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Post by clone on Oct 7, 2010 13:39:14 GMT -8
The army Culprits identified in worldwide honeybee die-off Thu Oct 7, 12:21 pm ET As reported by Kirk Johnson of the New York Times, a somewhat odd pairing of entomologists and military scientists has pinpointed likely culprits: a fungus and a virus, both of which flourish in cool, wet environments. While scientists aren't certain, they believe the fungus and virus work together to hamper the insect's digestive system. Each is relatively harmless on its own, Johnson says, but their combination is deadly... The findings by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana are outlined in a paper published by the Public Library of Science's PLoS One. news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101007/od_yblog_upshot/culprit-identified-in-massive-worldwide-hon eybee-die-off
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Post by clone on Oct 22, 2010 22:41:35 GMT -8
What If The Disappearance of the Bees is Caused By... beepassionate -- February 04, 2008 www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_XnvZAcM0UThis video points out that the neonicotinoids developed and sold by Bayer Crop Science are highly suspicious in the disappearance of the bees. It gives the brand names of neonicotinoids. COMMENTS: Bayer - the company that KNOWINGLY distributed HIV tainted blood to europe and killed many people. research Monsanto's "BT Corn" - GMO plant produces pollen that is a poison to the insects that eat this GMO corn plant ...
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Post by clone on Dec 15, 2010 12:21:29 GMT -8
Wik-Bee Leaks: EPA Document Shows It Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees Fri Dec 10, 2010 The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and farmers who know how critical bee pollination is for many crops. A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists. The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a pesticide produced by Bayer that mainly is used to pre-treat corn seeds. The pesticide scooped up $262 million in sales in 2009 by farmers, who also use the substance on canola, soy, sugar beets, sunflowers, and wheat, according to Grist www.grist.org/article/food-2010-12-10-leaked-documents-show-epa-allowed-bee-toxic-pesticide-The leaked document www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Memo_Nov2010_Clothianidin.pdf (PDF, 101pp) was put out in response to Bayer's request to approve use of the pesticide on cotton and mustard. The document invalidates a prior Bayer study that justified the registration of clothianidin on the basis of its safety to honeybees: www.fastcompany.com/1708896/wiki-bee-leaks-epa-document-reveals-agency-knowingly-allowed-use-of-bee-toxic-pesticide
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Post by clone on Aug 2, 2011 1:15:18 GMT -8
Pesticides in Thrace threatening bee populations Sunday, July 24, 2011 ISTANBUL - Daily News with wires The Tekirdağ region west of Istanbul provides one-third of Turkey’s sunflower production but pesticides used to protect the crop have become a serious threat to honeybees whose lives depend on pollen from the plants, said Professor Muhsin Doğaroğlu, a retired professor from Trakya University whose focus is apiculture. The type of pesticide used on sunflowers has been banned by the Agriculture Ministry, Doğaroğlu said, but added that the effects of its past use would continue to be felt for years to come. www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=pesticides-in-thrace-threatening-bee-populations-2011-07-24
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Post by clone on Aug 2, 2011 1:28:42 GMT -8
Exclusive: Bees facing a poisoned spring New kind of pesticide, widely used in UK, may be helping to kill off the world's honeybees Thursday, 20 January 2011 A new generation of pesticides is making honeybees far more susceptible to disease, even at tiny doses, and may be a clue to the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has devastated bees across the world, the US government's leading bee researcher has found. Yet the discovery has remained unpublished for nearly two years since it was made by the US Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory... Bayer, the German chemicals giant which developed the insecticides and makes most of them, insists that they are safe for bees if used properly, but they have already been widely linked to bee mortality. The US findings raise questions about the substance used in the bee lab's experiment, imidacloprid, which was Bayer's top-selling insecticide in 2009, earning the company £510m. The worry is that neonicotinoids, which are neurotoxins – that is, they attack the central nervous system – are also "systemic", meaning they are taken up into every part of the plant which is treated with them, including the pollen and nectar. www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/exclusive-bees-facing-a-poisoned-spring-2189267.html
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Post by clone on Nov 26, 2011 11:06:31 GMT -8
Big Six Pesticide Manufacturers to Face Human Rights Tribunal Monday, November 21, 2011 Beginning on December 3, 2011, some major international chemical companies will be facing a public tribunal dealing with their well-documented and systemic human rights abuses that have occurred all over the world. The tribunal is not legally binding as it is not being administered by any governmental body. However, it will serve to shed light upon the egregious assault on human health and economic independence by the major chemical corporations. The public trial will be directed by The Permanent People’s Tribunal, an organization that has held human rights tribunals in the past dealing with issues as diverse as Tibet, the Armenian Genocide, and the United States intervention in Nicaragua. www.activistpost.com/2011/11/big-six-pesticide-manufacturers-to-face.htmlPermanent People’s Tribunal Session on Agrochemical Transnational Corporations www.agricorporateaccountability.net/en/page/general/17the “Big 6,” – Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, and BASF, - control 74 percent of the global pesticide market
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Post by clone on Nov 29, 2011 9:23:24 GMT -8
Book Review: The War on Bugs by Will Allen by: Jill Richardson Sat Jan 30, 2010 at 12:36:39 PM PST I just finished reading The War on Bugs www.indiebound.org/book/9781933392462 by Will Allen (not the Will Allen of Growing Power - a different Will Allen) and I can't recommend it highly enough! This was a book that Allen was uniquely qualified to write. He grew up on a farm, and then went into the Marines where he was an atomic, biological, and chemical warfare paramedic. Following his years in the Marines, he went to college and - as part of his education - did research in the tropical forests of Peru, living among forest farmers. He says, "The ability of these [Peruvian] farmers to produce surpluses without chemicals in an environment ravaged by pests started me thinking that maybe the miracle chemicals that the sales men pushed were not so necessary after all." After college, Allen went back to farming. Upon taking a pesticide and fertilizer applicator's course at a local college, he found out that the chemicals commonly sprayed on farms were "modified versions of the nerve poisons and antipersonnel weapons that I learned about when studying chemical warfare in the Marine Corps." So - with his firsthand observations of food grown without chemicals and his knowledge of the toxicity of common farm chemicals - Allen went to work finding out where our dependence and trust of pesticides came from in the first place. His findings actually surprised me. I knew part of the picture, which I wrote about in my own book. I don't think my book was inaccurate, but Allen fills in a lot of details and really makes it clear what happened and how. More: www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/3180/book-review-the-war-on-bugs-by-will-allen
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Post by cornsoy neonics on Jan 8, 2012 6:46:48 GMT -8
Bee Involved! by Michael Robin Haggie, Agricultural Wildlife Ecologist Summer 2011 Consider these: Dwindling Disease, Disappearing Disease, French Bee Syndrome, Varroatosis, Acarapidosis, Invertebrate Iridescent Virus type 6, Nosematosis, Chalkbrood, Aspergillusmykosis, Spiroplasms, European Foulbrood, American Foulbrood, Septosis, Rickettsiosis, Acute Paralysis Virus, Israel Acute Paralysis Virus, Chronic Paralysis Virus, Egypt Bee Virus, Deformed Wing Virus, genetic deficiencies, amoebic infestations, dysentary, septicemia, Stonebrood, Acute Bee Paralysis, Acarine disease, Bee Parasitic Mite Syndrome (1*), wax moth, small hive beetle, as well as problems arising from bears, raccoons, skunks, mice and vandals (Homo sapiens) damaging hives. These are all diseases or problems of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. Have you heard of even half of these? You probably have not if you are not an apiarist. Well, sadly, honey bees have and reading this list it seems a wonder that there are any honey bees around at all. Any one of these topics is a science unto itself, which brings me to one more disease that has been in the news of late, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This disease occurs when the worker bees (all females by the way) fail to return to the hive and is more prevalent in commercial hives. While some of the aforementioned bee diseases and problems can exhibit symptoms akin to CCD, others may interact and produce synergistic effects, leading to similar results. Recent USDA research, in 2010, has concluded that co-factors, a virus and a fungus, were present in 100% of the collapsed colonies studied. (2*) Another USDA report states that “…based on an initial analysis of collected bee samples (CCD- and non-CCD affected), reports have noted the high number of viruses and other pathogens, pesticides, and parasites present in CCD colonies, and lower levels in non-CCD colonies. This work suggests that a combination of environmental stress factors may set off a cascade of events and contribute to a colony where weakened worker bees are more susceptible to pests and pathogens and consequently fail to return to the hive.” (3*) (As a yardstick, hive losses in the 1950’s averaged around 10% whereas in 2010 they were 34%. Commercial hives may be higher.) (10*) Thus the likelihood is that CCD is caused by a number of interactive factors (6, 7 & 8*), which may vary with geography. This leads me to French Bee Syndrome, which has linked CCD to an agricultural insecticide, a seed treatment currently being used on most commercial field corn across the United States, and increasingly so on soybeans. Three insecticides are primarily used in agricultural seed treatment and they all belong to a group known as the neonicotinoids, or neonics for short. As the name implies, they are a synthetic derivative of the natural insecticide nicotine, which is very toxic. This may or may not be the cause of CCD but the use of neonics has been suspended in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia; but not in the United States. In what I have read, this insecticide group produces a specific problem, apart from CCD. It is on this matter alone that I wish to dwell exclusively, since CCD is far too complex a topic for me to speculate upon; since even experienced researchers, far beyond my humble capabilities, have yet to come up with a final answer. In scientific research it is very hard to tease apart a definitive cause especially where several suspected agents may be interacting to produce similar symptoms. In 2009 the CCD Working Group qualified 61 variables of CCD and “no single causal agent” was found. (4, 5 & 10*) First allow me to introduce the neonicotinoids to you, amongst which are Imidacloprid (common name: Gaucho), Acetamiprid (common name: Assail), Clothianidin (common name: Poncho), and Thiamethoxam (common name: Cruiser). They were first used in the U.S. starting in the early 1990’s and were being widely used by the early 2000’s. more: www.cheswildlife.org/newsletters/Summer_2011.pdf
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Post by clone on Mar 31, 2012 23:03:18 GMT -8
Studies show how pesticides make bees lose their way LONDON | Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:42pm BST uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-science-pesticides-bees-idUKBRE82S12P20120329(Reuters) - Scientists have discovered ways in which even low doses of widely used pesticides can harm bumblebees and honeybees, interfering with their homing abilities and making them lose their way. In two studies published in the journal Science on Thursday, British and French researchers looked at bees and neonicotinoid insecticides - a class introduced in the 1990s now among the most commonly used crop pesticides in the world. * In the first of the Science studies, a University of Stirling team exposed developing colonies of bumblebees to low levels of a neonicotinoid called imidacloprid, and then placed the colonies in an enclosed field site where the bees could fly around collecting pollen under natural conditions for six weeks. * "So far, they (the procedures) mostly require manufacturers to ensure that doses encountered on the field do not kill bees, but they basically ignore the consequences of doses that do not kill them but may cause behavioral difficulties," he said in a statement.
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Post by corn on Apr 6, 2012 19:46:07 GMT -8
Corn Insecticide Linked to Great Die-Off of Beneficial Honeybees ScienceDaily (Mar. 14, 2012) — New research has linked springtime die-offs of honeybees critical for pollinating food crops -- part of the mysterious malady called colony collapse disorder -- with technology for planting corn coated with insecticides. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120314170511.htm
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Post by corn on Apr 6, 2012 19:53:12 GMT -8
Controversy Deepens Over Pesticides and Bee Collapse - April 6, 2012 “It’s very difficult to test for this particular chemical in high-fructose corn syrup. A lot of labs have spent lots of time trying to do it, but high-fructose corn syrup is a very sticky, dense matrix that basically gums up the testing machines,” said Benbrook. “That’s why relatively little is known about imidacloprid in high-fructose corn syrup.” www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/neonicotinoids-colony-collapse/
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Post by studies on Apr 7, 2012 6:11:07 GMT -8
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Post by noticer on May 15, 2012 18:59:59 GMT -8
Every time the Bayer bee story starts to get big, there's a major good news medical story about aspirin (cancer, coronary heart disease...). It happens all the time. SUMMARY OF PETITION Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 7 U.S.C. §136 et seq., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates pesticide use in the United States. In violation of FIFRA, EPA continues to permit the sale and use of clothianidin, a neonicotinoid pesticide, for which EPA is lacking a pollinator field study the agency required eight years ago as a condition of clothianidin’s registration and as necessary to support the required “no unreasonable environmental effects” determination.1 In short, EPA has violated its own conditional registration procedures for obtaining outstanding data. That legal defect is at the heart of this Petition. www.panna.org/sites/default/files/CFS-Clothianidin-Petition-3-20-12.pdf
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Post by beelogics on May 30, 2012 18:50:53 GMT -8
Blamed for Bee Collapse, Monsanto Buys Leading Bee Research Firm April 19, 2012 Monsanto, the massive biotechnology company being blamed for contributing to the dwindling bee population, has bought up one of the leading bee collapse research organizations. Recently banned from Poland naturalsociety.com/poland-ban-monsantos-genetically-modified-maize/ with one of the primary reasons being that the company’s genetically modified corn may be devastating the dying bee population, it is evident that Monsanto is under serious fire for their role in the downfall of the vital insects. It is therefore quite apparent why Monsanto bought one of the largest bee research firms on the planet. It can be found in public company reports hosted on mainstream media that Monsanto scooped up the Beeologics firm back in September 2011. During this time the correlation between Monsanto’s GM crops and the bee decline was not explored in the mainstream, and in fact it was hardly touched upon until Polish officials addressed the serious concern amid the monumental ban. Owning a major organization that focuses heavily on the bee collapse and is recognized by the USDA for their mission statement of “restoring bee health and protecting the future of insect pollination” could be very advantageous for Monsanto. more: naturalsociety.com/monsanto-bee-collapse-buys-bee-research-firm/The Fox (Monsanto) Buys the Chicken Coop (Beeologics) - 05/ 3/2012 11:51 am www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-schiffman/the-fox-monsanto-buys-the_b_1470878.html
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Post by LAB on Aug 1, 2012 9:22:23 GMT -8
A widely used bee antibiotic may harm rather than help - November 2, 2011 The researchers, led by David Hawthorne of University of Maryland, pre-treated healthy honey bees with the antibiotic oxytetracycline, and then exposed the bees to two pesticides that are commonly used in bee hives to control parasitic varroa mites. In both cases, the pre-treated bees were much more sensitive to pesticide exposure than were bees that had not been treated. phys.org/news/2011-11-widely-bee-antibiotic.htmlLactic Acid Bacteria from honeybees: food and medical applicationsIn 2005 Tobias Olofsson and Alejandra Vásquez discovered that a large battery of beneficial bacteria resides within honeybees in a structure called honey crop. The honey crop is the organ where honeybees collect nectar for honey production. The discovery of novel Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) within honeybees and their honey have started a new research at Lund University and it extends to three different research areas www.med.lu.se/labmedlund/medical_microbiology/research/alejandra_vasquezBees have antibiotics (eek!) - Friday, January 26, 2007 you could be getting antibiotics via your honey greenfertility.blogspot.ca/2007/01/bees-have-antibiotics-eek.htmlThe honey crop (also called the honey stomach) is where the worker bee stores collected nectar for the trip back to the hive without digesting it. A muscular valve called the proventriculus can be closed, keeping the nectar from passing into the stomach. The crop is expandable, allowing the bee to carry a larger load. Back in the hive, the contents of the crop can be ejected back through the mouth for storage in a honey cell or to feed other bees by trophallaxis. www.aragriculture.org/insects/bees/anatomy_honeybee.htm#cropThe Secrets of Honey Revealed - 2012-06-15 19:30 EST [Tobias Olofsson, Microbiologist]: ”We made this discovery. Honey actually contains millions of beneficial lactic acid bacteria that none have ever seen before. They live in symbiosis together with the honeybee in their honey stomach. They are used by the honeybee to protect their nectar that is becoming honey. It also used to protect themselves and their larva from diseases. It’s a big part of the immune system of the honeybee.” ntdtv.org/en/news/world/europe/2012-06-15/the-secrets-of-honey-revealed.html
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