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

[Jon]

Nice post madasafish.
We all have to make our own bed and lie in it with regard to the products we use. It is hard to avoid some multinational products such as electricity which actually bring some benefits and even allow us to communicate via this internet thingy.

As Rosie said in a previous post, we all have passions and interests which we have to hold back for the good of a specialist forum such as this one. I could get up on my high horse about the energy wasted by meat eaters as opposed to those of us who have chosen a vegetarian diet.

Be interesting to hear JTF and Doris justify the carnivore diet in terms of sustainability. Apparently it takes 26k of grain to produce 1k of meat and the rain forest is being cleared at at a shocking rate to allow Brazilian cattle to do a bit of grazing. But no way would those people on Orkney be eating meat anyway!

[lindsay s]

Hi everyone I had meat for my tea and I loved it. My beekeeping season has been below average and I‘ve been in contact with other local beekeepers who have experienced the same conditions as me. I suppose it serves me right because I’m not an organic tree-hugging farmer.

[gavin]

LOL! Can anyone join in?

I had a mostly vegetarian tea (dinner for any posh folk reading) but it did have bits of bacon in it and it contained veg from far away that probably had a high carbon footprint. Bought at a large corporate and probably international supermarket. I drove around quite a bit today in my vehicle made by a global company using diesel that was produced and marketed by a multinational and visited two bee sites, one in the hills, thus ensuring that my honey is, once again, some of the most carbon costly (as well as plain costly) around (not proud of it, just saying). I put a chemical on three hives (thymol, don't give me any of that nonsense that it is an organic treatment), no doubt necessary because of the neonics that have eliminated the natural immunity of the bees and allowed the Varroa to flourish. Come to think of it, Varroa is only a visible problem in a delinquent colony belonging to a friend which I've taken into custody to requeen. It has spent its last year in the middle of town and escaped the neonic holocaust endured by its new apiary-mates, so I just can't explain why it is the one with the mite problem whilst mine are sailing through summer with hardly a mite to be seen.

Anyway, I digress. The telly (global company) is on in the corner, I've been using my mobile (global company) tonight for a crucial conversation with a bee farmer (no, not *that* one) and I'm typing this on a Microsoft-driven laptop itself made by a global corporation.

I have wondered whether the mobile was going to fry my brain or give me tumours in my testicles (but science has more or less assured me that it is OK), whether the laptop was going to rot my brain (think it has), the diesel give me asthma (may have contributed to a small touch of it) and the carbon contributed to the early demise of the planet (undoubtedly). However, despite all this and especially the onslaught of neonic-soaked forage in April to early June, my bees seem in remarkably good health. Rude health, even. The slow to build splits after much-delayed queen mating are building nicely now back at the home apiary. The stronger ones are actually filling supers of cut comb at my heather site and I added additional ones today.

[Rosie]

Gavin, by taking advantage of all this modern technology provided by big business you have extended your life from 40 years to 75 or 80. You will hence consume twice the earth's resources and eat twice as many chips as you would have done had you been born a few hundred years back. You should be ashamed of yourself!

Steve

[Calum]

In Orkneys defence to give the Isles some credit

[Jon]

You will hence consume twice the earth's resources and eat twice as many chips

Or deep fried mars bars as the case may be.

I suppose it serves me right because I’m not an organic tree-hugging farmer.

I thought Orkney was bereft of trees.
The tree-huggers must use some kind of surrogate object.

[chris]

Well, as everyone seems to be joking, this is an old one, but I think relevant.
A man jumped off the top of the Empire state building, and all the way down, the workers in the offices heard him saying: "so far so good".

[gavin]

I've more or less given up chips, but have to say that happened well after the age of forty.

Apparently there is a tree in the middle of Kirkwall, but these days it is in bad shape so anyone hugging it please be gentle.

[gavin]

The others that do exist tend to be either not very cuddly ......



or over-used by the locals ......



Maybe one of these instead?

[Jon]

That postcard is from the 1960s unless Kirkwall is like Havana and they drive old cars.
That Lab 3rd from the end of the line has been eating a Mars bar or two.