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Largest-ever study of controversial pesticides finds harm to bees
- kortex 9y agoAmerican farming practices are a perfect storm of detriments to the honey bee. Widespread use of pesticides is, of course, directly bad. The monoculture of crops also exacerbates the accumulation of pesticides, since bees get a smaller variety of food. And due to the heavily managed style of beekeeping, hives are closer together and are inhibited from swarming, leading to even more propagation of Varroa mites.
- flavor8 9y ago> hives are closer together and are inhibited from swarming Can you expand on this? I've been thinking about getting a hive and coincidentally was wondering about this earlier today -- can you let a hive swarm without losing it? I.e. does a spritely new queen take half the hive with her? Is it healthier for the hive to do so?
- threesixandnine 9y agoIf you have some trees around the hives the swarm will usually hang there for a few hours so it is entirely possible to catch it. These swarms are the best since they are ready to build new home and they build really really fast if you catch them and put them into new hive. What is left in the old hive are half of the bees and new queen. Now about hive health. There is this thing called Varroa and if you let the hive swarm half of it goes with the swarm and the other half stays. Varroa I mean. What is really good with swarming is that the hive now has a virgin queen and she doesn't lay eggs right away and a lot of Varroa dies off because they can't reproduce. They need eggs and bee larvae to do so. The swarm with old queen has an interruption as well because they need to build comb and cells where the queen lays eggs. In my beekeeping years ago I kept hives healthy ( fight against Varroa ) entirely with letting them swarm. Just to write it once again since by your writing I think you are confused...Old queen leaves with the swarm.
- luhn 9y agoTo clarify the parent comment, Varroa is a parasite that lives on honey bees and can spread diseases harmful to the bees. It's one of the suggested causes of colony collapse disorder.
- tptacek 9y agoThey also eradicated feral honeybees several decades ago (all honeybees in the US are alien to the continent; almost all today are livestock, not wildlife).
- bjelkeman-again 9y agoWe manually spilt hives and get the same effect, without the swarming and worried neighbours and hunting down the swarm.
- threesixandnine 9y agoOne of the ways is to manually split indeed. Although I must say that natural swarms show greater vigor when building new comb than splits. Even packaged bees built faster than splits. That is of course my experience and you have to keep in consideration that I didn't add any foundation to new colonies so that was maybe one of the reasons. I let them build their own comb on a narrow strip in the frame/top bar and never tried with full foundation.
- shostack 9y agoHow do you catch a swarm?
- pygy_ 9y agoYou make it fall into a box. Shake the branch they are resting on, or brush them off until they fall. You cant tell if the queen made it into the box depending on the behavior of the workers already in there. If you missed it, goto step 1.
- pasbesoin 9y agoDuring yesterday's evening walk past a corn field, it occurred to me that the impending roboticization (?) of farming may enable synergistic multiple plant fields/plantings on a large scale. What was the old (apocryphal, or not?) Native American combination: Corn, squash, and beans? (I'm just going by memory, as I was yesterday evening while walking.) We may be on the edge of a new wave of a more organic farming, on a mass scale. Using plant communities and synergies to reduce or need for the more simplistic, mass application of chemicals. Without even getting into all the genetic engineering and the like that is sure, however you feel about it, to continue.
- tda 9y agoI have also had that idea. Instead of giant machines only capable of harvesting monocultures, couldn't we downscale to small, autonomous vehicles that can farm efficiently on a vegetable garden at scale. Many cheap drones to farm the way our ancestors did using manual labour
- taneq 9y agoThere's a few indie projects out there now that automate veggie-patch-scale farming. They more often use a large pick-and-place type system than a small rover, though. (Example: FarmBot https://farmbot.io/ https://farmbot.io/ )
- hvidgaard 9y agoThat would be quite the change. In fact, it could enable many people to produce a lot on their own land, because they don't have to spend all the time doing it.
- pvaldes 9y agoThe sound is a problem in this plan. Bees are very sensitive to vibration. They would probably desert any cultured place with drones working continously. Can be avoided if you schedule the drone work, but must be adressed.
- frozenport 9y agoExcept that American farmers pioneered long haul transport of bees. In many ways its due to American farmers that the bees even exist.
- eru 9y agoThat the bees even exist so widespread in America, yes. There had been more competing pollinators.
- frozenport 9y agoFurther the trees that they polinate are "old world" plants: The almond is a species of tree native to the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa. The narrative that somehow pesticides are bad because they unatural is disingenuous as it forgets that every part of this system is artificial.
- tptacek 9y agoAmerican farming practices are, as a sibling comment of this one says, really the only reason there are large numbers of honey bees in America. Honey bees aren't a native species, and feral honey bees were eradicated from North America ~20 years ago by the Varroa destructor mite.
- kerkeslager 9y agoYour parent comment cited two specific cases of farming practices that harm bees, and you're responding with the general case of all combined farming practices. Why not go even more general and note that, whatever benefits farming might provide to bees clearly aren't enough in the context of all factors, because bee populations are in decline. I'm sure you can find specific farming practices that are beneficial to bees, but I don't think you can make a good faith argument that i.e. pesticides are the reason there are large numbers of bees.
- tptacek 9y agoI think I'm trying to say, talking about how farming practices have harmed American honey bees is a little like talking about how farming practices have harmed dairy cows.
- kerkeslager 9y agoI get what you're saying, and what you're saying is factual, it's just not useful information. Pesticides at least are a clear cause of hive collapse, and lumping pesticide use in with the larger monolith of "farming practices" only serves to obfuscate the problem. No one is arguing that we should throw out all of modern farming practices, so there's no need to jump to their defense.
- simonsarris 9y agoFunded by Bayer and Syngenta. The extremely cynical interpretation is that Bayer patented the first neonic in 1985 and the major one (Imidacloprid) is now off-patent. Bayer would probably love it to be banned, so that everyone has to switch to some newer, less tested, more patent protected discovery of theirs.
- tstactplsignore 9y agoIt's a cute story, but Bayer has disputed the results of this study, still disagrees that their pesticides impact bee populations, and shows no signs of phasing out sales as far as I know.
- undersuit 9y ago>still disagrees that their pesticides impact bee populations I know that you are using the word pesticide, but the insecticide is question... would kill insects like bees?
- Forge36 9y agoIt would be a convenient Discovery. It sounds like it would also confirm they knew of harm, per another another poster they are disputing the outcome of the study. I don't they have a replacement lined up
- rgrieselhuber 9y agoThis is one area where the scientific method feels like a subpar approach to deciding policy. I'll grant that it's likely better than the alternative in most cases but man does it create some really dangerous blind spots.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoThe EU temporarily banned the chemical four years ago on the precautionary principle. I like this approach: the harm done by not being able to use these pesticides for a while, were they to turn out to not be harmful, would surely be outweighed by the risk of further harming the ecosystem.
- nisa 9y agoThis approach was also under attack while negotiating TTIP and other trade agreements. Ironically it was badmouthed as unscientific - as if it's better to throw any new heavily patented chemical on the market and let science figure out reliably that it's problematic - something that can take up to 20 years if it's with possible at all with enough scientific rigor - of course public research can't get any details due to patents and trade secrets - also ecosystems are not exactly easy to replicate in the lab.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago>of course public research can't get any details due to patents and trade secrets // Not sure about other jurisdictions but UK patent law allows an invention to be worked for research purposes. Presumably companies don't get licenses to produce chemicals for widespread release to the environment without disclosure of the details, so trade secrets shouldn't be a problem?
- singularity2001 9y agoGood, now can they confirm/publish that pesticides cause harm to HUMANS?
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago“pesticides” covers a broad range of substances. Which do you mean?
- YellowCode 9y agoGlyphosate specifically
- DannyBee 9y agoErrr, you mean "study whether" not "confirm/publish", since that would be assuming the conclusion. There are, in fact, pesticides that have no effect on humans. (and in fact, sadly, some of the things people think are "natural alternatives" are much worse for humans, like copper sulfate)
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- notadoc 9y agoWe need to hear all sides of this debate before coming to any conclusions. It's probably time to inject as much political vitriol into this as possible, and pretend to debate this controversial 'study' and so-called 'science' for another several decades at a minimum to really verify the science. If the bees aren't politicized and ranted against by talking heads, politicians, and cable TV pundits, how will we ever know what to think of them? Bees are for wimps, pollinating is part of the study thumping pro-science evidence based agenda!
- kartan 9y agoSadly your irony it's too close to the current reality of science. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14680497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14680497 [The US government is removing scientific data from the Internet]
- sctb 9y agoCould you please not troll like this on Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- exabrial 9y agoI think one important thing to point out here is this is a _insecticide_ study, not an _herbicide_ study, because they're very very different things. That being said, I'd like to see the results replicated independently. As there article points out, there are a bunch of asterisks in the claims... and a lot of conflicting conclusions. EDIT: Use the correct term pointed out to me
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoHerbicides are a subset of pesticides. (I know, I used to think “pesticide” meant it killed creatures, but plants are also pests.)
- exabrial 9y agoYep, you are indeed correct. The correct comment should be: This article is about a specific class of insecticide, not a herbicides. Coincidently, I learned that Neonicotinoids means 'chemically similar to nicotine', I thought that was a coincidence at first.
- evincarofautumn 9y agoA lot of “compounds of interest” such as nicotine, opium latex, and capsaicin evolved as part of the natural defense mechanisms of plants against insects and herbivores.
- ipsin 9y agoSo "nicotinoids" means "chemically similar to nicotine", and... "neo-" means new. Some of the literature refers to nicotinoids and some to neonicotinoids. What I haven't been able to figure out is if there was essentially a "second wave" of nicotinoids that someone -- a scientist or marketer -- figured was deserving of the "neo-" prefix.
- dEnigma 9y agoOne random, uneducated guess from me: Maybe the "neo-" prefix is only for those that don't show up in nature, so they have to be produced in labs, and are thus "new" to the environment?
- jfoutz 9y agoLosing bees would suck so bad. Lots of plants co evolved, requiring pollinators. Orchids are the weirdest, with special moths unique to them [1]. But so much stuff depends on bees. A whole bunch of kinds of fruit trees, different kinds of beans, even celery. Hand pollination is possible, of course, but that seems like such a pita. Perhaps it's possible to automate. We have a perfectly good, self optimizing system that constantly moves to optimality. If we could just lighten up a little, not push quite so hard, or even just do localized trials of intensive use pesticides and fertilizers, we could find a balance of what the system can support. Either go slow and look for local optimizations that are then distributed widely, or engineer immunity, or both. Ugh. I guess if it was easy, it wouldn't be a problem.
- theoh 9y agoThere's no science that says any part of the Earth-human system "constantly moves to optimality". Like, literally any part. It's an out-of-control rollercoaster that we may or may not be able to steward to our liking. "optimality" is a human construct.
- drdeca 9y agoI think steward/stewardship was a good choice of word on your part there
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- nnfy 9y agoI agree, and would extend that to the earth system in general. The universe does not care for good, bad, optimal, or suboptimal; the universe simply is.
- unityByFreedom 9y agoDarwin might disagree. Perhaps you can say evolution is accidental, without intention. Quite a happy accident in my opinion.
- alliao 9y agohttp://www.scienceinfo.news/monsanto-unveils-neonicotinoid-pesticide-resistant-transgenic-bee/ http://www.scienceinfo.news/monsanto-unveils-neonicotinoid-p... the last paragraph is rather enlightening...
- joecool1029 9y agoTime to bring back DDT. It was banned for misinformed reasons without any evidence to show that accumulation contributed to cancer or anything else nasty in mammals.[1] Neonics are reported to be 5,000-10,000 more toxic to bees. [2] A 5 minute walk in fields around me will lead to at least 3 ticks latching on. We're now facing the Lone Star tick that causes a life threatening meat allergy (wtf) and Lyme's disease. I've also personally reported one of the first cases of West Nile virus in this state from a found dead bird. Now there's Zika, which seems great for humans. Oh and we can't forget the re-proliferation of bed bugs as well. But yeah, we should keep trusting the newer classes of pesticides that don't work as well and haven't been studied as thoroughly. [1]https://junkscience.com/1999/07/100-things-you-should-know-about-ddt/ https://junkscience.com/1999/07/100-things-you-should-know-a... [2]http://www.tfsp.info/findings/harm/ http://www.tfsp.info/findings/harm/
- vvanders 9y agoDDT was brutal on the bird population. My father worked with state DNR to bring back the Bald Eagle population after DDT decimated it due to the soft eggshells it caused.
- mschuster91 9y agoSo basically we (as humanity) have three choices: 1) use neonicotinoid pesticides and killing off the bees 2) use DDT and kill off birds + danger to mammals 3) revert back to more traditional agriculture, and risk not being able to feed people Basically, we're choosing between different evils :/
- joecool1029 9y ago>2) use DDT and kill off birds + danger to mammals No danger to mammals, kill some birds (the hawk/eagle shell thinning was a lie[1], does kill some songbirds in high doses but I guess so does Teflon stoves), kills far less helpful insects. It's the only one out of the three options where you don't risk killing hundreds of millions of people with disease and/or famine. [1]http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
- nl 9y agoNote that the new HONEST act is designed to stop the EPA being able to act in studies like this because the environmental data can't be independently reproduced. See https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/how-to-gut-the-epa-in-the-name-of-honesty/519462/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/how-to-g... and various other coverage.
- epmaybe 9y agoSo for any researcher using environmental data, would they need to involve the EPA in it for them to take action on the results in the future?
- ComputerGuru 9y agoDon't you love the cozy, feel-good names politicians attach to horrible legislature?
- yoodenvranx 9y agoThis is straight from 1984 double-speak
- sundvor 9y agoYep. Especially when something encompassing FULLOFSHI initially and ending with a T would be far more apt if not appropriate.
- SDQAGUY 9y agohere is the problem I have with the way it was done before this bill was passed: The EPA was allowed to used scientific research that was not publically available for review. This seems contrary to everything I have been taughgt about critical thinking and the scientific method of research Am I wrong?
- sitkack 9y agoReproducible is different from "available for review." The purpose of the bill was most likely for any corp to cast doubt on a finding, and/or pay for shill-scientists to not be able to reproduce it, giving reason to incapacitate the EPA. I think the EPA should be allowed to err on the side of caution. Their job should be to regulate chemicals and practices for the protection of the environment. It isn't mistake to prevent a company from harming the env. I'd like the logic to be inverted; Everything that interacts with the environment should be guilty until proven benign. Default to deny. As we get more technologically advanced, the number of mistakes that can only-happen-once is ever increasing.
- moomin 9y agoIs smoking tobacco harmful to your health? Is lead in petrol poisoning children? Is the earth heating up due to mankind's actions? Are bees being harmed by pesticides? Seems like all these things have answers that, being honest, we all knew the answer to long before the question was "settled". But there was an awful lot of money to be made prolonging the ambiguity.
- skybrian 9y agoYes, keeping people confused about the science is an industry tactic. However, saying "we all knew the answer" is just hindsight bias, not real knowledge. Respect the science, don't pretend it didn't need to be done.
- taneq 9y agoYeah, it was necessary to have solid proof, but really? Insecticide is harmful to insects? This was in doubt? Reallllly?
- skybrian 9y agoIf you're curious about what's going on in the world, yes, you will be curious about whether insecticides affect all insects, and how much they're affected. (After all, there are many different species.)
- taneq 9y agoI didn't mean to imply that we shouldn't test the assumption. I just meant that it's not unreasonable to expect that a broad-spectrum insecticide family would have a good chance of affecting any given insect type.
- panarky 9y agoSee also "Merchants of Doubt" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt_(film)
- whiddershins 9y ago
- giardini 9y agoWhoaaa! see "Do Neonics Hurt Bees? Researchers and the Media Say Yes. The Data Do Not. " at http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/06/the_data_do_not_support_the_idea_that_neonics_hurt_bees.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... wherein they state: "One problem: The data in the paper (and hundreds of pages of supporting data not included but available in background form to reporters) do not support that bold conclusion. No, there is no consensus evidence that neonics are “slowly killing bees.” No, this study did not add to the evidence that neonics are driving bee health problems." ... "But based on the study’s data, the headline could just as easily have read: “Landmark Study Shows Neonic Pesticides Improve Bee Health”—and it would have been equally correct."
- dredmorbius 9y agoFunny, I was just going to mention my good friend Jon Entine as someone to watch out for. Thanks for providing the hook. Jon Entine is a media-savvy corporate propagandist and pseudo-journalist who fronts the opinions and positions of chemical corporations by pretending to be an independent journalist. He has ties to biotech companies Monsanto and Syngenta while playing a key role in another industry front group known as the American Council on Science and Health, a thinly-veiled corporate front group that Sourcewatch describes as holding “a generally apologetic stance regarding virtually every other health and environmental hazard produced by modern industry, accepting corporate funding from Coca-Cola, Kellogg, General Mills, Pepsico, and the American Beverage Association, among others.” http://www.propagandists.org/propagandists/jon-entine/ http://www.propagandists.org/propagandists/jon-entine/ That Slate are engaged with a special partnership with Entine's propaganda mill speaks exceedingly poorly of Slate. Specific to the Slate article, Entine claims that bee populations aren't dying. The supporting link is to an article that states ... bee populations are dying, and where they aren't dying and leaving corpses behind, they are simply vanishing without a trace. Sadly for Mr. Entine's argument, neither death nor disappearance makes for a health bee colony. He's attempting to mislead, misdirect, and language-lawyer his way around a point. He fails. I've encountered him previously. Ironically, if his propagandistic techniques weren't so over-the-top self-parodying, he might have snuck past my bullshit filter. https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/1LmnHGHi7yS https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/1LmnHGHi...
- gerdesj 9y ago"Although the study found that neonicotinoids have an overall negative effect on bees, the results aren’t completely clear-cut: the pesticides seemed to harm bees at the UK and Hungarian sites, but apparently had a positive effect on honeybees in Germany. Pywell notes that the German effects were “short lived”, and the reason for them is unclear. They might be linked in part to the generally healthier state of hives in the German arm of the trial, he speculates" Bollocks! Neonics harm bees because that is what they are designed to do - break insects. I'm not an expert but there have been rather a lot of articles in New Scientist describing "confused" bees relating to neonics over the last few years.
- dredmorbius 9y agoThe data say what they do, and the article seems to reflect this. Threshold and compound effects are not unknown in science. Though given a comment on funding sources (Bayer and Sygenta -- formerly Zeneca), some skepticism may be warranted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684161
- tptacek 9y agoHere's WaPo on why you want to read more than just the headline on this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/06/29/controversial-pesticides-may-threaten-queen-bees-alternatives-could-be-worse/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...
- ajarmst 9y agoDid anyone ever assert that neonicotinoids were harmless to bees? I thought the questions were about whether the harm was sustainable at an effective level of use, whether (and how quickly) bee populations (and which species) could adapt to their presence, whether harm to pollinators could be mitigated by changes in the way we use these pesticides. The harm also had to be compared to the benefit of their use (generally in terms of improvements in crop yield and quality). An ideal environment for pollinators has to be measured in terms of the requirement to feed a population of human beings that has doubled in my lifetime, and like it or not, pesticides and other chemicals are part of that. The reason neonicotinoids were originally attractive was reduced toxicity to mammals and birds, so it's not a no-brainer to replace them with something else.
- quickben 9y agoAs far as I remember the story from many years ago: FDA panel found the link, they recommended stopping the chemical. The head of FDA pocketed the research/recommendation in his desk until "further". It was half a billion dollar industry of which that guy got a piece of the money through some channel. Net result: USA had to import bees from Australia. EU banned the set of chemicals My grandfather, after 50 years of bee keeping lost half of the swarms, until we figured out what's happening and what's killing them. Lobbying shoduld be made illegal.
- tptacek 9y ago"US had to import bees from Australia"? They're not a native species. All US honey bees are "imported".
- scott_karana 9y agoImporting because of a recent mass wipeout is different than using descendants of previous imports.
- tptacek 9y agoWithout stipulating that this actually happened --- that bee farmers today are relying entirely on Australian imports --- you're still begging the question. Why? What difference does it make?
- brookside 9y agoBeads?
- andy_ppp 9y agoPesticides harm your brain too apparently: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-report-eu-pesticide-link-brain-damage-lower-iq-billions-of-pounds-lost-organic-food-a7771056.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-report-...
- tudorw 9y agoOrganophosphates are very nasty indeed, if you look at research into those with large exposures, farmers, sheep dipping in particular; http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/calls-hillsborough-style-inquiry-sheep-dip-9118546 http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/calls-hillsboro... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/uk-government-criticised-for-ongoing-delay-in-farm-poisoning-case-sheep-dipping https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/uk-gover... or this; "The present findings suggest OP pesticides are more harmful than previously thought, even at low levels of exposure." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3042861/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3042861/ Then there is the Gulf War Syndrome which has been associated to high levels of insecticide use; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1319191/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1319191/ and this more recently, 'Pesticides: an update of human exposure and toxicity' " A huge body of evidence exists on the possible role of pesticide exposures in the elevated incidence of human diseases such as cancers, Alzheimer, Parkinson, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, asthma, bronchitis, infertility, birth defects, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, diabetes, and obesity. Most of the disorders are induced by insecticides and herbicides most notably organophosphorus, organochlorines, phenoxyacetic acids, and triazine compounds." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-016-1849-x https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-016-1849-...
- tudorw 9y ago" In summary, young children may be especially vulnerable to pesticides because of the sensitivity of their developing organ systems combined with a limited ability to enzymatically detoxify these chemicals (13,123,126-131). According to the National Academy of Sciences (13), children's OP exposures are of special concern because "exposure to neurotoxic compounds at levels believed to be safe for adults could result in permanent loss of brain function if it occurred during the prenatal and early childhood period of brain development" (13). Because there is so little information available on the levels and routes of children's pesticide exposure, it is not feasible to conduct a risk assessment predicting the likelihood of adverse effects based on animal studies. Thus far, there are no data in children to support or refute the hypothesized health effects of chronic low-level pesticide exposure." https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.files/fileID/12739 https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/di... "We conclude that PT and PO are genotoxic, while DF shows mitogenic activity. An important finding of this study is that PT had higher genotoxic potential than PO, which warrants for further investigations to correctly evaluate the hazards of exposure to these chemicals." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18418871 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18418871 "Collectively, our results implicate gluconeogenesis as the key mechanism behind organophosphate-induced hyperglycemia, mediated by the organophosphate-degrading potential of gut microbiota. This study reveals the gut microbiome-mediated diabetogenic nature of organophosphates and hence that the usage of these insecticides should be reconsidered." https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-016-1134-6 https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13...
- mdns33 9y agoyes we can automate, replace bees with robots. yes. we are the greatest.
- jondubois 9y agoIt must be painful to pay 3+ million for a study which ends up doing you a disservice. I wonder if these researchers will be able to find work outside of academia in the future now that other corporations know that they can't be corrupted.
- rullelito 9y agoWouldn't this be a good challenge for evolution?
- Akonkagva2 9y agoSounds like perfect Monstanto, destroy the ecosystem, kill bees, get loads of money.... Bet this was planned long way before this research was done. Surely, folks in the industry understand from A/B outcomes same as we do understand IT. Our kids might get slightly worse earth ecosystem then we have now.
- beloch 9y agoThis is actually good news. Colony collapse disorder has been a pretty mysterious problem up until now. Identifying a possible cause gives us a chance to stop it. This might not even require legislation. Now that farmers are aware of the link many will choose to reduce or stop using neonicotinoids entirely. If they don't do this voluntarily, they may be forced to do so by commercial beekeepers. Many farms rely on commercial beekeepers who they hire to transport bee hives to their fields when pollination is required. These beekeepers may simply refuse to hire out their bees to farms using neonicotinoid pesticides. It threatens their livelihood directly after all. This is certainly bad news for neonicotinoid producers, at least in the short term. It's possible that neonicotinoids are not the problem and that reducing their use will do nothing to stop CCD. However, it seems inevitable that this is something that will be tried. We can only hope that the alternatives that farmers choose don't turn out to be even worse for bees.
- dubyah 9y agoIt's still more ambiguous than stated given the differing results per country(both positive and negative) and they didn't control for fungicide use. We clustered sites into triplets (>3.2 km between sites) and randomly allocated sites to one of three treatments: (i) clothianidin applied at 11.86 to 18.05 grams of active ingredient per hectare (g a.i. ha−1) with a fungicide (thriam and prochloraz) and nonsystemic pyrethroid (beta-cyfluthrin) (trade name Modesto); (ii) thiamethoxam applied at 10.07 to 11.14 g a.i. ha−1 and combined with the fungicides fludioxonil and metalaxyl-M (trade name Cruiser); and (iii) control OSR receiving a commercial fungicide (thriam and dimethomorph in Germany and Hungary and thriam and prochloraz in the United Kingdom) but no neonicotinoid seed treatment. Fungicides may have synergistic effects when used with pesticides. [0][1][2] The other study, "Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids reduces honey bee health near corn crops" is a bit more credible. Corn is a non-uniform seed and more apt to ablate the seed coat and generate significant dust issues, hence Canada's regulation to for seed lubrication. Ground persistence and mobility make setting up adjacent pollinator refuge sites a potential source of neonicotinoids in addition to the irrigated surface water. That corn is wind pollinated and only provides a nutrient poor pollen kind of exacerbates that, I think. Contrast that with western Canada where CCD hasn't been observed in canola regions, canola seed is uniform and canola provides both nutritious pollen and nectar. I still don't think an outright ban at this point is the right choice especially given the limited alternatives and research into those alternatives. Organophosphates are significantly worse for both humans and bees. Pyrethrins aren't exactly safe for bees either, with both being broad-spectrum insecticides and requiring more frequent application via foliar spraying. Even IPM guidelines for a pest like the flea beetle rank several types of neonicotinoids above using pyrethrins[3]. There really aren't any easy solutions but, reevaluating the use of prophylactic seed treatment should be worth a consideration. [0]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ps.4449/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ps.4449/abstract [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558502/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558502/ [2]: http://lib.gig.ac.cn/local/ejournal/ETC/ETC1996/1504/ETC-1996-15(4)-525-534.pdf http://lib.gig.ac.cn/local/ejournal/ETC/ETC1996/1504/ETC-199... [3]: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r783301411.html http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r783301411.html
- daveheq 9y agoThis is just a hoax by bee scientists trying to get rich off our tax dollars. We need to do the patriotic thing and cut their funding and give it to the rich.
- dEnigma 9y agoThe sad thing about our world today is that I actually thought you were serious until I read the very play part of your comment ("for the rich")
- sctb 9y agoPlease don't violate the guidelines by trolling like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tomelders 9y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anything in the commenting guidelines about this. It's still a pointless comment that would be better suited to Reddit. But it's not in contravention of the guidelines as far as I can tell.
- sctb 9y agoIt doesn't pass this: > Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity. and sidles up to this: > Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
- NickM 9y agoReminds me of this excellent Radiolab episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/what-dollar-value-nature/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/what-dollar-value-nature/ Even people who care nothing for the irreplaceable beauty of nature ought to consider how much measurable economic value we risk destroying in the name of short-term profits. Of course (as the podcast explores) it's a complicated equation, but still a very compelling one.
- Cardiologist 9y agoShit, it's as if insecticides harm insects like bees!