Wik-Bee Leaks: EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees

JanezStupar 15 years ago |

There is corporate "ethos" and "greed is good" etc... But what I find disturbing is that these wankers (corporate and government) are stupid/greedy enough to fuck over honeybees.

The same honeybees that are providing us with 1 in 3 meals every single friggin day! Maybe big-pharma is confident that it can feed the humanity - but I see it as an incredibly shortsighted strategy that WILL cause us our lives - before global warming or nukes - since we're apparently trying extremely hard to exterminate the little critters.

InclinedPlane 15 years ago | |

"The same honeybees that are providing us with 1 in 3 meals every single friggin day!"

citation needed

JanezStupar 15 years ago | | |

Citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1702377/figure/f...

In old days every farmer in our village had a beehive - the honey and pollination services were both much appreciated. My father has always taught me that killing a bee is a horrible crime.

stellar678 15 years ago | | |

Forget old days - in modern days there are entire businesses dedicated to renting out and delivering mass quantities of beehives to pollinate fields for farmers.

JanezStupar 15 years ago | | |

The technology and industry has changed indeed. I wanted to emphasize how man used to treat bee as a companion - nowadays however we seem to disregard its share in getting us to where we are. We used to fight to keep them alive.

InclinedPlane 15 years ago | | |

This describes the important of pollinators, but honey bees are not the only pollinators. I don't see enough evidence supporting the case that honey bees exclusively are responsible for pollinating 1/3 of all food, nor that the absence of honey bees would reduce food production by the same amount (which seem to be the positions you have put forth).

Can you support those claims?

jonhendry 15 years ago | | |

Honeybees are so important that huge colonies are trucked around the US to pollinate fields.

Which is to say: they're so important that local populations of pollinators are inadequate to requirements, so they have to be supplemented by these mobile colonies.

JanezStupar 15 years ago | | |

Can you support a contra position? That bees are not significant pollinators? Please do not forget other Apidae family members - they probably don't benefit from pesticides either.

Oh... Another reference: http://www.pnas.org/content/99/26/16812.full - you can check references [6,7] yourself.

Edit: I apologize - since I did limit my rant to honeybees initially.

InclinedPlane 15 years ago | | |

The contra position would be that honey bees are responsible for supporting less than 1/3 all food production (which is a bit easier to prove). Bees are important pollinators but there are other pollinators and the case that the absence of honey bees would result in the absence of 1/3 of crop production is very weak, since the absence of competition from honey bees would likely result in some degree of compensation from other pollinator species (such as wasps).

The 2nd reference is the best so far, it provides some quantitative information about how dominant the honey bee is as a pollinator of commercial crops.

Personally I think bees are hugely important and it's quite sad the way bee populations have been mistreated, but it doesn't help to overstate the case (the case for being kind to bees is already very strong).

jcromartie 15 years ago | | |

Honeybees are not native to the US. It would be odd to rely on a non-native species for our food supply.

route66 15 years ago | | |

Important is the life cycle of a swarm. Unlike wasps, bumble-bees and lots of other insects a bee swarm survives the winter as a whole and can start the pollination cycle earlier than other insects. Furthermore honeybees have a structured way of flying "on: plants, meaning that they do commonly not change pollination rate.

Bees are actively used for guided pollination, which is not possible with most other insects (not withstanding some experiments with bumblebees in greenhouses). Interesting fact is that you will often find the phrase "crop xxx requires yyy hives" while describing the role of bees in pollination.

hth.

Alex3917 15 years ago |

Considering the EPA's past lies about the air quality at ground zero, the mercury levels in fresh water fish, etc., let's just say that if you believe anything they say then I've got a boat load of perfectly safe shrimp from the gulf to sell you.

jonprins 15 years ago | |

Not to mention their stance on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing .

maukdaddy 15 years ago |

FYI the ORIGINAL Grist article much better and full of detail:

http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-12-10-leaked-document...

BrandonM 15 years ago |

Is there any reason these beekeepers can't sue Bayer and the EPA for the side effects of the pesticides? Couldn't such a suit call for an injunction preventing its use pending the results of the lawsuit?

extension 15 years ago | |

They did sue Bayer in 2003, though for a different drug. The suit was thrown out by a judge in 2008. Info in this article:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/08/news/honey_bees_ny_times.for...

Bayer gets sued all the time and they are probably pretty good at working the legal system.

julian37 15 years ago | | |

This article has additional history:

http://www.thenhf.com/article.php?id=598

DrHankPym 15 years ago | |

My only guess is that the evidence provided was not legally obtained.

alecco 15 years ago |

I don't understand how politicians are allowed to campaign with corporate money.

qeorge 15 years ago |

The timing seems incredible.

byteclub 15 years ago |

That's ok, we'll just replace honey with high-fructose corn syrup - problem solved!