ISIS Press Release 16/11/09
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A film that tries to get to the bottom of
the mystery of the disappearing bees with some success
Sam Burcher
The Vanishing of the Bees [1] is the cinematic equivalent of “Watch with Mother” about the importance to the planet of the honeybee. It patiently unravels the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) implicated in the mass disappearance of honeybees from their hives across the world. Bees have one of the most important jobs in nature. Without their busy pollination of plants and flowers we would lose one in every three bites of the food that we eat (see Box 1).
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Box 1
What you need to know about bees
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The UK bee economy is worth £165 million annually [3]. The British Beekeeping Association (BBKA) estimates that it would require 30 million humans to take over the job of pollinating British crops. DEFRA (The Department of Food and Rural Affairs) claim that CCD has not yet hit the UK. However the BBKA’s survey says that thirty three percent or one in three of the UK’s 240 000 beehives were lost in the winter and spring of 2008. This compares to a previous annual average of five to ten percent losses. Buglife-The English Conservation Trust - has published a report which says that neonicotinoids do damage honeybee health. Buglife, ISIS, The Soil Association and The Pesticides Action Network (PAN) have all called for a suspension of all products containing neonicotinoids in outdoor environments [4]. Worldwide bees pollinate some ninety commercial crops including fruits, vegetables and alfalfa, a major food source for cattle. In China, in the province of Sichuan, pear trees have been pollinated by hand after the overuse of pesticides in the 1980’s wiped out the honeybee population. In the USA
approximately one third of hives have collapsed over the last two years. These losses are attributed to CCD and account for the loss of around 800 000 colonies in 2007 and a staggering 1 million colonies in 2008. A Steering Committee has been set up to monitor the progress of CCD [5]. Bee losses have also been reported around the world in Argentina, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Greece and Spain.
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Bees are big business, and their industry, worth billions of dollars, is teetering on the brink of collapse. In the USA, commercial beekeepers transport hives around the country so that the bees can pollinate apples, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, oranges and pumpkins. The annual Californian almond bloom demands almost all the commercial bees to pollinate the nut harvest. Since CCD has decimated the native bee population, the importation of bees from Australia to pollinate food crops has become the norm. The prime suspect in CCD is the introduction of a relatively new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids [6] (see Mystery of Disappearing Honeybees SiS 34). Neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides that remain in the leaves, pollen and nectar throughout the plants lifecycle. The link to CCD was first noticed in France where honeybee losses were observed and honey production dropped from 40 000 to 25 000 tons between the years 1995-2001. These events occurred after a particular neonicotinoid called imidacloprid was applied as a seed dressing to sunflower crops [7] (see Requiem for the Honeybee SiS 34).
Big Pharma plays a big part in bee decline
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Bayer CropScience, the manufacturer of neonicotinoids with silly names such as “Gaucho” and “Poncho” say that imidacloprid is safe. Despite this, Gaucho is now banned in Italy, France,
Germany and Slovenia, but not in the USA, Canada, or the UK. In 2008, the American Beekeepers Federation officially refuted bad beekeeping practices being blamed for the
decline of the honeybee by bringing a civil law suit against Bayer, which is still ongoing. They are not alone. A German organization called Coalition against Bayer Dangers is suing
the company for marketing dangerous pesticides and thereby causing the mass death of bees all over the world [8]. An annual turnover of nearly 800 million Euros makes neonicotinoids one of Bayer's most important products. "This is the reason why Bayer, despite serious environmental
damage, is fighting against any prohibitions," says Coalition spokesman Philipp Mimkes. Bayer AG, the parent company of Bayer CropScience is responsible for the development of the drug heroin (diacetylmorphine) which was sold as an over the counter cough medicine under the Bayer trademark up until World War I [9]. Concern about the relationship between the chemical corporations and the environmental agencies is described in the film as, “The fox guarding the hen house.” For example, the only scientific research submitted to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the safety of neonicotinoid sprays was done by Bayer’s own toxicologist. This research took the form of a three day trial of imidocloprid, which was fed to the bees in a sugar solution. No tests were required on the bee brood in its developmental stage, or on the pollen, or on honey, and the results of the feeding trial were revealed at
Bayer’s discretion.
Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/WhyBeesVanish.php
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