Termites/ bees

[Johnthefarmer]

brandy?
trivialisation is cheap ,unworthy but maybe it's very jokey?

[Neils]

I'm not the one who put brandy into my beehives as a varroa treatment. When I have some time I'll dig up the link and the section within it. It was over distilled so maybe it acts like Oxalic Acid, I honestly don't know they didn't expand that much.

On your previous point we're in agreement at least. Agriculture, it seems to me, has gone the way of every other industry, much of it is "corporate", lowest common denominator and trying to feed a beast of its own making in many respects. Watching the recent campaigns by Hugh, Jamie et al about pigs and chickens and more recently fish was quite interesting, especially as I was making the same points about fish a decade ago.

In some respects I do think the systemic pesticides are an improvement over the previous, pretty indiscriminate, pesticide applications and believe it or not that they end up in nectar and pollen is absolutely a concern which is why I pay as much attention to it as I do, and not just because I keep bees. Does that mean I think they're great and Bayer are a lovely company? No. But in the short term, what's the solution? In the Medium term? in the Long term? I honestly don't know, I have an allotment and that's the limit of my agricultural experience, when that invariably goes balls up, I go to Co-Op and stock up on all the stuff my allotment failed at.

For the record I use Organic certified slug pellets on my allotment and horse manure.

[Johnthefarmer]

I still think my question about termites/bees is relevant and hasn't really been addressed.
It was that Bayer originally promoted Imidacloprid (Premise+ Nature) as being far more effective at destroying termite colonies when the termites ingested sublethal doses (1 -4 ppb.), than when they were killed outright by higher levels. The cause of colony deaths was their natural parasites.Any post mortem on such a colony would conclude that it was overwhelmed by parasites. The time delay and subsequent further dilution of imd in ,often, a next generation would further obscure the primary cause.
This effect, they claimed themselves, was due to the disabling of normal behaviours such as grooming.
Bayer admit they did not do trials to check that bees would not suffer the same fate ( or,at least they did not publish any such papers).
My question is still, if these products, which are effective over a very wide range of insects, destroy termite colonies at sublethal doses ,as advertised, how is it, and by what selective mechanism, that they don't do the same thing to the other insects ?

[Bumble]

My question is still, if these products, which are effective over a very wide range of insects, destroy termite colonies at sublethal doses ,as advertised, how is it, and by what selective mechanism, that they don't do the same thing to the other insects ?

Is there a more appropriate place elsewhere on the internet that might be better suited for questions like this? Do we have termites in this country?

[Johnthefarmer]

Is there a more appropriate place elsewhere on the internet that might be better suited for questions like this? Do we have termites in this country?

No, we have bees and lots of other insects in this country which are being affected by chemicals promoted as being lethal to colonies at doses which are not lethal on ingestion.
Surely, this is a matter suitable for the SBAI to discuss?

As for the matter of exactly how closely termites are genetically related to bees, I would take a taxonomic punt that bees are closer to termites than aphids, the primary targets of neonics, are, certainly regarding their social arrangements.

If you annually treat a crop with systemic, residual chemicals which debilitate defensive behaviours of insects what do you expect?

[Bumble]

If we don't have termites in this country then we are unlikely to come into contact, or interact, with pesticides developed to control termites.

Breaking the silence on a forum thread isn't compulsory, and it's impossible to force others give you information they can't provide. I was simply suggesting that a UK-based beekeeping forum might not be the best place to ask your question. It's up to you.

I don't have anything else to offer, but would have thought that maybe "specialists" on perhaps an environmental forum, or an arthropod-related forum, in the country where these products are used are more likely to offer the informed response you seem to want.

[gavin]

I'm not sure if this really helps John, but each year I see my bees throw themselves at oilseed rape with a degree of enthusiasm. They come back coated in pollen, sometimes dripping with the stuff, just as they do from willow for example. Some clean (groom) themselves outside a little before they go in. All the foragers emerging, still excited to get on with another trip, have cleaned up. They groom themselves well inside the hive (presumably they are grooming themselves rather than waiting for other to do it - in fact others can't really do it for them properly). When they emerge you can see that trace of pollen on their faces as the pollen gets stuck down hard between the eyes and they seem to struggle to remove it after visiting Brassicas of all types. I saw that before neonics were used and I see the same thing now.

So I don't see how their behaviour can be altered in a way that affects the ability to groom. The bees mentioned above are those exposed directly to oilseed rape. Some or all will be fuelling with nectar from the crop, either directly or from refuelling bees in the hive and will be burning it up at a high rate.

I know, when I read that stuff on termites years ago I thought that this may indicate a problem. Having closely watched my bees on oilseed rape now for many years it is clear that it was just scare-mongering. You should spend time watching bees working oilseed rape from conventional agriculture. They build fine, they store nectar and honey, they do their waggle dances without any hunching or winking or indicating any confusion at all, they groom fine. How all that then translates to imagined high levels of colony loss in winter defeats me. They can't show no effects when exposed to the largest amount, and show dramatic effects months later from barely-contaminated stores and several worker generations down the line. Just doesn't make sense.

[Stromnessbees]

If we don't have termites in this country then we are unlikely to come into contact, or interact, with pesticides developed to control termites.

It has been made perfectly clear that we are talking about Imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide used on many crops in the UK and bees are often foraging on systemically treated plants.

The termite killer is called Premise, but its active ingredient is Imidacloprid.

Premise Plus Nature is the trademark for Imidacloprid's mode of action in sublethal doses, where it shows no acute toxicity but leads to the delayed collapse of the (termite) colony.

This also counters Gavin's statements, as beekeepers simply won't notice the presence of the poison while the bees are on OSR, but the (bee) colony can still suffer and die from the suppression of the grooming behaviour weeks and months later.