Bees _restored to health_ in Italy after this spring’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing

During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used.

It does look like a resounding, spectacular success. During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used.

The ban on the insecticide-soaked seed coating enforced by the Italian government last year seems to have worked wonders, judging from the freshest data collected on the ground by researchers, beekeepers and regional authorities alike.

Bees _restored to health_ in Italy after this spring’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing

This is amazing... well maybe not. It's amazing that Italy has there bees back... but pretty ridiculous that they lost them to begin with. Is there no Quality Assurance testing on these things? Were they tested with manual pollination and therefore the bee factor was not caught?

So when will this begin to influence the laws from the US?

reply to post by HunkaHunka


It seems to me, any quality testing(If any is done at all) is only taken so far. The impact of the surrounding environment is irrelevant. They are only looking at profit made from crops. Bees killed don't matter, poison leech off into the groundwater means squat etc. It's not a good mentality to have at all, it is what we seem to be stuck with though. living in the time we are living.

HunkaHunka

During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used.

It does look like a resounding, spectacular success. During this year’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing in Italy hardly a bee colony has been lost, bar a suspicious case where some leftover seed from last year may have been used.

The ban on the insecticide-soaked seed coating enforced by the Italian government last year seems to have worked wonders, judging from the freshest data collected on the ground by researchers, beekeepers and regional authorities alike.

Bees _restored to health_ in Italy after this spring’s neonicotinoid-free maize sowing

This is amazing... well maybe not. It's amazing that Italy has there bees back... but pretty ridiculous that they lost them to begin with. Is there no Quality Assurance testing on these things? Were they tested with manual pollination and therefore the bee factor was not caught?

So when will this begin to influence the laws from the US?

Let me be the among the first with a F&S.
This is most encouraging, and I hope the correlation is logically upheld. A couple of studies already linked the negative effects solidly-- hopefully going in the other direction, and removing the proposed negative influence will be clinically solid enough to keep the stuff away from our food as well.

TKDRL
reply to post by HunkaHunka

 

It seems to me, any quality testing(If any is done at all) is only taken so far. The impact of the surrounding environment is irrelevant. They are only looking at profit made from crops. Bees killed don't matter, poison leech off into the groundwater means squat etc. It's not a good mentality to have at all, it is what we seem to be stuck with though. living in the time we are living.

its quite sad that we live in this time of " profit or else".....greed will be our downfall and from what we are doing to nature we deserve to run out of food because sustainability just doesn't seem to matter to the bottom line....and at the rate we are going I do not think we will ever learn

Well that is encouraging news. A local beekeeper was recently interviewed and after serious losses of 75% of his bees in the last three years, he figures this is the last year for his business. I wasn't aware that Italy had a ban. Thanks for bring this to our attention, OP.

it won't be long before the gmo crowd comes in and say's doesn't mean any thing.
you need to run a thousand studies the exact same way, with a thousand published papers.
before you can even say that this might merit a reason to even think about studying this.

three guesses who gets here first, and the first two don't count.

Hopefully other countries will see this and quit using these kind of "improvements" that risk taking company execs are touting as safe. I don't expect that our government will even ponder on this here in America, after all, these corporations would not be able to pay contributions if their income was lessened. I would have said bribes but I wouldn't want to make our congressmen feel that I was misinterpreting the laws that they have made..

S&F for bringing me some good news.

So it's possible that our slow motion collapse of the ecosystem ...could be reversed this easily and this quickly?

Only thing in the way is Monsanto and the blur of Government -> Private -> Government overlap?

Well... I swear I'll never talk to people again who don't put down the Twinkies and Ding Dongs, get off the couch in 2014 and vote these losers OUT.

We can all talk about how it wasn't worth the 30 minutes most people will have to spend to do it ..AFTER a little more than 50% actually bother to show up and try. We HAVE to try though ....this gives hope but it's a false hope for Americans while the companies that make the poison, pump it out as fast as they can produce it.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


We should make a program. On voting day, the cable and internet and phone get cut off, and don't turn back on until you present proof of voting. Eh, too tyranical maybe. But even if we could get 100% to vote, how many of those votes even come close to being informed votes?

It is easy to lose the big picture though. I had a "situation" here, one side of my house is always covered with spiders. One year we sprayed the house, no more spiders. The unintended consequence? Mosquitoes and fruit flies were horrible that year. The spiders are creepy, but they are not widows or recluse types, so I leave them be now.

reply to post by hounddoghowlie

it won't be long before the gmo crowd comes in and say's doesn't mean any thing.

What do neonicotinoid treated seeds have to do with GM crops?
Are non-GM seeds which are so treated ok?

Did anyone notice that the article is four years old?
How have the Italian bees been doing since?

On this matter we do not need thousands of studies. We don't even need 2. I will jump on the change wagon by eating bee friendly foods (no GMO/no pesticide). I have found if I eat like I used to as a kid - stretching and not wasting I can pull it off (it's more expensive to eat healthy natural foods as most know). I want to be healthier anyway. If everyone did this for a week maybe it would have an economic impact but I doubt that will happen.

I will also do my part to vote these guys out (I didn't vote them in to begin with but will try again). I'm not sure how big of an impact that will have since these guys get in there and get drunk from the wine of power and money. I'm always willing to try though.

reply to post by Phage


This one is from this year

Phage


What do neonicotinoid treated seeds have to do with GM crops?

Alas, I see you are lost in a sea of ignorance;
here let me throw some factoids your way....

On May 24, 2013, the European Commission imposed a number of use restrictions on neonicotinoid insecticides, which are suspected to be a contributing factor of bee colony collapse disorder.[16][17] Recently-published evidence that neonicotinoids disrupt the immune systems of bees may lend political support to the EU's actions.[13]
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by burntheships

Yes, I know about the restrictions on neonicotinoids.
What does it have to do with GM crops?

reply to post by Phage


Really not posting this answer for you, as you already know yet continue to feign ignorance.
Others may take note:

1) What do GE seeds have to do with neonicotinoids and bees? and 2) How can an Iowa corn farmer find himself feeling unable to farm without poisoning pollinators? In other words, where did U.S. corn cultivation go wrong?

The short answer to both questions starts with a slow motion train wreck that began in the mid-1990s: Corn integrated pest management (IPM) fell apart at the seams. Rather, it was intentionally unraveled by Bayer and Monsanto.

Honey bees caught in the cross-fire

Corn is far from the only crop treated by neonicotinoids, but it is the largest use of arable land in North America, and honey bees rely on corn as a major protein source. At least 94 percent of the 92 million acres of corn planted across the U.S. this year will have been treated with either clothianidin or thiamethoxam (another neonicotinoid).

As we head into peak corn planting season throughout the U.S. Midwest, bees will once again "get it from all sides" as they:
•fly through clothianidin-contaminated planter dust;
•gather clothianidin-laced corn pollen, which will then be fed to emerging larva;
•gather water from acutely toxic, pesticide-laced guttation droplets; and/or
•gather pollen and nectar from nearby fields where forage sources such as dandelions have taken up these persistent chemicals from soil that's been contaminated year on year since clothianidin's widespread introduction into corn cultivation in 2003.


GE corn & neonicotinoid seed treatments go hand-in-hand

www.commondreams.org...

There are some good scientific minds on this thread so I thought I would post this reply here. And I could be totally off base but it has been my impression that science has thrown ethics out the window.

Here are some examples I can think of right now:

Replicating the suns energy - get Fukushima and whatever other plant decides to get out of control for the next 10,000 years.

Attempt to kill bad bacteria - wont last due to abuses and lack of follow through on how it might affect the human body.

Outdo natures natural resistance to bugs - overdid it so eat chemicals instead of things bugs find healthy enough to eat. Killing off balance that once existed.

Replicate seeds - still finding out what this will do to us and the ecosystem. What was wrong with the seeds we had?

True intelligence in science would attempt to understand nature and work with it (its gotten us this far), not try to outsmart it. And responsible science would think of cause and effect - long term...stopping the minute something is amiss to reevaluate. None of that happens though so we get where we are now; keep justifying how it is ok to keep altering and replicating because nothing is that bad yet.

Why not say, "bees are dying - take a giant step back and lets see why."
Why on earth would the experiment continue while critical life in the ecosystem (including us) remain - Guinea pigs - while they evaluate? I'm opting out of this experiment the best I can (was never given the choice so limited on what I can do of course). This isn't how I was taught to do science. Research is ongoing and you must make ethical decisions sometimes. Sorry if it screws it all up but some self control is in order for the mad scientists. Why aren't they thinking things through? Why aren't they stopping when new information presents itself that is contrary to their aims?

reply to post by burntheships

Really not posting this answer for you, as you already know yet continue to feign ignorance.

What answer?
Neonicotinoids are not exclusive to GM crops.

Italy is still planting GM maize but they stopped using neonicotinoid seed treated seeds in 2008. Reports are that CCD in Italy has greatly declined since 2008.

It would seem the problem with bees is not GM crops since Italy did not stop planting them.

reply to post by HunkaHunka

That is encouraging news,and I sincerely hope that this method is repeated season after season-and if proven to genuinely save the Italian bee population,also implemented in other regions+countries.In my country we learned in elementary school how essential bees are to earth's life grid,I perhaps learned it sooner even,because my adoptive father was a farmer/farm manager.That's why it absolutely beggars belief that companies like Monsanto got as far as they did-how stupid Are people?No matter What the size of any kickback or bribe-in the end you can not eat money-well technically speaking you are physically able to,but I would love to see a study on how long it could sustain health and the consumer's life.

reply to post by Raxoxane

You might want to direct your ire to Bayer and Syngenta. They're the ones who sell most of the neonicotinoids.

Phage

 

it won't be long before the gmo crowd comes in and say's doesn't mean any thing.

What do neonicotinoid treated seeds have to do with GM crops?
Are non-GM seeds which are so treated ok?