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Environment, News, Politics, Science

EU May Ban Neonicotinoids for Bees — Will EPA Act Next?

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With the EU recommending a limited ban — effective as early as July 1, 2013 — on the class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, the question becomes whether the U.S.’s EPA, which began a review of their use in 2012, will take the EU’s action as precedent.

Of course, if neonicotinoids are indeed a primary factor in the honeybee colony collapse disorder that surged in the mid-2000s, “early” may not be the right word, a decade later.

The EU’s ban specifically applies to application of the neonicotinoids imidacloprid, clothanidin, and thiamethoxam on sunflowers, rapeseed, corn, and cotton. That is not likely to cheer anyone in the Bayer CropScience and Syngenta executive suites — in the U.S., as much as 90-percent of corn seed is treated with a neonicotinoid coating prior to planting (the dust from which is now a concern).

The manufacturers have been in the awkward position of defending the safety of their pesticides: that neonicotinoids kill insects is, after all, their selling point. Syngenta boasts their Actara is a “systemic insecticide that provides excellent, fast-acting and long-lasting elimination of a broad range of foliar and soil pests.” It kills over 160 species.

In mid-2012, Bayer Cropscience was arguing that while there was no correlation with “exposure levels to agrochemicals,” they asked whether the problem was not using enough chemicals: ” beekeepers who are more vigilant in controlling Varroa are less likely to have CCD in their colonies,” claimed Bayer’s environmental toxicology and risk assessment director. (Yes, Bayvarol can help with that.)

It’s perhaps noteworthy — if not to Bayer CropScience — that bees with immune systems compromised by a pesticide are more prone to infestation by the Varroa mite than not. This is an important distinction because the case against neonicotinoids is not simply that, at one whiff, colonies of bees drop out of the air — though high enough concentrations can produce that result.

Neonicotinoids are a) systemic, meaning that they are absorbed by the whole plant, b) long-lasting, remaining active not just for 16 – 200 days as Bayer has testified, but more than three years, and c) cumulative in strength and in effects. So the sublethal doses available in pollen can aggregate in hives over time, or in fields, as leftover plant matter is tilled back into the ground after each harvest.

The dose in pollen is theoretically sublethal, but troubling levels have been detected in sap and nectar — a UC Riverside researcher found “imidacloprid residues in eucalyptus nectar at levels of up to 550 parts per billion (ppb),” when 185 ppb would kill half of a given bee population — California has had neonicotinoids under review since 2009.

Also, not all pesticide poisoning is alike. Dutch toxicologist Henk Tennekes thinks the neurological damage from neonicotinoids is irreversible, so that after several years, bees with slighter exposure would still suffer the kind of bee-dementia noted in colony collapse, where bees lose the ability to navigate back to the hive.

The EPA’s decision should come in 2014, but it’s already clear that the effects from neonicotinoids, underestimated from the outset, may be with us for years to come.

Environment, News, Science

Bee-lieve the Growing Buzz About Harm From Neonicotinoids

"Nicotine Bees," a documentary, explores the neonicotinoid problem.

Back in December 2010, we  noted the mounting evidence in the case against the safe use of neonicotinoid pesticides, and specifically their relationship to what’s now a six-year outbreak of colony collapse disorder. Over that time, one-third or more of U.S. honey bee colonies have been wiped out.

Now more evidence, in the form of two studies from French and British researchers, have arisen for pesticide makers to dispute, just as they did initial claims. In the New York Times, Carl Zimmer writes (“2 Studies Point to Common Pesticide as a Culprit in Declining Bee Colonies“) that the findings indicate the chemical may “fog” bees’ brains, and also impair the production of new queens.

In both studies, bees were fed traces of neonicotinoids in their sugar water. In the French study, some ten to thirty percent of bees became disoriented and were unable to find their way back to the hive. Computer modeling indicates that this rate of bee-blindness would lead to colony collapse. Skeptics are all, “Computers! What do they know?”

In the British study, using bumblebees, the hives “exposed to neonicotinoids produced 85 percent fewer queens,” summarizes Zimmer, which seems a clear enough finding.

Bayer CropScience took a little time off from “promoting bee health” to dispute the findings, claiming that the dosage was excessive, but a new Harvard study contradicts them. Reports Scientific American (“Common Pesticide Implicated Bee Colony Collapse Disorder“): “The authors of the Harvard-based paper tried a variety of doses (ranging from 20 micrograms of insecticide per kilogram of corn syrup to 200 micrograms), all of which led to colony deaths.”

This allows me the opportunity to quote Dutch toxicologist Henk Tennekes again, who must be feeling sadly vindicated:

Neonicotinoid insecticides act by causing virtually irreversible blockage of postsynaptic nicotinergic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the central nervous system of insects. The damage is cumulative, and with every exposure more receptors are blocked. In fact, there may not be a safe level of exposure.

The EPA lists the European countries that have already taken action in banning neonicotinoids. It does not list the news from, say, Italy, that a bounceback in bee population was seen almost immediately.

UPDATE: The Coalition Against Bayer Dangers wrote in with news on “protests and countermotions on this issue at Bayer´s upcoming shareholder meeting in Cologne.” They make reference to several studies of interest on neonicotinoids, including UN Environment Program (UNEP) report that warned:

Various studies revealed the high toxicity of chemicals such as Imidacloprid, Clothianidin, Thiamethoxam and associated ingredients for animals such as cats, fish, rats, rabbits, birds and earthworms. Laboratory studies have shown that such chemicals can cause losses of sense of direction, impair memory and brain metabolism, and cause mortality.