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Cape commercial bee farmers experienced a devastating revenue loss after thousands of bees were infected by a poison that left their hives ravaged. Many farmers initially did not know the cause, but tests carried out on bee samples revealed ant pesticides, lethally poisonous to bees, to be the culprit.
When Susan Weller traveled to Ecuador to study tiger moths in the 1980s, she found plenty of insects. A decade later, Weller, now director of the University of Nebraska State Museum, returned to conduct follow-up research. But the moths she was looking for were gone.
Use of glyphosate, a weed killer registered in 130 countries, has risen exponentially since the introduction of genetically engineered (GE) glyphosate-resistant crops. Between 1974 — the year glyphosate entered the U.S. market — and 2014, glyphosate use increased more than 250fold in the U.S. alone. Today, an estimated 300 million pounds are applied on U.S. farmland annually.
Wasps may buzz, sting us and annoy us, but they’re far more useful than we realise. A new study in Ecological Entomology reveals both the overwhelmingly negative public perception of wasps and also their importance. Among the benefits is wasps’ pollination of flowers, helping Britain’s wildlife to blossom and supporting biodiversity.
Herbalists talk a lot about their favourite medicines, menstrua and methods, but it is my unsolicited opinion that herbal honey doesn’t get near the attention it deserves. Over the last couple of months Jennifer Aikman has made medicinal herbal honeys with red elderflower, grand fir tips, nettles, wild rose, linden, lavender & yarrow, grindelia and pineapple weed.
France will take a radical step towards protecting its dwindling bee population on Saturday by becoming the first country in Europe to ban all five pesticides researchers believe are killing off the insects. The move to ban the five so-called neonicotinoids has been hailed by beekeepers and environmentalists.
The Trump administration has reversed an Obama administration ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically modified crops on national wildlife refuges where farming is permitted, threatening pollinators like bees and butterflies along with a suite of other wildlife species that depend on healthy, natural refuge habitats.
Corn and soybean seeds colored red and blue, respectively, have become an all-too-common sight on U.S. farms. The seeds are given a colorful hue because they’ve been treated with neonicotinoid pesticides, and the coloring is one of the only ways to tell them apart from their untreated, yellow counterparts.
Every winter, Minnesota beekeeper Steve Ellis visits California with his hives to pollinate almond trees. But starting about a decade ago, he began to see a sharp uptick in annual hive losses, both among his bees and those of most beekeepers he knew.
"What changed in 2006 is the United States started allowing massive amounts of systemic insecticides to be used on crops," Ellis said. "From a pollinator's perspective, they're a nightmare."
A beekeeping cooperative in northern France has filed a legal complaint against German chemicals giant Bayer after traces of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate were detected in batches of honey, officials said Friday. The weedkiller, introduced by the US agro-giant Monsanto under the Roundup brand name, is the most widely used in France, where President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to outlaw it by 2021.
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