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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.
Health Canada is sticking with its proposal to phase out most outdoor and agricultural uses of a common pesticide. The recommendation comes the same day as more than 200 scientists published an open letter asking international governments to develop agreements to not use so-called neonicotinoids and to prevent similarly harmful pesticides to be developed and used in the future.
“From a robotics point of view, we’re always trying to find solutions to the urgent problems in the world,” says Yu Gu, an engineering professor at the university who is working on the design of the robot, called the BrambleBee. Around three-quarters of food plants rely at least in part on pollinators, and pollinators are struggling.
“If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.” - Dr. David Goulson, Sussex University, UK
Victory for bees in Europe! As reported in the Guardian, the world’s most widely used insecticides will be banned from all fields in the E.U. within six months to protect both wild and commercially raised honeybees that are vital to crop pollination.
The neonicotinoid insecticides now banned in the E.U are sold by Bayer and Syngenta and used by Monsanto to coat its genetically engineered seeds. They are the cause of the massive bee die-offs that commercial beekeepers in the U.S. reported this year—and every year since 2006.
Scientific studies have long linked their use to the decline of honeybees, wild bees and other pollinators. The move represents a major extension of existing restrictions, in place since 2013.
Manufacturers and some farming groups have opposed the move, saying the science remains uncertain.
The vote was widely praised by the many environmental advocates who have spent years fighting for an outright ban on the use of neonics—a position that has been met with protests from major agricultural groups and lobbyists for pesticide manufacturers.
"Authorizing neonicotinoids during a quarter of a century was a mistake and led to an environmental disaster. Today's vote is historic," declared Martin Dermine of Pesticide Action Network Europe.
When we observe animals pollinating nearly 90 percent of the plant species found on earth, we are witnessing a process more than 250 million years in the making. Sexual reproduction among plants, from a botanical standpoint, is nothing more than the transfer of pollen grains from a flower’s male anthers to a flower’s female stigmas, enabling fertilization. Once transferred, pollen grains germinate, grow pollen tubes into the plant’s ovaries, and deliver gametes to produce seed and endosperm.
Some Wisconsin beekeepers are reporting high losses of bees this winter.
Kent Pegorsch, president of the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association, said 2017 was a difficult year for controlling varroa mites, a parasite that infests hives and kills off developing bees.
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