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Texas Gardening

Insecticides and collapse of honey bee colonies

roselee z8b S.W. Texas

10 years ago

With the gardening season well underway it's good to be aware of how dangerous insecticides are to honey bees.

Summary: "Two widely used neonicotinoids -- a class of insecticide -- appear to significantly harm honey bee colonies over the winter, particularly during colder winters, according to researchers.

"The study replicated a 2012 finding from the same research group that found a link between imidacloprid and Colony Collapse Disorder, in which bees abandon their hives over the winter and eventually die. The new study found low doses of a second neonicotinoid, clothianidin, had the same negative effect. ...

"Since 2006, there have been significant losses of honey bees from CCD. Pinpointing the cause is crucial to mitigating this problem since bees are prime pollinators of roughly one-third of all crops worldwide."

Sevin is also one of the worst insecticides to use as honey bees carry it back to the hives on their feet and it kills their larvae. I used to use it indiscriminately, even dusting the dogs with it for fleas.

Here is a link that might be useful: Whole article ...

Featured Answer

mittenstate

9 years ago

I would love to see more of an effort directed toward the use of pesticides by the general public. Labels are clearly marked about toxicity to bees but people often don't read labels. Please see the research by Dr. Potter, University of Kentucky. It appears that there are multitude factors for Colony Collapse. Proper use of pesticides when flowers are present is key.

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Comments (6)

mrs.wiggley
10 years ago
Thanks for posting this. We have to find ways to work without chemicals as much as possible. Part of the issue is that chem companies, in some cases, are very much financially tied into educational institutions. And then there are aggressive practices directed at farmers (as has been found with companies like Monsanto). I think smaller localized farming is one answer though hardly appropriate to all situations. And we can certainly do our part by providing chemical free zones within our tiny parcels of real estate while enhancing these micro- habitats for wildlife as well as for ourselves..
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Seems likely, but don't count other options out just yet. Earlier in the year the media was claiming a new cause every other week.
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Hi, Anne, this is the exact same disease that Dr. Amrine had already mentioned and which I too discussed in my thread about Sevin. The bee scientists are already aware of this disease...Several states are not afflicted with Nosema Ceranae such as Kansas. Also Nosema Ceranae is a very, very recent disease (2005 in a few places in Europe) and starting in 2006 in the U.S.). It does not explain the decades long decline of the bees in the U.S. Sevin has been around for 50 years, before that DDT. I have already called up the State Department on this. but for everyone here on this forum we do have to also consider that Sevin is already known likewise to decimate bee colonies where it has been applied in agricultural areas. These are separate incidences and are not to be confused. What I like about the article you found is that Nocema Ceranae is curable...Pesticide poisoning is not. According to Dr. Amrine, in a recent treatment he had undertaken, 6 out of 10 hives were saved from Nosema Ceranae in a particular bee yard. Anything that helps our bees, disease control, ceasing Sevin, having flowers and food for our bees is important and is not to be ignored. Again, I would urge that yes, Nosema Ceranae can cause honeybee collapse, but so can Sevin as well.
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I was about to chlorinate my pool today when I saw a few bees taking water to spray on their hive nearby to cool it off. It was then I realized that chlorinated pools could be a possible cause of colony collapse disorder. I put the chlorine back in the storage room instead of pouring some into the pool, and decided that I'm only going to chlorinate my pool very lightly, and only at night so the chlorine has a lot of time to dissipate before it gets hot out and the bees show up to get water. A little chlorinated pool water might not do much harm to a hive, but if the bees repeatedly spray the hive with varying concentrations of chlorinated water, over time the hive will likely collapse and nobody would know what happened. Somebody ought to look into this - are hives collapsing in warmer zones faster than cooler zones? Perhaps the effects of chlorine happen gradually over time, and weaken the colonies a little bit more each generation as the effects of chlorine accumulate. Cooler zones would not provide immunity to CCD because of the migratory (swarming) behavior of bees. Eventually colonies in the cooler zones would collapse, but it would start several generations later than in the warmer zones. If chlorinated pool water is indeed the root cause of CCD, it would stand to reason that bees in the hottest parts of the country - where more people have pools - would be hit the hardest and fastest with CCD. My family had a few hundred hives in Chino Hills, CA while I was growing up, I was raised with bees, and I love them. I hope we can stop CCD in time. It sure would be nice if it was something as simple as pool chlorine.
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Not that I enjoy being (bee-ing?) a party pooper - and I really do care about the problems these animals are having nation wide (not just here in NC), but honeybees are an introduced species, they came here with the early settlers, they are native to Europe. There are no native honeybees in the US (I believe throughout the new world but I could be wrong). The introduction of this insect has had an effect on native wildlife and not all of it has been for the good. We need them for our food production and they are important but they aren't saints or holier-than-thou. I would much rather see a return of native pollinators.
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loreleicomal
9 years ago
And now there are some studies saying the neonicotinoids may not be as bad as they thought. I went to a presentation by a beekeeper and he was of the philosophy that 1) the colony loss is mostly for commercial producers and 2) the reason they're suffering is that they use monoculture plantings. He said that yes, bees want mass plantings but for his bees he'll have mass plantings of each plant of about a 4x4' square. Who knows?
roselee z8b S.W. Texas
Original Author
9 years ago
Bumble bees are also affected, not to speak of the decrease in Monarch butterfly population, This is one way a few farmers are attempting to help them:

Can returning farm land to the wild help bumble bees in crisis?
loreleicomal
9 years ago
The beekeeper that spoke to our group said bumble bees actually produce very little honey (which I didn't know at all) but that all bees are, of course, good pollinators. We just need to do what we can to protect this planet!
roselee z8b S.W. Texas
Original Author
9 years ago
Research showing bees are hooked on nicotine ...

"Even worse, we now have evidence that bees prefer to eat pesticide-contaminated food. Neonicotinoids target the same mechanisms in the bee brain that are affected by nicotine in the human brain. The fact that bees show a preference for food containing neonicotinoids is concerning as it suggests that like nicotine, neonicotinoids may act like a drug to make foods containing these substances more rewarding. "If foraging bees prefer to collect nectar containing neonicotinoids, this could have a knock-on negative impact on whole colonies and on bee populations."

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