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Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

theguardian.com

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Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#71

Post by to11mtm »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #58

Here is what I learned about this particular pesticide, from my cousin, who is a farmer who also sometimes plants sugar beets. 1. This particular pesticide comes in the form of a pill, which is planted with the seed. 2. It is very targeted on a particular pest (german name is Rübenrüsselkäfer). 3. Without it, the whole field will be lost. 4. The replacement is a conventional broad band pesticide. It kills everything.…

Soo....

Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding this.

If they don't blossom, Bees will not really pick them up from the sugar beets. i.e. this isn't like using the pesticide on a flowering plant where the bees will be picking up the chemical.

Interesting?

It still seems there would still be some overall impact on groundwater to some level, as well as risks if the crop is planted in rotation with a different crop.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#72

Post by stinos »

billiob wrote: post #51

It is like in France, there shouldn't be that much of an issue. Iirc, the use of use of neonicotinoid on beet is with coated seeds. Then, the beets are harvested way before they even produce a flower thus the bees will not pollinate such infected plants.

There could be other things at play though than pollinating or not. I know the coating was presented as better than just spraying around etc, and is is, but it's not like it ends there. Neonicotinoids are water soluble so some of it will end up in the soil and from theere might leak to surface water. Effects of that are all known yet, but it's not all looking good. Not saying there are problems for bees, just that seed coating could well be more than 'not much of an issue'.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#73

Post by ashtonkem »

Chris2048 wrote: post #64
lwhi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's it been shown to be BS?

It fails to mention the authorizations are "Emergency authorizations", thereby omitting relevant information to make the title more click-baity

Emergency authorizations often end up being permanent. Claiming that the entire premise of the article doesn’t hold water because it’s an “emergency” authorization is to completely ignore how emergency authorizations work in practice.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#74

Post by nerdponx »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #58

Here is what I learned about this particular pesticide, from my cousin, who is a farmer who also sometimes plants sugar beets. 1. This particular pesticide comes in the form of a pill, which is planted with the seed. 2. It is very targeted on a particular pest (german name is Rübenrüsselkäfer). 3. Without it, the whole field will be lost. 4. The replacement is a conventional broad band pesticide. It kills everything.…

Thanks for this insight.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#75

Post by rriepe »

londons_explore wrote: post #60
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #35

The article title purposefully leaves out the "emergency use authorization" part in order to drum up anger. I think that part should be put in. 11 other countries have joined in the emergency authorization so its not just a UK thing. This is not a pro/against post about Thiamethoxam. The studies seem a bit divided, and the UK banned out of abundance of caution from a European Food Safety Authority study, versus a lar…

"emergency use authorization"'s tend to be renewed, and renewed, and finally made permanent...

It's worth the anger.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#77

Post by mnd999 »

dwardu wrote: post #8
emayljames wrote: post #3

I don't trust the current UK government one shred, but there is a very small chance it is just for this emergency use to stop that sugar beet virus.

Was there ever a government that was really that trustworthy? We’ve been losing our freedoms for a while now.

Not sure everyone would agree with that the main job of government is to grant you more freedom. Careful regulation is just as important imho.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#78

Post by Jefff8 »

40four wrote: post #34

I’m not really sure yet how I feel about this particular case of temporary emergency authorization (which is omitted from the title). I get the chemicals were banned for good reason, but in this case they are trying to prevent a whole commodity sector from collapsing. Tough situation to be in. The larger issue to me is how warped the debate around saving bees and pollinators has become. I get very frustrated every ti…

I don't think that brought in bee keeping exists very much in the UK. I live near the edge of fields, in a semi-rural setting. I've never seen it. I have see plenty of wild bees and bee hives.
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