New study confirms Bayer’s neonic pesticides are destroying honeybee pollinators… yet the EPA does nothing
by: Michelle Simmons
NaturalNews.com
Thursday, September 14, 2017
A new study affirmed that neonicotinoid pesticides — also known as “neonics” which are chemically related to nicotine — harm both honey bees and wild bees, as reported by BBC. Researchers found that the chemical exposure decreased the survival of honey bee hives during winter, while bumblebees and solitary bees produced fewer queens.
The study, the most extensive to date, measured 2,000 hectares across the United Kingdom, Germany, and Hungary and was set up to establish the impacts of the pesticides. It was conducted by Richard Pywell, a professor from the Center for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxfordshire and was published in Science.ScienceMag.org.
Pywell said that there was a need to undertake a large-scale, realistic experiment to represent the effects of neonicotinoids on pollinators in the real world.
Bees were exposed to untreated winter-sown oilseed rape and two different types of treated oilseed rape — Bayer’s clothiandian and Syngenta’s thiamethoxam.
Results showed that higher concentrations of neonicotinoid residues found in nests resulted in fewer honey bee queens in the U.K., Germany, and Hungary.
A type of neonicotinoid called imidacloprid, which was not used in the study, was also found in the wild bee nests. The researchers said the presence of this pesticide showed that the chemicals still linger in the environment despite the 2013 neonicotinoid ban in Europe.
For honey bees, scientists concluded that in the U.K. and Hungary, exposure to neonics meant that hives were at risk of dying out over the winter. Meanwhile, no harmful effects on overwintering honey bees were found in Germany.
Another study published in the same journal looked at the commercial corn-growing areas of Canada and found that worker bees exposed to neonicotinoids had lower life span and were more likely to permanently lose queens.
“We’ve shown for the first time negative effects of neonicotinoid-coated seed dressings on honey bees and we’ve also shown similar negative effects on wild bees,” Pywell told BBC News.
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