of regulators constantly misrepresent the science.
Dr. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He was the founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology.

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Offline LazyBkpr

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Re: Why the Buzz About a Bee-pocalypse Is a Honey Trap
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2014, 10:01:56 am »
While this actually mirrors my own unscientific thoughts there are a couple of flaws..
   If Neonics are banned, the farmers will turn to other means of killing the pests that will do harm to their crops. Many of those methods are much more harmful to the bees than the Neonics...
   
    Population may be up, but that is not the indicator they should be using, they should be more worried about the losses..   Splitting and buying packages etc replaces those lost hives, but that does not change the fact that the losses ARE higher than normal...

 

   I have spoken with Andy Joseph, and am impressed with his knowledge. A good person to know.

   Having sugar on the top bars of my hives prevented my bees from starving to death last winter. It was brutally cold for an extended duration we do not normally see. The bees could not break cluster, so they stove piped straight up, without moving outward to resources. The sugar at the top kept them going until they COULD finally move, and my bees survived.   I think wintering method had a lot to do with the survival rate of my bees, where most keeps wintered as they normally did. Their bees reached the top, could not move outward, and starved. That is what I saw and heard at spring meetings.
  Neonics MAY be playing a role in the losses, but so far I have not seen it.
  I have had a struggle with queens this year. Outstanding queens vanishing without a trace, and no emergency cells created in time..  I have managed to fix those situations so far with only one laying worker hive..  Last inspection I had another missing queen..    Should I blame Neonics? I dont intend to, until I see evidence pointing in that direction...   I have no doubt the Neonics are playing a role at a small level in the colony losses, but I do not believe they are the sole cause.  I think better management to account for the issues we are facing will go a lot further than banning the neonics.
   I also think it is great that the government is now involved, but have my reservations about what they will find, after spending 100 times the money any other study has found.  My experience tells me that they will find whatever is politically motivating those in charge.  I do hope I am wrong, and that the study is done well and conclusively.
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