Are neonicotinoid pesticides responsible for the demise of bees and other wildlife?

[Jon]

Trog. I have similar days as well, no horses to muck out thankfully, and I don't live in a remote area like you do.
Digging my own spuds, making a Spanish omelette with spud and free range eggs, pottering between apiaries on a bicycle, charity work, organising the queen rearing group every monday evening, allotment and allotment committee meetings, bantering on a bee forum or two.

[Johnthefarmer]

OK, JTF, so I'll play along with your assumptions if you can tell me how global companies influenced my supper this evening, since you say they are influencing every aspect of our lives. Let me see now. Ling caught by myself, baked with a home-made stuffing in a wood fired oven. The wood came from our coppice woodland and from a forest down the road. Served with a ratatouille made with British aubergine, tomato and courgette from the Co-op (I assume you approve of co-operatives) with home grown onion and shallots. Potatoes dug from my veg plot. Pudding was Eve's pud with a cooking apple from said veg plot, the first picking of wild brambles, and the topping made with my free-range eggs. Custard also made with free-range eggs - in a microwave made by a global company but which saves energy when used wisely. During the day it is solar powered; at night we buy back some of the energy we have deposited with the Hydro, a company which uses a lot of renewable energy, as you might assume from the name.

Now, I spent most of the day putting together a report for a non-global charity organisation and some of it walking to the Co-op and back ... don't use the car for short distances. Mucked out the stable; resulting compost grows the veg. Fed the hens, though they get most of their food themselves while out and about. Checked the hives still had roofs after the gale. Checked the dinghy was OK ditto. Yesterday watched a family of goldfinches feasting on the knapweed seedheads along the drive.

Yep, definitely a day influenced by global companies ????????????

my days are similar, but we are in a distinct and reducing minority. aren't we lucky bunnies?
maybe that explains why global stuff doesn't bother you..
I came here from Manchester. My mum still lives there.

[Calum]

Hi
my conclusion is Bayer should use thier immense expertise to develope an effective Varroa treatment that can be used in low temperature and humid conditions effectivly without side effects like wax residues.
Maybe we should pettition them to do that.

JTF, Trog & Jon I envy your lifestyles, maybe when I retire I can enjoy something similar. Having to do my driving license at the ripe old age of 37, the job finally demands it, already have an allotment and have had so much out of it I've been supplying both next doors with surpluses.
There are many people that thank their lucky stars that pharma companies have developed drugs and vaccines that have saved countless lives.
Some banks are ok, though the big ones and some small ones are a shower of sh*ts (my brother had to take a very expensive pension plan out to get a business loan with B*S). I bank with Sparkasse and am really happy with a great serivce.

I oil companies - well only a proportion of what they make is petrol, petrochemicals have build the modern world (plastics, edmps, fertilisers,,,) you can look for negatives and ignore positives in every endeavour, or you can try to be a positive influence on the journey.

[Trog]

Well said, Calum. My post, far from being smug, was to challenge JTF's assertion that we're all influenced by global companies all the time. Then he jumps to the conclusion that I'm not concerned about 'global'. Very odd, given that he knows absolutely nothing about my beliefs! I can't remember which organisation has the slogan, 'Think global, act local' but I think the essence of it is quite good. It's all very well jumping up and down about 'evil' global companies and their 'evil' products but to take that to a logical conclusion, JTF would have to do all his farmwork with horses rather than tractors and ATVs (maybe he does?), drive a horse and cart when he wants to go anywhere, never fly (I'm assuming he always uses the ferries from Orkney), and refuse any medical treatment from conventional sources. So, surely rather than getting all hot and bothered about the lesser of two evils (neonics as opposed to what went before), learning how to keep bees properly, through information, mentoring at local association level, and education - which is what the SBA is all about - will help them far more than any number of petitions and getting angry on bee fora.

[Jon]

What irritates a lot of beekeepers is the way beekeeping has been hijacked by anti pesticide campaigners who are not even beekeepers.
There was a guy on the old bbka forum, now resident on beekeeping forum, who posted about pesticides for about 18 months and he had never been a beekeeper. He now has some in a top bar hive which I guess takes the bad look off the thing when you spend hours of every day campaigning against the evils of the world on a beekeeping forum.

[Trog]

Just wondering how the anti-global folk manage to post on fora. I'm assuming they use a wind-up (in both senses) gadget of some sort, cobbled together from willow trimmings rather than something supplied by the evil corporate computer giants, made of evil petrochemicals, and via multi-national ISPs ...

[Jon]

When I met Doris at the bibba conference she was using a laptop running Windows XP and sorting out slides on Powerpoint, another product from the stable of the evil Microsoft. I even gave her a hand - and there was no mention of Imidacloprid whatsoever. Oh how times have changed! I can't say for sure, but it appeared to be powered by a battery as opposed to something hacked from the hedgerow. Torquil might have been pedaling furiously around the corner in order to keep the screen bright.
Rosie was there too and s/he wasn't wearing a dress.

[chris]

Just managed to wind up my computer so I have 5 mins. to ask : Has anyone seen a documentary titled (translation) The Mystery of the disappearing bees byMark Daniels? (or Conan Doyle). It's on Arte tv tonight (so Calum should be able to see it). Anyway, I was wondering if it's worth watching or whether it's the typical intox fed to the tv companies.

[Calum]

hi
seen it, nothing much interesting. Some miss information.
Doesnt answer any questions (its a couple of years old now -2007?? so re CDD dated already) just hints at possible causes.

Anything about commercial beekeepers in the USA has little relevance here - they travel to so many different comercial crops that are spayed with very different pesticides the pollen samples from those hives are a chemical cocktail and a half.
Also they treat fouldbrood with antibiotics so don't cure it, just put a chemical lid on it (the spores are still in the hives so only the symtoms cured).
At the end of it youd probably just be happy not to be a bee in the USA....

[madasafish]

I just love the clear and unbounded and obvious cynicism and hypocrisy of those who decry "global " companies. The NHS uses equipment made by global companies and drugs made by global companies. Without them , it would not exist in its present form. I assume that is what they want and they will state that publicly.

The food we eat and the clothes we wear are all transported using fuel produced by global companies and transported in cars, lorries, aeroplanes and ships made by global companies..

Farmers use equipment made by global companies.

Beekeeping is one of the few aspects of farming where you can farm using natural materials and make everything at home... but then we are ranted at by people who should really - if they really believe what they say - should be politicians trying to persuade the wider public.

I seriously object to people choosing bee forums to rant on their own chosen subject. I hope they practise what they preach and use abacuses rather than spreadsheets and eschew mobile phones, the internet and modern lighting - electric light bulbs are made by global companies as is electricity.