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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

#111

Post by alsetmusic »

stinos wrote: post #68
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…

You make a very good point, but your post reads a bit too much like 'wild bees are fine'. I think you know what follows, but just for completeness and for other readers: they aren't, at all , just like insects in general (the numbers are so unbelievably insane I'm nog even going to look up the latest one but just say '70% decrease in the last couple of decades' and it will be ballpark correct, unfortunately). And unl…

To the greater point of "insects," I was a child in the 80s. A road trip (driving in unpopulated areas) resulted in tons of bugs smacking the windshield, reducing visibility. That's much reduced.

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

#112

Post by Retric »

alsetmusic wrote: post #111
stinos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a very good point, but your post reads a bit too much like 'wild bees are fine'. I think you know what follows, but just for completeness and for other readers: they aren't, at all , just like insects in general (the numbers are so unbelievably insane I'm nog even going to look up the latest one but just say '70% decrease in the last couple of decades' and it will be ballpark correct, unfortunately). And unl…

To the greater point of "insects," I was a child in the 80s. A road trip (driving in unpopulated areas) resulted in tons of bugs smacking the windshield, reducing visibility. That's much reduced.

That’s about 50/50 from better aerodynamics and fewer insects.

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

#113

Post by saghm »

alsetmusic wrote: post #111
stinos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a very good point, but your post reads a bit too much like 'wild bees are fine'. I think you know what follows, but just for completeness and for other readers: they aren't, at all , just like insects in general (the numbers are so unbelievably insane I'm nog even going to look up the latest one but just say '70% decrease in the last couple of decades' and it will be ballpark correct, unfortunately). And unl…

To the greater point of "insects," I was a child in the 80s. A road trip (driving in unpopulated areas) resulted in tons of bugs smacking the windshield, reducing visibility. That's much reduced.

I mean, all the bugs dying due to hitting windshields probably didn't help their population count...

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

#114

Post by hinkley »

simon1ltd wrote: post #108
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 there’s a big difference between “wild” bees and the “domesticated” or farmed bees that you seem to believe exists. I’m in Ohio, and I’ve only been keeping bees for 3-4 years now, but I’ve attended lectures and talked to many longtime keepers in my area (Ohio). I specifically asked about wild bees, and the answer I got was unexpected, but made sense once it was explained to me. The PhD speaker, who’s wo…

Beekeepers will go out and gather swarms or extract them from unwanted places if they know about them, and they have capacity. Beekeepers losing their hives drives up demand for harvesting wild ones.

So even if that weren’t a two way street, the wild ones would still be under duress.

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

#115

Post by saghm »

simon1ltd wrote: post #108
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 there’s a big difference between “wild” bees and the “domesticated” or farmed bees that you seem to believe exists. I’m in Ohio, and I’ve only been keeping bees for 3-4 years now, but I’ve attended lectures and talked to many longtime keepers in my area (Ohio). I specifically asked about wild bees, and the answer I got was unexpected, but made sense once it was explained to me. The PhD speaker, who’s wo…

> The PhD speaker, who’s worked in pesticide research his entire career, explained that around here American Foul Brood wiped out > 95% of hives in many areas over the span of a decade (70s or 80s?) — and he said there’s no reason to believe that the “wild” bees fared any differently. In fact, he believes we still have wild bees because of natural swarming behavior — meaning our wild bees are heavily linked with the commercially managed hives.

Not trying to discount this, as I know basically nothing about pesticides or bees, but doesn't this seem a little circular? The conclusion that the bees in the wild are heavily linked with our bees is based on the assumption that they were fairly similar in the first place, i.e. "there's no reason to believe the wild bees faired any differently". In other words, "the wild bees are doing about the same now because they did about the same before", but without any strong evidence that they did about the same in the first place. I assume I'm missing something?

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

#116

Post by hinkley »

lwhi wrote: post #46
Anon1096 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smugly declaring that your side is based in the "science" and the other side isn't doesn't automatically make it true. The question of whether to allow a pesticide that kills bees is a public policy question, not one of science, though science can certainly be used to inform decisions.

Public policy? Which world are you living in? Sooner or later it becomes a question of survival.

Hard to have a policy when the public is dead.

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

#117

Post by hinkley »

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.…

> 5. Sugar beets do not blossom.

Which is fine, as long as no weeds or mushrooms grow in that entire field, and a freak rain doesn’t rinse it into the drainage ditches where weeds and mushrooms absolutely grow, in abundance.

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

#118

Post by bergstromm466 »

Retric wrote: post #112
alsetmusic wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the greater point of "insects," I was a child in the 80s. A road trip (driving in unpopulated areas) resulted in tons of bugs smacking the windshield, reducing visibility. That's much reduced.

That’s about 50/50 from better aerodynamics and fewer insects.

Source?

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

#119

Post by triceratops »

0_____0 wrote: post #100
GordonS wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you're from, but for our US readers it might be worth pointing out that large farms in the UK are nowhere near the size of "large" farms in the US. I've also never heard of "bees as a service" here, though I know it exists in the US. For reference, I'm not a farmer, but live in the British countryside.

mega acreage farms seem to be an american thing for some reason. read somewhere that the avg. american farm is ~100x larger than the average chinese farm for example

> for some reason.

More arable land than nearly any other nation, comparatively thinly populated, early leader in mechanized farming, steady consolidation of small family farms into large corporate ones for many generations.

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

#120

Post by simon1ltd »

saghm wrote: post #115
simon1ltd wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think there’s a big difference between “wild” bees and the “domesticated” or farmed bees that you seem to believe exists. I’m in Ohio, and I’ve only been keeping bees for 3-4 years now, but I’ve attended lectures and talked to many longtime keepers in my area (Ohio). I specifically asked about wild bees, and the answer I got was unexpected, but made sense once it was explained to me. The PhD speaker, who’s wo…

> The PhD speaker, who’s worked in pesticide research his entire career, explained that around here American Foul Brood wiped out > 95% of hives in many areas over the span of a decade (70s or 80s?) — and he said there’s no reason to believe that the “wild” bees fared any differently. In fact, he believes we still have wild bees because of natural swarming behavior — meaning our wild bees are heavily linked with the…

There are multiple species of bees. I’m specifically referring to honey bees. I’ve not studied the other varieties.

I’m not aware of any studies, and most would have taken place well before the internet and electronic records were a thing.

I can state that my hives have swarmed several times, so those bees were “out there” — and the genetics I see in 2nd and 3rd generation brood show there’s quite a few different breeds in this area.

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