Mites or neonics?

[Perry]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bee-crisis-are-mites-or-neonics-the-real-culprit-1.3116368

[tbonekel]

Interesting article. So it would be cool to look at the environment around the hives of very hygenic bees who have not been treated and see if there have been any neonics used. Then take one of the good performing, hygenic traits to an area that uses neonics and see what happens.

[LazyBkpr]

They die, at least, thats been my experience.. I import hygienic bees/queens every year.. have not found any yet that survive, but still looking and trying!

   I am one of those folks that will say loudly that Neonics are a good thing!   I do not claim they are good for the bees, my claim is that they are better than the DDT and other insecticides that used to be sprayed on every field int he state.

  Quote;   Tennekes, who also attributes songbird die-offs to neonics, recently told CBC News, "Soon the swallows will be gone forever."


   I don't know about anywhere else, but here, I have so MANY swallows that I am having to poison, trap, shoot, and remove nests...   they are WAY overpopulated... We have QUAIL AGAIN! along with rabbits eagles Hawks, Owls etc, etc...   so if the Neonics are causing problems, they are doing it on a scale that is allowing the native populations of all birds to rebuild.

   I had my first case of CCD this year..   Opened a hive that two weeks before was SERIOUSLY BOOMING with six boxes on it...  It was empty. No dead bees anywhere, and the supers about 3/4 filled...   I began tearing the box apart to take it back to the house, and there in the second box up, was a handful of bees and the queen.....  I left her and the bees in the second box, removed all the other boxes, and gave her a frame of brood and bees from another hive...  When I came back the next week, the box was empty and the wax moth had taken over big time.
   I know it wasnt mites, this hive had been treated and mite counts were low. I know it wasnt stress from travel, I dont haul my hives anywhere. Neonics?  Possible, but the hive had access to multiple fields that were not treated in any way. Fields of flowers planted for native wildlife... NOTHING in the fields planted with crops was near blooming at that time... so I am going to dismiss neonics as well...

    I would much prefer that no living thing had to deal with Neonics or any insecticide, but when insecticides WILL be used, I vote for the lesser evil.. Kind of like voting for a president?  All of these companies and groups are trying to ban neonics.. WHY, would they not instead, put all of that time, money and effort into a safe alternative?

[brooksbeefarm]

Scott, look at all the money they will loose selling high priced insecticides. Jack

[Les]

Thought processes change.....doctors used to think that applying leeches to people was a good thing.  Asbestos was a great insulator and it was sprayed all over heating pipes and furnaces. Now you have to spend a fortune to have special asbestos abatement people come in to remove it.   I  have a brother-in-law diagnosed with mesotheleoma due to asbestos exposure as a young man and we are watching him slowly lose lung capacity.  Paint with lead in it was okay too at one time but now we have children with high lead contents in their blood. 

I do not agree with Lazy in any way.....using neonics for the overall good?  It may prevent pests from ruining crops but what is that stuff doing to humans forget what it is doing to the bees?  We are ingesting it....will the thought process be in another 20 years, it is a cancer causing agent and we shouldn't have used it?  Again I say, if they did not have mono agriculture they would not have the infestations of pests that they are fighting back with neonics.  Improve the soil, don't just dump more chemicals on it to fertilize, plant a variety of crops, rotate the crops but no that takes too much time, it is easier to pop open a can or dump a bag of pellets into water and spray away.

[lazy shooter]

Les:

Modern day agriculture cannot feed the world's population using organic methods.  I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.  Approximately, one-fourth to one-third of the world's population would starve to death using purely organic methods.  They won't starve to death without a fight.  Our world has worked itself into a tough situation.

Like you, I wish agricultural chemicals were not needed.  But, like the other Lazy, I use roundup on my fence rows and a mixture of Remedy and Reclaim to kill mesquite brush in my fields on an annual basis.  The mesquite is an imported brush and many of the weeds are also imported.  We have polluted our land with many invasive plants and insects, and as such, we no longer have a ability to control our lands without chemicals.  I regret that.

There is what I wish, and there is "what is."  Sometimes really is a tough master. 

[LazyBkpr]

I do not agree with Lazy in any way.....using neonics for the overall good?

  i dont know how you managed to come to that conclusion of overall good?  i thought I said;

    I would much prefer that no living thing had to deal with Neonics or any insecticide, but when insecticides WILL be used, I vote for the lesser evil.. Kind of like voting for a president?  All of these companies and groups are trying to ban neonics.. WHY, would they not instead, put all of that time, money and effort into a safe alternative?


    When was the last time you saw a president of any party that was interested in the overall good? There is no such thing, they are interested in their own agenda..   The same holds true with the big chem companies. They push their own agendas and stretch the truth as far as their bribes will allow them to.   Go ahead and ban neonics, I am all for making them go away, but remember, that when you do make them go away, they will come up with something else, or revert to what we used to use.. back when we had no eagles, rabbits, hawks, owls, or even lightning bugs, and the fish were unfit to eat and had sores all over them when you did catch one... yeah, neonics are horrible in comparison.

[tbonekel]

Unfortunately, we, as a nation, demand cheap food and the use of pesticides are going to be the only way to that end. If neonics is the lessor of two evils, then I guess it's better than the alternative. But I think that far less government intervention on what is grown and where would help in many ways. I remember as a kid many people grew peanuts around my area. Now, no one does. Why? I think it's the government that tells the farmers what to grow and where. If farmers where allowed to grow what they wanted and rotate crops, I think the need for pesticides would be less a little. I know that's a pie in the sky attitude.

I sometimes ramble and don't make sense, so if any of that sounds random, sorry.

[iddee]

""back when we had no eagles, rabbits, hawks, owls, or even lightning bugs, and the fish were unfit to eat and had sores all over them when you did catch one""

Lazy, you must be much older than I thought. I am 70 and have never seen that time. As a kid, it was nothing for us to kill a dozen rabbits on a hunt, 100 fish in a day, and eat them all. No sick rabbits, no sores on fish. The first sore I found on a fish was after I returned home in 1986. Trees in summer looked like well lit Christmas trees with lightening bugs. Enough hawks and owls to be a problem with farm chickens.  Eagles, I admit, were scarce here, and still are.
Today, a rabbit is an unusual sight. Where a night time ride once would yield 5 or more sightings, now a sighting 5 times a year is about the norm.

I have few thoughts on neonics, as I don't know that much about them. I blame most of the change on tree huggers. When the foxes, hawks, and owls were controlled by the hunters, the balance was kept in check. Now, there are 3 predators per food animal. Totally out of balance. Fertilizers pollute the waters as much or more than pesticides.

[lazy shooter]

I too fondly remember those times that Iddee listed above.  Part of our state wide problem has been caused by imported and feral animals and insects.  The Brazilian Fire Ants have killed and depleted many animals and insects in our state.  The tick population has been just about wiped out by them.  We think that is a good thing, but the lowly tick somehow fits into our eco system.  This is just one example.  They were imported to kill bowl weevils in cotton fields, but they have done in many more species.  Then there's the feral pigs that destroy and eat any ground nesting bird or animal they find.  We have imported weeds from many foreign countries that do not have an antagonist in this country.  Russian thistle is one such plant.  It is good for bees and hard on farmers, as it spreads like a wild fire.

I was raised on a small farm and ranch operation.  We grew about 15 acres of cotton and 20 acres of grain crops (corn and sorghums).  We tended our crops with a plow and a HOE.  The only chemical we used was a small bit of fertilizer.  We sold 10 bales of cotton and 30 calves a year and made a good living.  That much crop on today's market would gross around forty-thousand dollars, and one would be lucky to net 10-thousand dollars on it.  Therefore, today's farmer has to be much larger, and being much larger eliminates the hand tilling and requires the use of chemicals.  Like I said, life is tough.

[brooksbeefarm]

My lip is bleeding, but i'll have to agree with my republican buddy iddee,as for the Government telling me what and were to plant and what to plant??? That wouldn't be a good idea , the only thing that i can think of that owns ME is my land (farm), if you take care of it it will take care of you. The old days with Dan and Brownie and a single shovel, plowing an acre a day is gone.I've had some of the Mennonites selling produce at farmers market tell me that people think everything they sell is organic, and when asked they tell them no. They will tell you if you don't use insecticides you won't have anything to sell. Even if we pass a birth control law today, we could not feed the population without insecticides. It's sad, but as of now, i see no way out. Jack
PS. Iddee, if you need some rabbits bring some box traps, they have made a big come back here. They are not afraid of people or cats? they will set 10ft. away and watch me work bees. Weird.

[LazyBkpr]

It is a difference in locality?? I remember seeing the planes and knowing that I would be cleaning dead hives and splitting..  Farmers sprayed insecticides on everything.  Our dealership had fields on three sides, and one of my jobs was to wash tractors to get the spots off..  Cleaning the windows on the front of the store was a pain as well. I was always happy when spraying was done for the year..  I cant count how many times I got sprayed as the plane went overhead.... 
  None of it really registered other than the dead bees, and I left here in 1982, and only came back for short visits until I moved back here in 2001.  Nearly 20 years had passed..  rabbits are everywhere, Eagles, lightning bugs etc...  That is when it registered. I was startled enough to ask Dad what happened, where all the critters came from. His reply was, they quit spraying insecticides somewhere between 1985 and 1990, and since then, the critters have been returning. So I looked it up on that new internet thing.  In 1985, Bayer patented imidacloprid as the first commercial neonicotinoid, and by the 1990's it was widely used.

   As I said, I would prefer to see it gone. However, if it had not been introduced, what state would our lands and animals be in today? What about us? Did my uncles and cousins who used this stuff every day die of cancer caused by it? I only know they all died of cancer, not what caused it. Even my grandmother was lost to cancer. Did I dodge the bullet by getting out when I did? Or am I going to get it too from all the exposure I had?
   No, I dont want neonics, but understanding that it represents MONEY, and FOOD, I understand that it IS going to be used. I also understand that if it is banned, that SOMETHING WILL replace it. If that something is better? Great! Lets do it! I am all for it!  But how do we know if it is better until its been in use for a while? It is obvious that our environmental protection agency is just another failed way for our government to waste our money.
   I DO BELIEVE that neonics are a step in the right direction compared to what we had, because I can see A VAST difference since it became widely used. That in no way means we should not continue to find a better way.


Iowa ranks 1st in the U.S. in corn and soybean production.
•   
Iowa farmers harvested 13.9 million acres of corn (2.37 billion bushels) in 2007.  Iowa corn crop
values $9.47 billion.
•   
Iowa harvested 8.52 million acres of soybeans (439 million bushels), in2007, which valued $4.78
billion.

[Les]

Thanks everyone for the discussion and some enlightenment.  I can agree that things have improved in our environment, especially when I remember how industry dumped the byproducts of production anywhere they wanted.  I also agree that greed is what makes the government go round and it is so disheartening to think that so many politicians would rather have their palms greased than be truly concerned about so many issues that areimpacting our environment and health.  Let's hope that there is someone out there researching something safer and better than the neonics. The problem is Monsanto, Bayer, etc will probably get wind of it and make them an offer to buy them out and that will be the end of that.  The best we can do is to be good manager's of our own little slice of heaven.  When we purchased our slice of heaven, the previous owner left a present of all their lawn weed killers in the shed.  Having no place to dispose of them, I put them at the end of our driveway with a "free" sign on them.  They were gone in under 15 minutes.  Somebody thought they got such a good deal but in reality they got a bad deal because they will spread that stuff on their lawn.

Since we moved here and practice only organic methods, we have seen a tremendous rebound in birds, rabbits and the number and variety of insects is amazing.  Anyone who will listen gets an education from me on how to take care of Mother Earth.  I may be a drop in the bucket but imagine how the drops could add up if everyone did just one little thing to change what they are doing in a negative way to impact our environment?

Lazybeekper, my apologies if I offended you in any way. 

[LazyBkpr]

Not at all Les. I happen to agree with most all of what you are saying and want. Individuals can make a difference in their own slice of heaven, and can raise their voices in protest of what everyone else does in their slice of heaven, especially when what they do affects us all. The reality of what I want, is simply to keep working for something better rather than taking away what we have.
   I am also sure, that Bayer, Shell, Monsanto etc, would dearly LOVE to find the perfect means of controlling bugs in our crops,....    so long as they make money on it.
 

[lazy shooter]

The only reason public held corporations exist is to make profits for their shareholders.  Truth be known, most of us are those shareholders, directly or indirectly.  Still, there are rules, regulations and ethical considerations that all corporations should follow.  Corporations are like the rest of us.  Some of them have ethics and some don't. 

Our politicians for the most part, have formed an imperial congress that is not responsible to US.  They exempt themselves from some of OUR laws.  That's imperialism.

Having stated the above, the company that I am a part of and I personally have worked extensively for both Monsanto and Bayer.  My work has always been in their mineral development (oil and gas) department, and I have never been exposed to their ag chemical business other than working in and around Monsanto's Roundup plant.  Both companies pay well, have very good safety programs (which tells me they care about their employees) and treated my company with great respect. 

I don't know enough about neonics to make an argument about their value to us.  My only point is that the Monsanto and Bayer people I have been exposed to were very ethical and forth coming in our dealings. Everyone that works for these companies is not our enemy.