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.
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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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Consumer advocacy groups across the country are fighting to ban certain pesticides they say are rapidly killing the nation’s honeybee population.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group is among the organizations lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, which are commonly used on crops.
Read moreThe world’s most widely used insecticides pose a serious danger to both honeybees and wild bees, according to a major new assessment from the European Union’s scientific risk assessors.
The conclusion, based on analysis of more than 1,500 studies, makes it highly likely that the neonicotinoid pesticides will be banned from all fields across the EU when nations vote on the issue next month.
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Use of controversial neonicotinoid insecticides (“neonics”) in agriculture is not as effective as once thought, and can be replaced by advantageous pest-management alternatives, according to a study published today in the Springer journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.
Read moreA Quebec class-action lawsuit against two producers of neonicotinoids — commonly used insecticides that have been linked to a declining population of honeybees — has been given the go-ahead to proceed to trial after by the Quebec Superior Court.
The Feb. 20 ruling comes as global scientific evidence against the use of neonicotinoids mounts: a study published on Feb. 25 in Environmental Science and Pollution Research concluded that the insecticides are, for the most part, useless and ineffective.
Read moreThe cause of the massive bee die-offs that commercial beekeepers reported this year—and every year since 2006— is no longer a mystery.
The neonicotinoid insecticides sold by Bayer and Syngenta, and used by Monsanto to coat their genetically engineered seeds, are killing pollinators.
TAKE ACTION BY MIDNIGHT FEBRUARY 20: Tell the EPA to Ban Neonics!
As Leonard Cohen famously sang, everybody knows.
Everybody, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), knows that neonicotinoid pesticides harm bees.
But here’s a part of the story you may have missed: Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta coat their GMO corn seeds with neonics, then charge farmers extra for them—even though studies show that neonic-coated seeds provide no real benefit to farmers.
Why do farmers pay extra for seeds that have no extra benefit? Because the biotech companies that have a monopoly on GMO seeds offer only neonic-coated seeds.
That’s not good for farmers. Or bees.
It’s also not good for humans, when neonics end up in our water and food.
Research published in early January 2018 has shown that — despite a partial ban on neonicotinoid insecticides instituted in 2014 — 25% of British honey is still contaminated with residue of these “potent, bee-killing” pesticides. The partial ban, which extended to flowering crops, such as oilseed rape (from which canola oil is made), was instituted by the European Union (EU) in response to evidence of serious threats to bee populations. Samples for this study came from beekeepers and were each from a single location.
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Common fungicides are the strongest factor linked to steep declines in bumblebees across the US, according to the first landscape-scale analysis. The surprising result has alarmed bee experts because fungicides are targeted at molds and mildews – not insects – but now appear to be a cause of major harm. How fungicides kill bees is now being studied, but is likely to be by making them more susceptible to the deadly nosema parasite or by exacerbating the toxicity of other pesticides.
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