Orcadian pesticide discussions
And whilst I'm at it, here's another result of a recent study:
... the full effect of the neonic damage only showed itself 6 months after exposure!After 12 weeks of imidacloprid dosing, all the bees were alive. But after 23 weeks, 15 out of 16 of the imidacloprid-treated hives—94%—had died. Those exposed to the highest levels of the pesticide died first.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/pre...pesticide.html
- Bad science again?
true, but if you want to feed everyone on the planet especially with the current levels of meat we enjoy, either destroy much more nature for agicultural land or live with pesticides and fertilisers, or kill of a large tract of the population (or a smaller trace that eats alot of meatOriginally Posted by voytech104
I remember when I was little eating tomatoes straight from vine full of taste, smell. I remember my mother getting rid of weeds by hand from strawberries and me and my brother picking up them and eating without washing.
I have no allergies, no stomach upsets etc. I have few grey cells left in my brain too.
Do You honestly think that all this Wholesale/Monoculture/Pesticide controlled food is better or at least equal to chemistry free grown food? Even if it has the same protein level, the same "nutritional" values - nobody will convince me about taste values. Or maybe I love food too much
My observations have been that the bees will avoid maize if they can find anything else at all, anything. Even bio maize.
Really bad science!!!
That paper has become an internet joke.
They fed bees levels of Imidacloprid up to 400 times that found in pollen and nectar and the bees died.
They started off using low dosages equivalent to field realistic levels and nothing happened so after 12 weeks they racked up the dosage by a huge factor and killed most of the colonies in the study.
Are you surprised?
Have you read these papers you are quoting from carefully from cover to cover or have you just read the abstracts?
Read them properly and you will see they are complete dross.
The other thing is that only half of one percent of maize in the US is treated with Imidacloprid these days so the entire premise of the experiment was nonsense.
It has been noted over and over that bees only go for maize pollen as a last resort.My observations have been that the bees will avoid maize if they can find anything else at all, anything. Even bio maize.
Last edited by Jon; 30-04-2012 at 11:41 PM.
Stunning conclusion there. Exposing bees to massive overdoses of imidacloprid kills them with those given the largest doses dying first.
Ignoring the rest of the nonsense in that report I did notice that they also managed to kill 25% of their control group in less than a year which makes me think that at the very least they aren't very good beekeepers, generally the most inept, let alone unlucky, take at least 2 seasons to kill their bees.
Or should we ban cyanide-containing foods? Or cyanide-containing natural products sold as medicines?
Doris:
1) alcohol is not a neurotoxin. It does not specifically affect nerve tissue
2) why call an insecticide a 'nerve poison'? It seems like you are trying to demonise the product
3) when exposed to low levels of imidacloprid the bees metabolise it and it causes no problem to them
4) contaminated brood food 'will lead to dummer (sic) bees in the next generation'. *Will*? Why dumber? And if the bees in the next generation are so dumb why do bee colonies raising a couple of cycles of young bees on OSR pollen not show any problems? The stuff spread by Tennekes on irreversible binding was nonsense, as we discussed here before.
To arrive at a proper understanding of what ails bees it is necessary to throw off preconceived ideas, biases and wishful thinking and look with fresh eyes at not just the science that fits the answer you would have wanted but at the sum total of what all the research is telling you.
Last edited by gavin; 30-04-2012 at 11:50 PM.
designed to kill
No need to demonise the noenicotinoids: they are designed to kill insects.
They kill insects by acting on their nervous system, therefore they are poisonous to nerves.
... They do exactly what it says on the tin.
Why are you lot so desperately defending these products?
because the older products are far more dangerous for bees and for mammals such as homo sapiens.Why are you lot so desperately defending these products?
If neonicotinoids are banned we will get the even worse stuff back being used in larger quantities again.
I am no fan of any pesticide but I have arrived at a point in my life where I consider that living in the real world is more useful that ranting without proposing solutions. It is a pragmatic stance.
Last edited by Jon; 01-05-2012 at 12:04 AM.
How can the old stuff have been worse if the massive colony losses only started when the neonics came along?
Previoulsy you would have localised events of bee poisoning, now we have massive colony losses over whole regions.
But they didn't start when neonics came along! Massive bee losses have been a feature of beekeeping for a very long time, probably as long as beekeeping itself! And the spread of Varroa has made them worse. Yes, previously there were localised bee poisoning incidents. Now - with the exception of the maize planter dust episodes - bee poisoning is rare. Maybe someone will re-post Prof Ratniek's graph on this.
Neonicotinoids were introduced in the US 1994 and ccd was first reported in 2006.
And did you miss the point I made about blaming the swimmers in the swimming pool the other day.
Not the UK. We have a 3 fold increase over 3 years. Some regions show losses and some show increase and it does not appear to be related to neonicotinoids.now we have massive colony losses over whole regions
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