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Page added on May 17, 2014
Rate of honey bee losses in the US ‘economically unsustainable’
Losses of managed honey bee colonies in the US totalled 23.2% last winter, according to a report by the US Department of agriculture.
The report, produced with industry group the Bee Informed Partnership, showed that the death rate for October 2013 to April of this year was better than the 30.5% losses for 2012 to 2013, but worse than the 21.9% in 2011 to 2012.
Prior surveys found colony losses averaged 29.6% over the last eight-year span.
Bee populations have been dying at a rate which the US government says is economically unsustainable. Honey bees pollinate plants that produce about a quarter of US consumer foods.
Scientists, consumer groups, and bee keepers say the devastating rate of bee deaths is due at least in part to the growing use of pesticides sold by agri-chemical companies to boost yields of staple crops such as corn.
They pointed to a study issued on May 9 by Harvard School of Public Health that found two widely used neonicotinoids — a class of insecticide — may significantly harm honey bee colonies over the winter.
“With the damning evidence mounting, pesticide companies can no longer spin their way out of this crisis,” said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer who specialises in food issues.
Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer, and other agrichemical companies say the bees are being killed by other factors, such as mites.
13 Comments on "Rate of honey bee losses in the US ‘economically unsustainable’"
Kenz300 on Sat, 17th May 2014 7:37 am
We are poisoning the environment that we all need to survive.
The bees are the canary in the coal mine for the human race.
It is time to reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture.
Makati1 on Sat, 17th May 2014 8:59 am
As go the bees, so goes the food chain.
GregT on Sat, 17th May 2014 9:43 am
Lots of theories, but no concrete proof as to what is happening to the bees. Mites were a problem even 20 years ago when I kept honey bees. CCD is not being caused by mites.
Beery on Sat, 17th May 2014 9:52 am
Wait. This article makes no sense. Honeybees cannot possibly be dying. What’s happening here is peak demand for honey, which is causing bees to commit suicide in the name of capitalism. There is no such thing as colony death because economic theory says it cannot occur unless market forces demand it. Clearly such a thing as widespread colony death benefits neither the producers nor the consumers of honey, so it is, by definition, not happening.
LA-LA-LA-LA-I’M-NOT-LISTENING-LA-LA-LA.
Plantagenet on Sat, 17th May 2014 10:38 am
@Beery
Honey bees are socialists, not capitalist. Obviously the bees are working themselves to death at slave wages to build the socialist state!
Norm on Sat, 17th May 2014 12:02 pm
The proof is already in. Who says no proof. Its neocontonid (sp?) insecticides made by the usual corporate monsters. The Oblah-blah administration is too much a bunch of bought-off socialist weenies to complain, and a repub administration would demand a production increase of the poisons, so their stocks will go up.
Closest parallel is the movie ‘idiocracy’ in which everybody is stupid and nobody has an I.Q. above maybe 80.
They are dumping soda-pop on their crop fields so the soda-pop company can make more money, even though it kills the plants. And everybody too stupid to do anything about it.
Feemer on Sat, 17th May 2014 12:04 pm
I did a research essay on the causes colony collapse disorder and its effects on the economy and environment. Pesticides are the main cause, but habitat loss and monoculture is another. For example, the huge almond plantations in California need millions of bees. Even though these aren’t sprayed (while flowering) the bees are only getting one kind of pollen. They need a diverse amount of pollen and sap from various plants just like we need a variety of different foods. SO plant flowers!
meld on Sat, 17th May 2014 12:17 pm
Bullish for new nanobees made by big agriculture to pollinate all your crops uniformly when those unreliable pathetic sick organic bees cant. Think I’m joking? someone somewhere is thinking it right now and seeing dollar signs.
Beery on Sat, 17th May 2014 12:21 pm
Oh great! Now we’ve got two folks claiming the Obama administration is the root of all evil. I agree we’re headed for Idiocracy – I just don’t think Norm and Planty are on the side of the intelligentsia.
And Obama is socialist in the same way that Reagan was a socialist. If Obama and his administration were socialist, we would have a single-payer healthcare system right now, rather than this half-baked corporate give-away abortion that the nutcases on the political right call Obamacare.
J-Gav on Sat, 17th May 2014 4:27 pm
I had quite a few of those little buggers buzzing around me today during an outing in Fontainebleau forest. Was quite pleased to see all those hives about 20 yards away. Forests are good places for them as there are no agri-pesticides nearby. Out in the country-side, they’re dying out here in France too so … they’re putting more and more hives in cities now – pollution? Yes, but much less pesticidal damage than out in ag-land (France being the N°1 user of pesticides in Europe)!
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sat, 17th May 2014 5:19 pm
Gav, I dropped a dead red oak tree this winter and a hive broke open. Of course I did not know the hive was there or I would not have cut it down. It was cold so the bees were not very active but they were still moving around. The honey was delicious.
Plantagenet on Sat, 17th May 2014 5:25 pm
@ Beery
1. Think about it—-honey bees are socialists—they live communally, their hives consist mostly of sexless obedient workers, and they are ruled by a “queen”…this is just like socialism which dreams of creating societies of brainwashed workers who live communally and are ruled over by an all-powerful “great leader” or “wise pilot” who stays in power for life before the socialists stuff and preserve him under glass for future generations to adulate.
2. You are wrong again in your nutty attacks on Obama and obamacare—Obama actually said he liked the name “obamacare”.
cheers!
Norm on Sun, 18th May 2014 3:54 am
If Obama wasn’t a weenie, he would shut down the pesticide companies making the poisons that kill the honeybees. which part of that don’t you understand? The republicans are the ones who OWN the pesticide companies and want their stocks to go up. So…. Obama is a weenie, the repubs cause the problem, Obama wont do anything about it. Does somebody not understand? ok everybody understands. class dismissed.