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Geraldine Wright
Several beekeepers and environmental groups unsuccessfully petitioned the EPA last year to restrict insecticides.
By Carey Gillam, Reuters
U.S. environmental regulators are failing to protect honeybees and their role in pollinating important food crops, and should immediately suspend use of some toxic insecticides tied to the widespread deaths of the bees, a lawsuit filed on Thursday charges.
"It is a catastrophe in progress," said migratory beekeeper Steve Ellis who maintains 2,000 bee hives for pollinating crops from Minnesota to California. "We have an ongoing problem that is worsening."
Orchard operators use bees to pollinate a variety of important U.S. crops, including almonds, cranberries, blueberries, avocados, apples, cherries, pears, and more. But over the last several years both the number of bees and the vitality of the bees has been in marked decline in the United States. Many studies have linked the prevalence of some new insecticides with the loss of the bees.
Several beekeepers and environmental groups unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last year to restrict the insecticides, saying the toxic impact on honey bees could threaten the future of beekeeping worldwide.
On Thursday four professional beekeepers and five environmental and consumer groups said they would try to get a court to order the EPA to take action. The groups filed their lawsuit against the EPA in the Northern District Court of California, demanding that the regulatory agency suspend the use of pesticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
The pesticides, which are part of a class of systemic insecticides known as neonicotinoids, are absorbed by plants and transported throughout a plant's vascular tissue, making the plant potentially toxic to insects, the groups said.
Clothianidin and thiamethoxam first came into heavy use in the mid-2000s, at the same time beekeepers started observing widespread cases of colony losses, leaving beekeepers unable to recoup their losses, they said.
"Beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that EPA needs to protect bees. The agency has refused, so we've been compelled to sue," said Peter Jenkins, a lawyer for the Center for Food Safety who is representing the coalition of plaintiffs.
The groups said they have obtained records that show several "legal violations" by EPA officials connected to the approvals for clothianidin and thiamethoxam products.
The case also challenges the EPA's use of "conditional registrations," which expedite the approval process for chemical companies seeking to bring new products to market. Since 2000, more than two-thirds of pesticide products, including clothianidin and thiamethoxam, have been brought to market as conditional registrations, the groups said.
The EPA said in a statement that it is trying to get a better understanding of the risks to honeybees and is working aggressively to protect bees from pesticide risks through a number of programs. It also is accelerating review of the neonicotinoid pesticides because of the bee concerns, it said.
The plaintiffs also include beekeeper Ellis of Old Mill Honey Co; Jim Doan of Doan Family Farms; Tom Theobald of Niwot Honey Farm; and Bill Rhodes of Bill Rhodes Honey and the groups Beyond Pesticides, the Center for Food Safety, the Pesticide Action Network North America, the Sierra Club and the Center for Environmental Health.
Companies Syngenta and Bayer are leading global producers of neonicotinoids, and say the harmful effects on bees are unproven. But in Europe, the European Commission recently proposed a ban of neonicotinoids on many crops after the EU's European Food Safety Authority said neonicotinoids posed an acute risk to honey bee health.
In the United States, such neonicotinoids are routinely used on more than 100 million acres of corn, wheat, soy and cotton and are in some home gardening products.
The plaintiff coalition said many beekeepers are reporting losses of over 50 percent this year and said the shortages have left many California almond growers without enough bees to effectively pollinate their trees.
Bees, along with birds, bats, butterflies, beetles and other small mammals, are involved in pollinating plants used for food and some species have seen a 90 percent decline in their populations over the last decade, according to the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, a collaboration of more than 120 organizations in the United States, Canada, and Mexico that promotes the role that pollinators play in food systems.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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If we lose all our bees, we're in deep chocolate as a society. Better to be safe than sorry on this one.
Honeybees add more than $20 billion per year (1998) to the crops that they pollinate. (in the US, more than $40 billion world wide.)
Using honeybees as mobile pollinators was first developed by Dr. Karmo and Dr. Vickery in 1951-2 after DDT wiped out the native pollinators. Their published results were quickly adopted across America. DDT was banned and serious thaught must be given to another ban.
ED-2874315,
While it may be true that commercial use of bees as pollinators began after the DDT fiasco, the truth is that honeybees and bumblebees have been voluntary pollinators for hundreds of millions of years.
It is sad to see that greed has prevented the manufacturers of these pesticides from seeing that they are simply repeating their old mistakes.
SingBiker,
When the introduction of many colonies of bees on flatbed trailors, is timed with the bloom of the crops, apples for instance, fruit production increased dramatically, above the pre DDT yields. Many insects are natural pollinators, not just the many species of bees, but it was not until the man made disaster of DDT that polinators were harnessed to increase crop yield. The $2 billion per year almond crop in California has no natural pollinators. It is 100% dependant on the bees that are trucked in. Honeybees like certain crops better than others, and recent studies show that a diverse blend of natural pollinators are more effective than honeybees alone on certain crops.
If 90% loss in bee population doesn't concern you, then you have no grasp of their importance.
EPA is just another gov't group fraudulently draining funds from the tax payers.
If they dig deep enough, I bet they'll find a connection with the Monsanto Corp. ...just like former Monsanto people are now in key positions with the FDA, and God only knows who/what else.
While I tend to agree you about the FDA, I have zero proof. My suspicion is that regulators at the FDA who "play nice" with the agricultural chemical folks find suitable high-dollar jobs at various agricultural chemical company corporations when they retire from the FDA. Those who blow the whistle on those same agchem companies do not.
But this thing started with one Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) use to give out his stupid "Golden Fleece Awards." These awards went to groups or people who had legally ripped off the Federal government. One of his first examples was the $600 toilet seat that had stupid consequences that cost the taxpayer millions. But another was bees. Proxmire found an application for a research grant from the National Science Foundation to study the effect of parasites, viuruses and crop chemicals on the European honneybee. Proxmire contended that no one really cared about these issues and besides it was not the job of the taxpayer to fund research on the "European" honeybee. If any such research was to be done it should be done on "American" honeybees.
The grant in question was less than $50,000, but soon Proxmire had the NSF panties in such a wad that they rescinded the grant. Soon the field of entomology (the study of insects) and especially the field of apiology (the study of pollinator honeybeen) became toxic. Young scientists could not get grants to study anything (and support themselves) and drifted to other fields. Younger scientists balked at even coming into the fields. This ended up creating a vast hole in the science needed to see what is ailing the honeybees.
For the people as poorly educated and informed as Sen Proxmire was: When the first settlers brought European crops to this country, they found that many of them could not be polinated by the Amnerican honeybees and bumblebees. So they imported hives of European honeybees to fix the problem. So, as far as farmers are concerned, the European honneybee is THE honneybee.
This problem has also recently been found to extend to the American bumblebees. Of about 40 species of bumblebee in this country two are most probably already extinct and two more may be at or near extinction. More woes for the farmers that depend on bee pollination for decent crop yields.
The first thing we need to do is make a permanent lifetime ban on any one who retires from government service ever taking any job in any private company that was regulated by any part of his former agency. And this would include people who took jobs so lucrative that they actually retired early and forfeited the bulk of their retirement benefits (ex-Sen Trent Lott comes to mind.) Stop the gravy train.
Pesticides are without a doubt bad for all concerned and chemical companies are in it for the money. I believe beekeepers use chlorine to clean the hives, this will kill the bees. Chlorine is a highly toxic poison, originally developed to kill people in the concentration camps gas chambers........research the origin of chlorine for yourself, the results are shocking.
They need to be sued...
Until the price of doing the bidding of Corporations is exceeded by being sued they won't change..
But the REAL culprits behind the scene are the Republican Politicians who for a few dollars in BRIBES keep the EPA from doing their job...
I totally agree, but I think we need a broad spectrum insecticide as a deterrent against pols !
Albert Einstein said, if we loose the honey bees humans have 4 years to live. Simple bend over grab your ass and kiss it good bye.
Actually Albert Einstein made no such comment.
Obviously the only rational solution is to genetically engineer a superior honeybee.
That was tried through cross breeding in South America. The result was Africanized "killer" bees.
MSpielman - I do hope you are being sarcastic.
If not, then I would disagree. The rational solution would be to stop dumping poisonous compounds onto our food.
ED-2874315 - You should stick to discussing things you actually know about. Bees aren't one of them. Humans have been breeding superior bees for thousands of years. That you're so quick to point to Africanized bees (by the way, there's more than one kind) as a problem betrays your limited knowledge of them: Other species of bees have been just as problematic (or more so). Not all Africanized bee colonies are aggressive. Replacing the queen with a Carniolan, Italian, Russian, or other less aggressive breed of bee changes the genetics and disposition of the hives. Moreover, Africanized bees haven't killed any more people than any other honey bee. You're far more likely to get hit by a car. Or hit by lightning. Or die in a terrorist attack.
Here's an idea. Beekeepers group together and refuse to service any farmer or corporation (or neighboring farm of) who uses undesired pesticides.
It's a wonderful idea in theory, but how would you propose that beekeepers meet their needed income and cost of business if we were to do so? Pesticides are used on such a wide scale that opting to "strike" would cause your food at the grocery store to skyrocket; at which point the media would point at beekeepers as being greedy, or unfair, or conspirators, whatever other oversimplified demonization some newscaster feels like spinning. Beekeepers in the US have already tried to protest against the use of neonictanoids, but our voices fall on deaf ears. In Europe, they've largely been banned.
Residential pest control companies spray their insecticides during the hours when bees are most active and nobody has stopped them.I am sure they won't be happy to have the EPS regulate them but it is sorely needed in California.We have planted flowering bushes and plants on our property in order to attract bees.Neighbors around me plant Sago palms and cement the heck out of their properties in the Central Valley.We live in the bread basket of the country but these people are clueless.I hope they don't mind starving to death.
Don't blame the EPA, GOP congress has neutered them bad. :(
Well of course once there are no more bees to pollinate regular crops GMO crops and Frankenfood have nothing standing in their way since nothing natural will grow anymore. Makes me wanna move back to Europe so bad. This country is corrupt beyond belief
I recently talked to a man in Canada and he said that Europe had accepted the GMO's as well.I don't know if that is accurate but I do know that Obama was in favor of sending them to Africa as well. Really evil science and many people really don't understand the process of genetically modified and what is in these seeds. They have some misplaced worship of science and accept any new technology as cool. Science that is not carefully used with respect for all life forms and their role in the eco system is dangerous. Scinece has really gotten way ahead of itself and lost most of its ethics with Corporations pushing for ever more profits.
Watch the dance as the EPA and the Chemical companies point their fingers and say no your responsible for the testing of these chemicals. Why they can pass the buck for......ever. Even more disgusting is how many key positions in government agencies that should be protecting the American people are occupied by former Corporate executives that once they have sabotaged the agencies ability to function properly go back to their old company with an all new and better job. This has been going on for years. It is called Corporation control of our government. Sound like a conspiracy? Research Monsanto's swinging door of executives and government positions.
fight for freedom-2341533 -
"Monsanto, the genetically modified food giant, has recently purchased Beeologics, a leading bee research firm. Borrowing a move from the tobacco companies’ playbook, Monsanto appears to have decided that if you do not like the scientific reports coming out about you, then you should just buy the labs.
"Beginning in 2007, Beeologics has researched two critical bee issues: colony collapse disorder and Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus. In late September of last year, Monsanto acquired Beeologics for an undisclosed amount. In making this purchase, Monsanto now has control of research that has previously pointed at its pesticides for contributing to – if not outright causing – a sharp decline in bee populations."
F*ck Monsanto.
Is there no end to this corruption? These criminals want to control the worlds food sources and keep farmers buying their seeds because our corrupt Supreme court allowed them to patent life. That was strictly forbidden in the Constitution and they got away with it. Obama promised to the gmo's labeled but that did not happen. Hell he promised to send to Africa these insufficiently tested seeds.
What really amazes me is how many people will see nothing wrong in this.
Neither GMO nor Neonics were found at fault by Beeologics, which basically ran out of money.
Your missing the point. Please provide a source that Beelogics found no link between GMO
or Neonics.
What can one expect from the revolving door issue at government agencies !
There is still no ACTUAL proof that insecticides are the cause.
Someone here will state the quote, "Many studies have linked the prevalence of some new insecticides with the loss of the bees."
Many studies have also linked CO2 to changes in the climate but there still is NO proof.
It is not enough to say "We say so!" You have to be able to prove it and no one has been able to.
economy killer-Sometimes you just have to go out on a limb and do something because doing nothing will result in the collapse of the beekeeping industry. Kind of similar to the Chinese Chicken Jerky Treats scandal involving products from China. I feel it is better to error on the side of caution and stop their import until they can prove conclusively if they are dangerous or not. If your doctor prescribed a pill to you and you took if for a while, but then there were starting to be problems with people dying from the side effects, would you wait until they figured out if it was deadly or not before you stopped taking it? Kinda similar to that analogy.
So if your daughter got violently ill every time she drank a certain drink, you would continue to give it to her because you had no definitive proof that it was the drink? It seems kinda foolish. Republicans won't be happy until everything is dead on this earth.
economykiller -
Your logic does not follow. You're using a red herring, and fallacy of a single cause. Anyone can make claims about anything, but when there's scientific proof that neonictinoids are a contributing factor to Colony Collapse Disorder, you can no longer claim there's no proof. Just because you deny it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The decline in bees has absolutely to do with pesticides - and monoculture, and diseases, and fungi, and pests that interfere with bees, such as wax moths, or the super-mites that the pesticides create.
There's enough evidence, this is not a trivial issue. The human race is in big trouble if we lose bees.
Is it a coincidence that the bees started dropping en masse after the use of these chemicals ? Possibly, but it's an awful convenient coincidence, and why take the chance ?
The US agricultural system is a mess, big profits for the corporations and major negative health repercussions for the people.
economykiller,
Didn't they say the same thing about DDT?
But that's the problem. CCD proved highly contagious. And most every study points to the soup of viruses found the the honeybees' gut. Pesiticides aren't contagions, they're poisons.
Poisons can and do weaken the immune systems. A compromised immune system is vulnerable to all kinds of infections viruses bacterias etc. Check out Purdue test results on neonicotinoids used in GMO Corn crops and how it has affected bees.
NO, in the case of environmental toxicity, you must prove your CRAP PRODUCT ISNT HURTING.
not the other way around..
btw in europe it IS PROVEN and is largely banned
The Frankenchemical industry owns the EPA, and neither of them give a hoot about honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies, moths, or anything else but money, really . . .
Really! :-o
This is just about beekeepers recouping losses.., this is about continuing to have food to grow and eat. The bees pollinate LOTS of the food-crops we eat. The bees die = We die. Simple equation, yes?
Yes.
It's not "just" about recouping losses. It's about stopping a system of monetary greed from destroying the food-chain. When you disrupt pollination, entire eco-systems collapse.
no. Not so simple equation. Honeybees are not even native to the Americas. Heck, half the enviromentalists I know seem to want them all out of here. Some fruit and seed plants are adequately pollinated by other bees, some are self fertile, some are wind pollinated.
We better make sure the bees and other pollenators survive and thrive, or we can all kiss our butts good-bye!
It would certainly affect our diets.
The pesticides in question are neonicotinoids. The problem with these pesticides is that they are systematic, meaning the plant absorbs the pesticide and it flows throughout the plant/tree/etc... So if one were to spray too early (prior to bloom/during bloom), then you can pretty much assume that the pollen is going to have this pesticide in it (although in small amts)... You can also pretty much assume that the fruit that is coming off these trees will probably have some residual pesticide IN the fruit (these are very slow to break down)... On paper, they look great...not horribly toxic to humans, but they are systematic (don't wipe off), long lasting (don't break down quickly)... I'd rather use a substance that is hard hitting, but quick to break down.
I've grown fruit trees for about 7 years now and have researched about every chemical out there, because pests are a major, major issue where i live... Anyone who deals with Japanese Beetles, Rose Chafers, Plum Curculio, etc etc knows what i'm talking about...
Obviously these should only be used with very strict guidelines and they should probably try to use a variety (many types of neonics) that is quicker to break down.
the word is systemic not systematic. And no farmer sprays during bloom. That would cause blossom drop and a total loss of crop. And no, it's not safe to assume neonics get into the pollen or the nectar. For example, poison ivy sap is indeed poison. But its pollen and nectar end up in beehives and honey, and it's safe.
The GM seeds are coated not sprayed with the neonicotinoids. . The poison goes through the entire fruit flowering or growing cycle of any GM plant that coats this poison on the seeds.. Many GM seeds are coated the with this poison. GM corn is only one crop that uses this deadly combination.
I know that here is Ohio, I have had several bee keepers tell me they have suspected this in leiu of confirmed research.
I buy raw honey and I hear the same thing over and over from the beekeepers: they lose massive amounts of bees every winter here and this only started in this area over the last 10 years.
In Ohio the main crops are corn and soybeans.
The EPA is negligent on this and unfortunately a lawsuit is the only way to get them to do anything.
Here in NH, wild honeybees are in decline as well as domestic. If you don't want to believe reports released on the matter, how about some easy field research? Just check out your supermarket, or a local farmstand. Honey, both wild and from beekeepers, is incredibly expensive. The upshot? It's more expensive because there are much FEWER BEES. Not convinced yet? Have a look around you. I don't know about anyone else, but I have noticed much less activity by bees near my home (I live in the woods, with fields and water close by- BEE HEAVEN in normal circumstances!). Whatever is harming domestic bees harms wild bees, too. Just so happens that neonicotinoids are commonly applied here... and both types of bees are regularly exposed to crops that have had them applied.
Even if the decline of such wonderful creatures doesn't sadden and concern people, we MUST save the honeybee because we quite literally can't survive without them. Bad enough that greedy chemical companies have driven the once-widespread beauty of lightning bugs to the edge of extinction- in their search for ever-bigger profit margins, do they need to kill off one of humanity's most important friends, too??
Butterflies do the same job, and don't kill people.
While hardly an alarmist, I tend to agree with the err on the side of caution side of this.
There are many insecticides currently in use that have not had the purported effects these classes of insecticides have on honey bees.
Do the testing.
If it's proved to be safe for honey bees, great. If not, go back to the drawing board and find something else.