Articles

    Op-Ed Contributor

    By JONATHAN DAVID FARLEY
    Published: June 30, 2008

    Correction Appended

    Pasadena, Calif.

    BEE by BEE

    IN the closing months of 2006, thousands of American bee hives were found to be almost entirely devoid of bees, victims of a mysterious phenomenon now known as colony collapse disorder. A study of 150,000 managed bee colonies in 15 states, commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America, found that from September 2006 to March 2007, roughly one-third of the colonies were lost.

    Bee keepers have suffered similar unexplained losses in the past, and not all of the hives in the survey were lost to whatever is causing colony collapse. But people are understandably worried that the disorder may threaten all three million managed bee colonies in the United States, a $14.6 billion commercial pollination business. So it is urgent that scientists figure out what is causing the colonies to disappear and how many more colonies stand to vanish.

    Many scientists have suggested that some kind of virus or bacterium — or some combination of infectious agents, possibly carried by parasites like mites — is killing the bees. One way to find out if the culprit really is a contagion (as opposed to an environmental threat like pesticides or some other unknown factor), and to gauge its potential strength, is to look closer at the information we have by using a mathematical model, similar to those used to assess human epidemics.

    For example, there is a model that was used in 2003 to figure out whether severe acute respiratory syndrome could be brought under control. Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s School of Public Health, used a statistical method to determine the “reproductive ratio,” the expected number of people the average sick person would infect. If this number is larger than one, the illness will spread.

    Professor Lipsitch found that each person with SARS would infect, on average, three other people. So in order to force the reproductive ratio below one, at least two-thirds of these infections needed to be blocked — mainly by isolating people who had been in contact with SARS victims.

    A similar model can perhaps be used to study colony collapse disorder. Using the data from the inspectors’ survey, we can assume that one-third of 150,000 colonies die off over the course of six months. Supposing that during the same time the number of infected but not yet collapsed colonies declines (as it would if the most destructive phase of the problem is behind us), then using standard equations that govern epidemics we can conclude that we must have started with at least 10,000 infected (but not yet collapsed) colonies.

    If we knew the true number of healthy colonies at the beginning of the six months, as well as the probabilities that an exposed colony will become sick and that a sick colony will die in a given amount of time, we could also calculate the number expected to die in the future. Since we don’t know those quantities, we must do the calculation for every possible set of values.

    What we find is that of the original 150,000 colonies, the number of those that will eventually succumb to colony collapse is never higher than 110,000. So if colony collapse is in fact caused by some sort of contagion, a significant proportion of colonies will survive the outbreak. If it turns out that far more colonies are lost, it will be evidence that something is wrong with our model: perhaps it is too crude, perhaps we need better data, or perhaps a contagion is not responsible for colony collapse disorder after all.

    Our mathematical model could make more accurate predictions if it could take into account interactions between different colonies. More detailed information about the location and movements of individual colonies would enable us to use more sophisticated modeling to get a clearer picture of how colony collapse takes its toll. We might be able to work out the rate of transmission, the probability that an infected colony will die, when the outbreak actually began and when it might end.

    The more accurate our predictions, the more clearly we will be able to see the task ahead. Scientists may be able to zero in on the possible contagious cause of colony collapse. Bee experts could then assess quarantine strategies.

    Our first priority should be to gather more accurate information about the bees’ disappearance. The war against colony collapse is about numbers.

    Jonathan David Farley is a visiting professor of mathematics at the California Institute of Technology.

    This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

    Correction: July 9, 2008
    An Op-Ed article on June 30, about using mathematical models to understand bee colony collapse disorder, rendered the author’s title incompletely. Jonathan David Farley is a visiting professor of mathematics at the California Institute of Technology.


    Related

    Times Topics: Gardens and Gardening

    Come Hither, Bumblebee, and Pollinate

    MY native black cherry tree is covered with little white flowers, and if the bees and other pollinators do their job, I’ll have plenty of sweet black cherries by midsummer.


    Rob Cardillo for The New York Times

    TEMPTING A Korean spicebush attracts some pollinators, but not as many as the native plants at the author’s farm.

    My Korean spicebushes (Viburnum carlesii) are also in full bloom, their clusters of pinkish-white flowers filling the air with the heady scent of cinnamon and honey. But it’s striking how few bees are sipping nectar from these Asian shrubs compared with my native redbud and sassafras trees, which are literally vibrating with pollinators.

    It bears out the research that Gordon Frankie, an entomologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has begun in gardens around that city, where he and his students have surveyed 1,000 different plants, both native and nonnative.

    “Only 50 were native plants, but of that 50, 80 percent were attractive to pollinators,” Professor Frankie said. “In contrast, only 10 percent of the 950 nonnatives were attractive to pollinators.”

    My spicebushes don’t seem to be among those pollinator favorites, but I would never trade them, or my Asian lilacs and peonies, for natives. So I am adding native plants wherever I can to feed the pollinators — in particular the native bees, because there are so many different species, and far fewer nonnative ones, like the European honeybee (Apis mellifera), which doesn’t seem to be much in evidence around my old farm in Maryland these days.

    Douglas W. Tallamy, an ecologist at the University of Delaware, and the author of “Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens” (Timber Press, 2007), inspired my new plantings. “We have 4,000 species of native bees in North America,” Mr. Tallamy said. “If we gave them food — flowering native plants — and a place to build their nests, they would be able to take up the slack from decreasing honeybee populations.”

    While some native bees are particular about the plants they like, about half are generalists, scientists say, which explains why I see native bumblebees and mason bees on my pear tree, an Asian plant. And why my unmown yard is abuzz with pollinators, from tiny wasps and flies to solitary native bees, nuzzling the dandelions (transglobal weeds), violets (found throughout the temperate world) and clover (largely European).

    So don’t be too quick to mow. Those so-called weeds are important sources of food for pollinators, which need protein and sugar to build up their populations. We need to keep feeding them from early spring to hard frost if we want vigorous, well-pollinated plants.

    Crops like tomatoes, peas and beans are self-pollinating, but they still have to be shaken by the wind or bees to release the pollen inside the flowers. Bumblebees and a few other native bees are able to vibrate the flower — something a European honeybee cannot do — shaking pollen from the stamens to the stigma, where it fertilizes the ovules that will become seeds inside a pod (think snap peas or green beans!) or fruit (juicy tomatoes! strawberries!). These bees also travel from flower to flower, cross-pollinating, which improves the vigor of plants and the size of that tomato.

    Other crops like the cucurbits — melons, cucumbers and squash — are entirely dependent on pollinators for fertilization, because they have separate male and female flowers.

    Both honeybees and natives do an excellent job of pollinating such plants when they are around, but all these pollinators are in serious decline from many stressors, and scientists suspect that habitat loss is key.

    David Salman, the founder and chief horticulturist at High Country Gardens, a mail-order nursery in Santa Fe, N.M., said he has noticed a big decrease in pollinators as the fields of wildflowers around his greenhouses have been developed.

    “I’m not getting the seed production I used to, because I’m physically cut off from pollinators,” he said. “I am excited beyond words about this resurgence in home food production, but the big thing left out of the equation is bringing pollinators into these gardens, particularly in urban areas.”

    Take two aspirin and call me in the morning

    August 4th, 2009 by admin

    Bayer makes baby aspirins (which are supposedly bad for infants) and also gives headaches to bees.

    Bayer has global sales of $45 billion and owns a subsidiary called Bayer CropScience AG that manufactures herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides as well as treated seeds. CropScience alone does $8.8 billion in global sales that is about 20% of Bayer’s business.

    Poncho and Gaucho are some of the trade names that have caused strife to the bees.

    The EPA in a fact sheet issued 5/31/2003 has described Bayer’s Clothiantin, one of who’s trade names is Poncho® a pesticide from Bayer’s CropScience division, as follows: “ Poncho® is highly toxic to honey bees on an acute contact basis (LD50 > 0.0439 µg/bee). It has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of Poncho® residues in nectar and pollen. In honeybees, the effects of this toxic chronic exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal effects in the larvae and reproductive effects in the queen.”

    In May 2008 Germany banned the use of Poncho® when German beekeepers reported loosing over 50% of their hives after a Poncho® application was linked to the deaths of millions of bees in the Baden-Württemberg region. Bayer responded that the toxic effect was an isolated incident caused by an “extremely rare” application error. So Poncho® is banned in Germany where Bayer was founded in 1863 and has its global headquarters. After the “extremely rare” application error people started to link Poncho®with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

    So why does the EPA still allow the use of this insecticide in the US even though they described it in 2003 as “highly toxic to honeybees”? And why does the EPA still allow the use of this insecticide when its use has been banned in Germany where Bayer was founded 146 years ago, and has its global headquarters?

    Because this country doesn’t adhere to the Precautionary Principle. In other countries when there is a slight risk they err on the side of caution. Not in America. Money and Greed rules.

    The EPA issued a Press Release on 7/1/08 stating its position on the subject. They state, “EPA believes this incident in Baden-Württemberg is not related to CCD. Although pesticide exposure is one of four theoretical factors associated with CCD that the United States Department of Agriculture is researching, the facts in this case are not consistent with what is known about CCD.” So for this specific incident the EPA does not see a connection between Poncho® and CCD.

    Then in August 2008 the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit in federal court to force the EPA to disclose studies of the effect of  Poncho® on honey bees. They believe that the EPA has evidence of the link between CCD and pesticides, which it has not made public.

    Numerous theories have been floating around regarding the cause of CCD but none has been proven. Some of the challenges facing bee populations are: parasites such as Varroa mites, bacterial or fungal disease, commercialization and industrialization of beekeeping, pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, climate and more

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    Well I’ll Bee

    July 31st, 2009 by admin

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    Boot Bayer in the Butt

    July 9th, 2009 by admin

    The Guardian, July 7, 2009

    Pants to Poverty raises awareness of how endosulfan – a pesticide which is banned in the EU – harms farmers who supply cotton to make clothing

    At 1pm today, people in London and 15 countries worldwide swapped their old y-fronts, knickers and boxers for a free pair of organic cotton pants. But why the mass undies amnesty? Campaigners including Sam Roddick, the Pesticide Action Network, Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and Pants to Poverty are calling on punters to swap non-organic cotton pants for organic ones, in a bid to reduce pesticide use.

    The campaigners have a particular beef with endosulfan, a pesticide that’s banned in the EU, and which they claim can be found in trace elements in 8.68m “toxic pants” in the UK. That number comes from a new test of 1,000 pants by the lab Eclipse Scientific, which found traces of endosulfan in 1 in 50 pairs. For UK consumers, the levels of endosulfan finding their way into your underwear pose little danger to your intimate parts.

    The real danger is for the farmers directly exposed to the pesticides used in cotton farming – the EJF claims 20,000 agricultural workers are killed annually because of exposure to pesticides. Dr Mohana Kumar, chief doctor for the Padre district in India, has been compiling records of patients in his region showing symptoms that match endosulfan poisoning. Acute endosulfan poisoning can cause convulsions, psychiatric disturbances, epilepsy, paralysis, brain oedema, impaired memory and death. Long-term exposure is linked to immuno suppression, neurological disorders, congenital birth defects, chromosomal abnormalities, mental retardation, impaired learning and memory loss. Kumar says the “proof against endosulfan is comprehensive”. Endosulfan isn’t just bad news for people, as the US Environmental Protection Agency links it to “adverse effects” on the physical environment and wildlife.

    There are alternatives to using endosulfan as a pesticide for cotton – not just organic farming methods, but newer safer pesticides. The pants amnesty is calling on people to lobby Bayer Group, one of the biggest producers of endosulfan, to use such alternatives. Its preferred lobbying method is literally pants: it wants you to post your oldest pants to your local Bayer office, and ask them to drop endosulfan.

    Pants to Poverty, http://www.pantstopoverty.com/badpants/

    Campaign “Bad Pants”

    Since we began as part of Make Poverty History in 2005, we have been working to fight poverty in everything we do and have supported many campaigns with our pants flashes.  Now that we are 4, and we are working with a complete value chain right from cotton to bottom, we are launching a campaign that brings together our whole community – farmers, workers, retailers and consumers – around one issue:  to rid the world of bad pants.

    WHAT ARE BAD PANTS?

    To us, bad pants aren’t just those abominable things that the lurk in the back of our drawers and chaff our precious bits when they should be caressed and cuddled.  They are also the metaphor which describes some of the terrible things about the way that, in the worst cases, people are exploited and driven into poverty and despair.

    Infested with pesticides, these bad pants support a system that, according to the World Health Organization, lets over 20,000 farmers die and millions more suffer chronic diseases each year from pesticide poisoning.  Many of these deaths are very preventable and could be overcome by the actions of the communities if they were supported with Fairtrade and organic farming methods.

    BANNING KILLER PESTICIDES

    What most people don’t realise is that chemical pesticides simply aren’t necessary for most cotton farming.  In India,farmers have been cultivating cotton for thousands of years using traditional techniques.  Tragically though, although India is home to some of the most amazing natural pesticides like neem but these traditions have been pushed out in favour of these terrible pesticides.

    One of the worst pesticides is one called endosulfan.  It has been banned across 62 countries and thanks to the science that proves the case against this pesticide and the amazing work of organizations like Pesticide Action Network, the Environmental Justice Foundation and their many partners around the world, it is moving towards a global ban.  It has been proven to take lives, proven to damage the environment and now, it is proven to make farmers more money to move to organic!  (Download the fact sheet here).

    In India, in an area called Kasargod in Kerala, endosulfan was sprayed from the air for around 20 years.  This has left a terrible legacy of deformities, premature death and environmental destruction.  The videos here demonstrate just how horrific the issue is.

    OUR TARGET: BAYER CROP SCIENCE

    BAYER are the last remaining major global brand still producing and distributing this vile pesticide even though it is proven that farmers can Banned in Europe, this European company sell this primarily to the poorest countries in the world – including to many farmers in India where they dominate the pesticides market.

    We believe that this is wrong and that BAYER should live up to their responsibilities and support a global ban rather than fight it. 14 years ago, they also pledged to remove some of the most toxic pesticides from the Indian market.  And they still have not yet done that!

    SO, JOIN US AND SEND YOUR WORST PANTS TO BAYER TO GET THEM TO STOP PRODUCING AND DISTRIBUTING THIS VILE PESTICE. Click here for the fact sheet and the list of their offices.

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    What’s in the Air?

    July 9th, 2009 by admin

    Nearly 400 volatile and semivolatile organic chemicals found in the air inside beehives. Using funding from the National Honey Board and the Almond Board of California, bee samples from many bee operations were analyzed for a variety of chemicals that might cause bees to leave the hive. Compared to previous environmental results up through 2000, the most striking change was in the presence and levels of miticides, including both commercial acaracides and bee health products. The most common toxic chemical was paradichlorobenzene, a product used for wax moth control in the hive.

    –

    Colony Collapse Disorder Progress Report

    CCD Steering Committee

    June 2009


    Choose Organic

    July 9th, 2009 by admin

    Millions of health-minded Americans, especially parents of young children, now understand that cheap, non-organic, industrial food is hazardous. Not only does chemical and energy-intensive factory farming destroy the environment, impoverish rural communities, exploit farm workers, inflict unnecessary cruelty on farm animals, and contaminate the water supply; but the end product itself is inevitably contaminated. Routinely contained in nearly every bite or swallow of non-organic industrial food are pesticides, antibiotics and other animal drug residues, pathogens, feces, hormone disrupting chemicals, toxic sludge, slaughterhouse waste, genetically modified organisms, chemical additives and preservatives, irradiation-derived radiolytic chemical by-products, and a host of other hazardous allergens and toxins. Eighty million cases of food poisoning every year in the US, an impending swine/bird flu pandemic (directly attributable to factory farms), and an epidemic of food-related cancers, heart attacks, and obesity make for a compelling case for the Organic Alternative.

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    Point the finger at Yourself First and Foremost

    July 7th, 2009 by admin

    While systemics are indeed playing a role in CCD, it’s important to note that many beekeepers use chemicals in their own hives. These mix and synergize. One of the awful products used is Coumaphos a Bayer related product:

    Developing queens in colonies treated with as little as one coumaphos-impregnated strip for more than 24 h suffered a high mortality rate. Several of the queens showed sublethal effects from the coumaphos, including physical abnormalities and atypical behavior. The queens exposed to coumaphos weighed significantly less and had lower ovary weights than the control group queens.

    The highest coumaphos concentrations were observed in the queen cells and wax of the high-dose groups.

    Journal of Economic Entomology 95(1):28-35. 2002

    More recent information:

    The results of this study clearly show that coumaphos should not be used in colonies where drones are produced. Compared with controls and other miticide treatments sperm viability of drones exposed to coumaphos was significantly lower initially and continued the trend through the 6-wk sampling period. It is possible that extreme viability decreases observed in spermatozoa stored from coumaphos exposed drones could affect the performance of queens if mated with these drones. Queen performance could drastically decline 6 wk after insemination or mating, leading to queen failure, and thus partially explain the current problems associated with maintaining productive queens in colonies.


    Take two aspirin and call me in the morning

    August 4th, 2009 by admin

    Bayer makes baby aspirins (which are supposedly bad for infants) and also gives headaches to bees.

    Bayer has global sales of $45 billion and owns a subsidiary called Bayer CropScience AG that manufactures herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides as well as treated seeds. CropScience alone does $8.8 billion in global sales that is about 20% of Bayer’s business.

    Poncho and Gaucho are some of the trade names that have caused strife to the bees.

    The EPA in a fact sheet issued 5/31/2003 has described Bayer’s Clothiantin, one of who’s trade names is Poncho® a pesticide from Bayer’s CropScience division, as follows: “ Poncho® is highly toxic to honey bees on an acute contact basis (LD50 > 0.0439 µg/bee). It has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of Poncho® residues in nectar and pollen. In honeybees, the effects of this toxic chronic exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal effects in the larvae and reproductive effects in the queen.”

    In May 2008 Germany banned the use of Poncho® when German beekeepers reported loosing over 50% of their hives after a Poncho® application was linked to the deaths of millions of bees in the Baden-Württemberg region. Bayer responded that the toxic effect was an isolated incident caused by an “extremely rare” application error. So Poncho® is banned in Germany where Bayer was founded in 1863 and has its global headquarters. After the “extremely rare” application error people started to link Poncho®with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

    So why does the EPA still allow the use of this insecticide in the US even though they described it in 2003 as “highly toxic to honeybees”? And why does the EPA still allow the use of this insecticide when its use has been banned in Germany where Bayer was founded 146 years ago, and has its global headquarters?

    Because this country doesn’t adhere to the Precautionary Principle. In other countries when there is a slight risk they err on the side of caution. Not in America. Money and Greed rules.

    The EPA issued a Press Release on 7/1/08 stating its position on the subject. They state, “EPA believes this incident in Baden-Württemberg is not related to CCD. Although pesticide exposure is one of four theoretical factors associated with CCD that the United States Department of Agriculture is researching, the facts in this case are not consistent with what is known about CCD.” So for this specific incident the EPA does not see a connection between Poncho® and CCD.

    Then in August 2008 the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit in federal court to force the EPA to disclose studies of the effect of  Poncho® on honey bees. They believe that the EPA has evidence of the link between CCD and pesticides, which it has not made public.

    Numerous theories have been floating around regarding the cause of CCD but none has been proven. Some of the challenges facing bee populations are: parasites such as Varroa mites, bacterial or fungal disease, commercialization and industrialization of beekeeping, pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, climate and more

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    Well I’ll Bee

    July 31st, 2009 by admin

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    Boot Bayer in the Butt

    July 9th, 2009 by admin

    The Guardian, July 7, 2009

    Pants to Poverty raises awareness of how endosulfan – a pesticide which is banned in the EU – harms farmers who supply cotton to make clothing

    At 1pm today, people in London and 15 countries worldwide swapped their old y-fronts, knickers and boxers for a free pair of organic cotton pants. But why the mass undies amnesty? Campaigners including Sam Roddick, the Pesticide Action Network, Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and Pants to Poverty are calling on punters to swap non-organic cotton pants for organic ones, in a bid to reduce pesticide use.

    The campaigners have a particular beef with endosulfan, a pesticide that’s banned in the EU, and which they claim can be found in trace elements in 8.68m “toxic pants” in the UK. That number comes from a new test of 1,000 pants by the lab Eclipse Scientific, which found traces of endosulfan in 1 in 50 pairs. For UK consumers, the levels of endosulfan finding their way into your underwear pose little danger to your intimate parts.

    The real danger is for the farmers directly exposed to the pesticides used in cotton farming – the EJF claims 20,000 agricultural workers are killed annually because of exposure to pesticides. Dr Mohana Kumar, chief doctor for the Padre district in India, has been compiling records of patients in his region showing symptoms that match endosulfan poisoning. Acute endosulfan poisoning can cause convulsions, psychiatric disturbances, epilepsy, paralysis, brain oedema, impaired memory and death. Long-term exposure is linked to immuno suppression, neurological disorders, congenital birth defects, chromosomal abnormalities, mental retardation, impaired learning and memory loss. Kumar says the “proof against endosulfan is comprehensive”. Endosulfan isn’t just bad news for people, as the US Environmental Protection Agency links it to “adverse effects” on the physical environment and wildlife.

    There are alternatives to using endosulfan as a pesticide for cotton – not just organic farming methods, but newer safer pesticides. The pants amnesty is calling on people to lobby Bayer Group, one of the biggest producers of endosulfan, to use such alternatives. Its preferred lobbying method is literally pants: it wants you to post your oldest pants to your local Bayer office, and ask them to drop endosulfan.

    Pants to Poverty, http://www.pantstopoverty.com/badpants/

    Campaign “Bad Pants”

    Since we began as part of Make Poverty History in 2005, we have been working to fight poverty in everything we do and have supported many campaigns with our pants flashes.  Now that we are 4, and we are working with a complete value chain right from cotton to bottom, we are launching a campaign that brings together our whole community – farmers, workers, retailers and consumers – around one issue:  to rid the world of bad pants.

    WHAT ARE BAD PANTS?

    To us, bad pants aren’t just those abominable things that the lurk in the back of our drawers and chaff our precious bits when they should be caressed and cuddled.  They are also the metaphor which describes some of the terrible things about the way that, in the worst cases, people are exploited and driven into poverty and despair.

    Infested with pesticides, these bad pants support a system that, according to the World Health Organization, lets over 20,000 farmers die and millions more suffer chronic diseases each year from pesticide poisoning.  Many of these deaths are very preventable and could be overcome by the actions of the communities if they were supported with Fairtrade and organic farming methods.

    BANNING KILLER PESTICIDES

    What most people don’t realise is that chemical pesticides simply aren’t necessary for most cotton farming.  In India,farmers have been cultivating cotton for thousands of years using traditional techniques.  Tragically though, although India is home to some of the most amazing natural pesticides like neem but these traditions have been pushed out in favour of these terrible pesticides.

    One of the worst pesticides is one called endosulfan.  It has been banned across 62 countries and thanks to the science that proves the case against this pesticide and the amazing work of organizations like Pesticide Action Network, the Environmental Justice Foundation and their many partners around the world, it is moving towards a global ban.  It has been proven to take lives, proven to damage the environment and now, it is proven to make farmers more money to move to organic!  (Download the fact sheet here).

    In India, in an area called Kasargod in Kerala, endosulfan was sprayed from the air for around 20 years.  This has left a terrible legacy of deformities, premature death and environmental destruction.  The videos here demonstrate just how horrific the issue is.

    OUR TARGET: BAYER CROP SCIENCE

    BAYER are the last remaining major global brand still producing and distributing this vile pesticide even though it is proven that farmers can Banned in Europe, this European company sell this primarily to the poorest countries in the world – including to many farmers in India where they dominate the pesticides market.

    We believe that this is wrong and that BAYER should live up to their responsibilities and support a global ban rather than fight it. 14 years ago, they also pledged to remove some of the most toxic pesticides from the Indian market.  And they still have not yet done that!

    SO, JOIN US AND SEND YOUR WORST PANTS TO BAYER TO GET THEM TO STOP PRODUCING AND DISTRIBUTING THIS VILE PESTICE. Click here for the fact sheet and the list of their offices.

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    What’s in the Air?

    July 9th, 2009 by admin

    Nearly 400 volatile and semivolatile organic chemicals found in the air inside beehives. Using funding from the National Honey Board and the Almond Board of California, bee samples from many bee operations were analyzed for a variety of chemicals that might cause bees to leave the hive. Compared to previous environmental results up through 2000, the most striking change was in the presence and levels of miticides, including both commercial acaracides and bee health products. The most common toxic chemical was paradichlorobenzene, a product used for wax moth control in the hive.

    –

    Colony Collapse Disorder Progress Report

    CCD Steering Committee

    June 2009



    Original post by Maryam Henein

    Choose Organic

    July 9th, 2009 by admin

    Millions of health-minded Americans, especially parents of young children, now understand that cheap, non-organic, industrial food is hazardous. Not only does chemical and energy-intensive factory farming destroy the environment, impoverish rural communities, exploit farm workers, inflict unnecessary cruelty on farm animals, and contaminate the water supply; but the end product itself is inevitably contaminated. Routinely contained in nearly every bite or swallow of non-organic industrial food are pesticides, antibiotics and other animal drug residues, pathogens, feces, hormone disrupting chemicals, toxic sludge, slaughterhouse waste, genetically modified organisms, chemical additives and preservatives, irradiation-derived radiolytic chemical by-products, and a host of other hazardous allergens and toxins. Eighty million cases of food poisoning every year in the US, an impending swine/bird flu pandemic (directly attributable to factory farms), and an epidemic of food-related cancers, heart attacks, and obesity make for a compelling case for the Organic Alternative.

    Original post by Maryam Henein

    Point the finger at Yourself First and Foremost

    July 7th, 2009 by admin

    While systemics are indeed playing a role in CCD, it’s important to note that many beekeepers use chemicals in their own hives. These mix and synergize. One of the awful products used is Coumaphos a Bayer related product:

    Developing queens in colonies treated with as little as one coumaphos-impregnated strip for more than 24 h suffered a high mortality rate. Several of the queens showed sublethal effects from the coumaphos, including physical abnormalities and atypical behavior. The queens exposed to coumaphos weighed significantly less and had lower ovary weights than the control group queens.

    The highest coumaphos concentrations were observed in the queen cells and wax of the high-dose groups.

    Journal of Economic Entomology 95(1):28-35. 2002

    More recent information:

    The results of this study clearly show that coumaphos should not be used in colonies where drones are produced. Compared with controls and other miticide treatments sperm viability of drones exposed to coumaphos was significantly lower initially and continued the trend through the 6-wk sampling period. It is possible that extreme viability decreases observed in spermatozoa stored from coumaphos exposed drones could affect the performance of queens if mated with these drones. Queen performance could drastically decline 6 wk after insemination or mating, leading to queen failure, and thus partially explain the current problems associated with maintaining productive queens in colonies.



    Original post by Maryam Henein