# Startling test results of worldwide samples of honey Neonics/pesticides



## Greeny (Jun 27, 2016)

"Bees collect nectar as they pollinate plants,..."


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## Aroc (May 18, 2016)

I did note they at least acknowledged the mite problem as well. All too often I read these articles and the mites....which I believe is the major problem isn't even mentioned.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

the numbers in the original study, 1.8 nano grams per grams is such a low figure only possible to detect because of modern technology.

That is 1.8 grams per 1000 tons of honey if I did the math correct, I wouldn't run out and have mine tested for that small sample. I wonder if they have the same data for organophosphates that were in honey years ago?


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

wildbranch2007 said:


> the numbers in the original study, 1.8 nano grams per grams is such a low figure


Low based on what?


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Buzz-kill, Low based on the ratio of 1.8 grams per 1000 tons of honey. I also believe that the 1.8 grams is the remains or metabolites of the neonics just as the roundup that is supposed to be found in food samples is not roundup but the metabolites of roundup.
Johno


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

From the link: 



> Human health is not likely at risk from the concentrations detected in a global sampling of 198 types of honey, which were below what the European Union authorizes for human consumption, said the report in the journal Science.
> 
> However, the study found that 34 percent of honey samples were contaminated with "concentrations of neonicotinoids that are known to be detrimental" to bees, and warned that chronic exposure is a threat to bee survival.


Do all those 34% of honey samples come from China?


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

johno said:


> Buzz-kill, Low based on the ratio of 1.8 grams per 1000 tons of honey. I also believe that the 1.8 grams is the remains or metabolites of the neonics just as the roundup that is supposed to be found in food samples is not roundup but the metabolites of roundup.
> Johno


Simply looking at numbers and saying.. gee that is a small number.. without any context is silly. Whether it is low or not depends on its toxicity both lethal and sublethal effects. Also whether it interacts with other commonly used chemicals and we know that neonics do interact with commonly used fungicides. The article itself states that the concentrations found are known to be harmful to bees. I also have no idea why you would speculate that what is being measured is metabolites of the neonics? This is a summary article that does not present materials and methods but says that what was measured were neonic concentrations. Not breakdown products. In addition neonics are extremely stable in the environment. One of the serious problems with them. Beekeepers and other lay people need to get over this stupid idea that just because something is ppb it is small. It depends on its toxicity and neonicotinoids are extraordinarily toxic to insects.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Buzz-Kill, if you are worried about those concentrations, worry on. Me life's to short to stuff an olive.
Johno


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Buzz-kill said:


> Low based on what?


Well 1.8 equals 1.8 parts per billion. Put another way 1.8 ppb would be about 5 seconds out of a century. Only in recent years has there even been testing equipment sensitive enough to make these detections. There needs to be some comparisons to other things encountered in day to day life to make this very meaningful. To me this is alarmist science run amok.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

Just because a poison is at a "low level" doesn't mean it isn't cause for concern. Putting aside the effects (or cumulative effects with other poisons in our environment) on humans, this should concern all of us: "The levels detected are sufficient to affect bee brain function and may hinder their ability to forage on, and pollinate, our crops and our native plants." J

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-bee-harming-pesticides-percent-honey-worldwide.html#jCp


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

frustrateddrone said:


> Article:https://phys.org/news/2017-10-bee-harming-pesticides-percent-honey-worldwide.html
> 
> Just a note.... Foundation that is coated with wax, it would be interesting to take a sample and send it off to see just what is on it for poisons.


Actually I spent $400 of my own money to do just that. 
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?319998-Can-capping-wax-be-quot-pure-quot


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Is it realistic to think that there would not be pesticides in honey? There are micro levels of pesticides in everything. So how could they not find their way into honey?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Buzz-kill said:


> Simply looking at numbers and saying.. gee that is a small number.. without any context is silly.





Buzz-kill said:


> The article itself states that the concentrations found are known to be harmful to bees.


Simply writing an article and saying.. gee those concentrations are known to be harmful to bees.. without any context is silly.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

From the article:

_"Neonicotinoids have been declared a key factor in bee decline worldwide"_

Everybody agree with this statement?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

psm1212 said:


> From the article:
> 
> _"Neonicotinoids have been declared a key factor in bee decline worldwide"_
> 
> Everybody agree with this statement?


...Mites...


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

psm1212 said:


> From the article:
> 
> _"Neonicotinoids have been declared a key factor in bee decline worldwide"_
> 
> ...


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

psm1212 said:


> From the article:
> 
> _"Neonicotinoids have been declared a key factor in bee decline worldwide"_
> 
> Everybody agree with this statement?


Has that declaration been made? Yes, I would have to agree it has.

Some of the science that declaration has been based on is shonky at best though. When 12 bees are put in a cage in a lab then force fed honey containing levels of poison already known to be toxic, then later, more bees in that cage are dead than in the cage that was not fed poison, and that is used to declare that neonicitinoids are a key factor in the (claimed) bee decline worldwide, in my opinion the guys who wrote that study should not even have been paid.

The science used to declare it is all down to mobile phones, was about as good.

If the majority of these neonicitinoid experiments were repeated with any other insecticide, the results would have been just as predictable. Just, proving that say, organophsphates kill or impair bees, does not have that X factor that will get publicity, and a paycheck.

I'm going to say that I had a lot more faith in the way science is conducted, a few years ago, than I do now, after having read some of these papers. It is frankly, about getting a sensationalist result which will get you widely read, and a paycheck.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

If you ever hear the author of a study claiming his findings aren't particularly relevant to a real world situation, look out. The apocalypse is near.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Guess what boys
They pull the pin, ban neonics, we are ready... 120’ boom 1200 gal tank, we can cover hundreds of acres an hour now.
How much good are the neonics actually doing ( they always argue) ... well, over the last 15 years we have actually kinda forgotten what foliage insecticide is on the market ...

Either way we kill our field bugs. As a Beekeeper and farmer, id rather use the seed treatment. 

5 seconds in a century eh, 
That point does not get enough traction


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Come on Ian, whats wrong with spraying your fields with bucket loads of Sevin two or three times a season that should take care of the bugs including your bees, good for honey prices maybe but oh I forget we will just get cheap honey from China. Makes you want to choke on your bree and tofu.
Johno


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

I am finding that I have little tolerance for news articles like this one. You mention a couple of scientists that nobody has ever heard of and a topic that is currently "in vogue" and it becomes newsworthy. There is probably that much of the pesticides in the rainfall too. 

Would it surprise you to find out that there are insect parts in your honey too?


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

I live in a largely rural, agricultural area. I bet I have not seen a crop duster spraying fields in the past 10 years. In my youth, I saw them everywhere. My best friend's dad flew one. 

Something tells me that the poison clouds being released from those planes likely found its way to my honey back then . . . likely in concentrations far greater than 1.8 ppb. And into our water supply, noses, mouths and everywhere else. 

Neonics are not a perfect solution and we should continue to perfect them. But let's not forget where we have been.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

psm1212 said:


> I live in a largely rural, agricultural area. I bet I have not seen a crop duster spraying fields in the past 10 years. In my youth, I saw them everywhere. My best friend's dad flew one.
> 
> Something tells me that the poison clouds being released from those planes likely found its way to my honey back then . . . likely in concentrations far greater than 1.8 ppb. And into our water supply, noses, mouths and everywhere else.
> 
> Neonics are not a perfect solution and we should continue to perfect them. But let's not forget where we have been.


What is funny is in my area we never used dusters, but in recent years I am more and more seeing aerial crop dusting, usually beans. No idea what they are spraying. Closest one was 100 yards from my hives. No mass die-off. I am guessing it was herbicide, not insecticide.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

AR1 said:


> What is funny is in my area we never used dusters, but in recent years I am more and more seeing aerial crop dusting, usually beans. No idea what they are spraying. Closest one was 100 yards from my hives. No mass die-off. I am guessing it was herbicide, not insecticide.


My guess is late season aphid control


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

Ian said:


> My guess is late season aphid control


Not late, it was early or mid summer.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Oh mid season would be fungicide


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Fivej said:


> Just because a poison is at a "low level" doesn't mean it isn't cause for concern. Putting aside the effects (or cumulative effects with other poisons in our environment) on humans, this should concern all of us: "The levels detected are sufficient to affect bee brain function and may hinder their ability to forage on, and pollinate, our crops and our native plants." J
> 
> Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-bee-harming-pesticides-percent-honey-worldwide.html#jCp


I really feel sorry for coal miners, as sorry for the paper mill workers in the north. Health warnings required for eating fish from our lakes are the direct result of cheap power for the South. There are so many things we humans are doing that we are clueless about, plastics in our houses & furniture, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides in our foods, plastics in our foods. Want to talk about plastic honey bottles?

Honey? Not on my list.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Saltybee said:


> Health warnings required for eating fish from our lakes are the direct result of cheap power for the South.


False.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Wish it was. Where does that smoke go? I ship mine to Canada and Europe.

Granted not quite that simple, Much of the heavy metals are leached from auto exhaust acid rain. My auto gas disappears without going downstream at all.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Saltybee said:


> Wish it was. Where does that smoke go? I ship mine to Canada and Europe.
> 
> Granted not quite that simple, Much of the heavy metals are leached from auto exhaust acid rain. My auto gas disappears without going downstream at all.


60% of the nation's electric grid is powered by coal. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are all in the top 10 most coal-dependent states in the nation. The idea that somehow Northern states are subsidizing the South's energy costs is baseless and a little insulting.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

psm1212,
No insult intended. I acknowledge the #2 fuel oil and gas I burn, does not stop me for doing it. I buy stuff from China made from coal fired electricity. American coal is just a more immediately direct an impact , probably not that different a long term impact. Mainers bought a lot of mohos, furniture etc. from that cheap electricity. Did not complain then. Won WW2 on coal and steel. Made a good paycheck on American steel myself, my real estate would crash without shipbuilding. Have a proud tradition of shipbuilding, We prefer you picture those ships sailing to California for the gold rush than to Africa for slaves, or to China for "trade".
We all flush our toilets everyday, somebody gets to reuse that water eventually. I am a good American, which means I am a pretty dirty beast. My denial is much bigger than honey, works for me so far. No, no insult intended.

Simply stating the contamination of honey is a symptom of our willingness to proceed with many advances before (and even after) we know the risks. Not the biggest thing I ignore.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

60% of electrical generation in the US is from fossil fuels. Of that, about 30% is from coal, and it is declining rapidly. 
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Fivej said:


> 60% of electrical generation in the US is from fossil fuels. Of that, about 30% is from coal, and it is declining rapidly.
> https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states


It is a market. When the price of gas is depressed, we burn gas. When the price of coal is depressed, we burn coal. While they are decommissioning some coal plants, the trend of gas vs. coal will depend SOLELY on the market rate of each commodity -- unless the government mandatess otherwise. The recent uptick in gas usage is caused by the historically low price of natural gas. If that changes, we will burn more coal. 

My objection and point, however, was the claim that our rivers and lakes were now polluted for the cause of bringing "cheap power for the South." That is a patently false statement.


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

psm1212 said:


> I live in a largely rural, agricultural area. I bet I have not seen a crop duster spraying fields in the past 10 years. In my youth, I saw them everywhere. My best friend's dad flew one.
> 
> Something tells me that the poison clouds being released from those planes likely found its way to my honey back then . . . likely in concentrations far greater than 1.8 ppb. And into our water supply, noses, mouths and everywhere else.
> 
> Neonics are not a perfect solution and we should continue to perfect them. But let's not forget where we have been.


I have two out yards in the the heart of the poisoned wastelands we call agricultural areas. Visiting those out yards this summer I witnessed crop dusting on several occasions. You must be another Bayer/Monsanto paid shill. Gotta have those chemicals. Can't live without them.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

When the price of # 2 passed $4 and climbing I bought and used a couple of coal stoves. Admit I will use them again if I need to. 
Do not pretend we all do not use cheap power and ignore the other costs. We cool steam with water as waste instead of a waste heat boiler. Not much better with a gas turbine. That is not a need, that is a choice. 

Must be fake weather radar that shows storms move up the coast and from the Midwest. Do not say that coal power smoke does not fall on my head. I will not tell Nova Scotia my oil (and sometimes coal) smoke does not fall on them.


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

psm1212 said:


> It is a market. When the price of gas is depressed, we burn gas. When the price of coal is depressed, we burn coal. While they are decommissioning some coal plants, the trend of gas vs. coal will depend SOLELY on the market rate of each commodity -- unless the government mandatess otherwise. The recent uptick in gas usage is caused by the historically low price of natural gas. If that changes, we will burn more coal.
> 
> My objection and point, however, was the claim that our rivers and lakes were now polluted for the cause of bringing "cheap power for the South." That is a patently false statement.


Actually the government has subsidized the burning of coal and gas for at least 100 years. Coal is going away because it is obsolete and one of the most destructive things we have ever done. Setting aside the CO2 climate change the burning of coal has polluted every drop of water the planet. You can thank coal mercury poisoning and contamination of the worlds fish stocks.


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

johno said:


> Buzz-Kill, if you are worried about those concentrations, worry on. Me life's to short to stuff an olive.
> Johno


Not worried. Simply rational and intelligent.


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

jim lyon said:


> Well 1.8 equals 1.8 parts per billion. Put another way 1.8 ppb would be about 5 seconds out of a century. Only in recent years has there even been testing equipment sensitive enough to make these detections. There needs to be some comparisons to other things encountered in day to day life to make this very meaningful. To me this is alarmist science run amok.


There is that old canard again. When I was a undergraduate student i the 70s and a graduate student in the early 80s gas chromatography, HPLC, mass sprectrometry were already well established mature technologies. Measuring ppb and smaller is not something new or has anything to do with the toxicity. Nor does it have anything to do with its persistence in the environment or the body. Clearly the concern here is not about human health but the impact on bees. These are chemicals that persist and build up in the soil, are spread by water to non-target plants and are taken up by those non-target plants systemically. So unlike spraying a chemical which may be a one time short lived event that will not harm bees if they are protected from contact, these are in the fluids produced by the plants and harvested by the bee and brought back to the hive.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Buzz-kill said:


> Actually the government has subsidized the burning of coal and gas for at least 100 years. Coal is going away because it is obsolete and one of the most destructive things we have ever done. Setting aside the CO2 climate change the burning of coal has polluted every drop of water the planet. You can thank coal mercury poisoning and contamination of the worlds fish stocks.


There are those, including myself, who do not think coal is the stupidest thing we have ever done. Way too many other possibilities. Fracking may be one of them.

We long ago invented sealed refrigerators, which are just a generators running backwards. Condensing steam with water to turn a generator from any source is pretty stupid and outdated. So is a gas turbine vented to the atmosphere.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Buzz-kill said:


> You must be another Bayer/Monsanto paid shill. Gotta have those chemicals. Can't live without them.


"Rational and intelligent" people do not make stupid claims about people they do not know.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Buzz-kill said:


> Actually the government has subsidized the burning of coal and gas for at least 100 years. Coal is going away because it is obsolete and one of the most destructive things we have ever done.


Please show an example of government subsidizing the burning of coal.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Saltybee said:


> Condensing steam with water to turn a generator from any source is pretty stupid and outdated. So is a gas turbine vented to the atmosphere.


Not sure I am following your thought here. Venting a gas turbine without trying to capture the energy of the exhaust is most definitely a waste. However, the way that heat is captured is through water and steam to power a steam turbine on the back side of the gas turbine. It is commonly called a "combined cycle" and is one of the most efficient ways to squeeze every last btu out of burning gas that we currently use.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

What I would have called a waste heat boiler. Using water to condense steam is still the norm. Old plants are still the norm. Simple choice we make everyday to do no better. Freon or even ammonia that would boil at water condensation temps would capture even more.

We have a concrete enclosed waste from a nuclear plant next door. Will sit there for centuries. A low temp boiler would not work? Create a temperature differential and power can be captured. Running, it heated up an entire bay, even removed a causeway to increase the tide. What a waste.

Government subsidies; EPA superfund sites, depreciation and depletion, federal lease sites.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Saltybee said:


> What I would have called a waste heat boiler. Using water to condense steam is still the norm. Old plants are still the norm. Simple choice we make everyday to do no better. Freon or even ammonia that would boil at water condensation temps would capture even more.
> 
> We have a concrete enclosed waste from a nuclear plant next door. Will sit there for centuries. A low temp boiler would not work? Create a temperature differential and power can be captured. Running, it heated up an entire bay, even removed a causeway to increase the tide. What a waste.
> 
> Government subsidies; EPA superfund sites, depreciation and depletion, federal lease sites.


Depreciation? Really Salty? Every business that ever purchased a capital asset HAS TO depreciate it. You think that is a subsidy for the burning of coal? Might as well tell me that the roads that are paved by the government are a subsidy to coal plants when looking at it like that. Hell, we are all subsidized in that regard. 

EPA superfund sites are about the last **** thing a coal plant owner wants to hear. If the EPA can establish a culpible party (and they always can with coal plants) then the company pays the fund for the clean up, plus penalties and fines. Subsidy my ass. Last week, two lawyers were indicted for attempting to bribe a legislator in Alabama to make sure they were NOT declared a superfund site. 

I am not a fan of coal plants. I will be glad for the day when the last one is shuttered and abandoned. But your statement that the rest of the country suffers so that the South can maintain cheap power is absurd. Every state in this nation has benefited from coal-fired power plants. 

There is a danger, as much as no one wants to admit it, of jettisoning coal however. So long as natural gas remains at current prices per mbtu, power will remain cheap (for everyone, not just Southerners). But if gas jumps from its current levels of around $3 to somewhere around $12, like it did in the late 2000's, we are all going to get screwed. So long as energy is dependent on a commodities market, there needs to be some ability for electric utilities to keep diversified in its sources of power.

Want to take some bets on what happens to the price of natural gas if fracking is ever outlawed? Now, what happens to poorer Americans on fixed incomes when our grid is solely dependent on natural gas? I want to kill coal as much as the next guy. It needs to be done responsibly.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

But your statement that the rest of the country suffers so that the South can maintain cheap power is absurd.

Would be if I said that , rather than what you heard that. Coal burning does increase the air pollution I breath and the acid rain that ends up in my lake. Fact. Everyones good deal is someone else's bad deal. Agree with the bulk of what you say.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Pretty divided country down there...politics, red and blue camps ...period


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Ingesting too much neonic laced honey does that I guess...


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## Baja (Oct 11, 2012)

Thanks for the study though I am not surprised. What I am also not surprised at is the number of folks who religiously defend the safety of insecticides and herbicides as though it were a personal attack. I grew up on a conventional farm but have been organically farming and beekeeping for a few decades and don't condemn my farming friends who embrace pesticides. I also quite smoking 20 years ago but many of my good friends still smoke and I don't have a problem with that. That's a personal choice. China is by far the biggest beekeeping nation in the world and produces the most wax for foundation and yes it has been proven to contain lots of nasty stuff.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Ian said:


> Pretty divided country down there...politics, red and blue camps ...period


Divisions the same as any other country, just like in yours.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

clyderoad said:


> Divisions the same as any other country, just like in yours.


“Please show an example of government subsidizing the burning of coal.”

This is topic of your countries politics... leaching into a completely unrelated topic...


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Ian said:


> “Please show an example of government subsidizing the burning of coal.”
> 
> This is topic of your countries politics... leaching into a completely unrelated topic...


Please put down the wide brush Ian or risk falling into the mud yourself.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

frustrateddrone said:


> Article:https://phys.org/news/2017-10-bee-harming-pesticides-percent-honey-worldwide.html
> 
> Oh..... Glad that I am all foundationless and live in the country. I live near some of the largest ranches in Texas. Unfortunately the land is fast being parceled out for sale for real-estate neighborhoods.
> 
> Just a note.... Foundation that is coated with wax, it would be interesting to take a sample and send it off to see just what is on it for poisons.


OP


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

psm1212 said:


> Depreciation? Really Salty? Every business that ever purchased a capital asset HAS TO depreciate it. You think that is a subsidy for the burning of coal? Might as well tell me that the roads that are paved by the government are a subsidy to coal plants when looking at it like that. Hell, we are all subsidized in that regard.


In no way did I intend to imply that coal was receiving a unique special or unfair advantage. (From the downwind side relaxing clean air regs to stop the "war" on coal is a threat). 

Yes it is a government subsidy. Yes government does pick winners and losers. If each consumer of any good pays for their portion of the total cost including plant and machinery costs, that is a free market. If taxpayers pay those costs that is a subsidy. If any industry is allowed to defer paying for their waste until they go out of business and that waste becomes a superfund, ( or even if it just stays dirty) that is a subsidy. Thinking of a Maine mercury paper waste site as much as coal. That is a subsidy. One may consider requiring the full process cost and it's cleanup to be covered as government interference , but I do not. I do not think coal is paying for all costs of black lung and I do not think shipbuilders and others are paying the full cost of asbestos. Did not say there is any evil involved, just that there are winners and losers in any, especially government, choices.

Mortgage interest deductions may be good or may be bad, but they are a chosen subsidy. Changing the rental depreciation schedule to 27.5 years had immediate impact on the value of rentals. Yep, a chosen subsidy taken away.


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