# interesting turn of events



## gmcharlie

what I wonder is what is actually motivating him....


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## JStinson

I picked up the latest issue of Bee Culture in Tractor Supply. I wasn't planning to buy it, but what I gained by skimming was pretty disappointing. Conclusions looking for science, that kind of thing. Disappointing. 

I want to read about bees.


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## wildbranch2007

I went to the Bayer site to see if they had any way to get an employee list but I couldn't find any


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## BernhardHeuvel

wildbranch2007 said:


> ...thiacloprid which has a good bee profile.


What does that mean? Thiacloprid is a neonic. This year it killed all of my flying bees in one day. My bees got sprayed with thiacloprid in a canola field. I had it tested in two seperate and independant laboratories. 

I don't trust any labels anymore. For a reason: bad experience. 

I know there is a lot of crap written on the effects of neonics on bees - on *either* side of the groups pro&con neonics. Some get hysteric, some want to make their profit. In between lies the truth.


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## kilocharlie

BernhardHeuvel said:


> ..... In between lies the truth.


interesting verb there...


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## Rader Sidetrack

Mr White and I share a first name,  so I have an interest in his activities. 

While he hasn't graced Beesource with his posts recently, he seems to have been busy. From a document submitted in testimony before a committee of the (Great Britain) UK Parliament in March 2013:



> *A Pesticide ‘Free for All’
> *Since the American EPA has abandoned any pretence of enforcing pesticide label regulations, farmers can apply insecticides virtually anytime on a ‘perceived need’ basis: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year;.
> ...
> It is hard to judge whether the bees are poisoned more, by the summer neonicotinoids which affect them in the Midwest, or if they are finally pushed over the edge in the winter, by having to eat pesticide-contaminated stores. Either way, for months on end, these bees are exposed to a repeated drip-feed of many different pesticides.
> ...
> Thus, repeated pesticide-shocks throughout the growing season trigger the collapse of brood rearing in late summer. As a result, the colony does not produce enough young worker bees and, in desperation, worn-out worker bees are retained in the hive beyond their normal residency. To the untrained eye, the colony still looks well-populated and has plenty of honey and bee-bread for the winter. But in reality, this colony of geriatric bees is doomed to collapse in mid-winter.
> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/writev/668/m44.htm


Its a long document, and the snippets above are just random paragraphs. Click the link to read it in its entirety.


:ws:


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## JRG13

I think if your bees actually get sprayed it's a done deal. It's the systemic effects people are talking about, after application.


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## sqkcrk

*<* In between lies the truth.[/QUOTE]

"In between lies, the truth." "In between, lies the truth."

"In between [lays] the truth."

Grammar and punctuation matters.


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## Michael Palmer

Wasn't Borderbeeman claiming much CCD from the neonics in Oil Seed Rape (Canola)? 

I was just in the UK for a couple weeks. OSR everywhere. I was told that 25% of tillable land was in OSR, they're making 200+lb. of honey per colony, and no CCD.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Michael Palmer said:


> ...they're making 200+lb. of honey per colony, and no CCD.


That is what they say. You should see it for yourself when the canola is in blossom. You would see the damage that is done to the bees, others do not. They simply don't see it.

My canola honey was tested in a lab and a neonic was found in the honey. Also the pollen was tested in two separate and certified laboratories in two different countries and high amounts of neonics has been found in the pollen, too. Result: all foragers died on one day. Some queens failed later, one immediately. Nosema showed up on this hives. 

Another beekeeper who had bees close to the canola field, too, noticed "nothing" except that the honey harvest was "a little lower" as it should be. He had trouble with colonies collapsing in some winters, too, not knowing where it comes from. I fear a lot of beekeepers do not know what to look for. Losses are hidden. Inofficial losses are 30-50 % each year. Officially 10-30 %. Losses are hidden from other beekeepers and replaced secretely with packages from Italy, France and Spain and overseas.

We have had 2.5 million bee colonies in 1900 in Germany and now dropped down to 500 k hives. That really says it all. 

Besides my bad grammar as a non-native English speaker (apologies for the confusion), what I was trying to point out, that awareness is not a bad thing and there is some truth in that story.

I for myself decided not to sell honey with pesticides in it to families and kids and so, and dumped the whole lot this year after it was positively tested. Which is a lot of money for me. But I do sleep better, because I did the right thing.


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## Paul McCarty

Can't say that would happen in the US. That honey would be sold.


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## gmcharlie

BernhardHeuvel said:


> We have had 2.5 million bee colonies in 1900 in Germany and now dropped down to 500 k hives. That really says it all.


Not an Accurate statement at all. Hive numbers are based a lot more on social economic factors that Canola. The pesticides your railing didn't exist in 1980... did you have 2.5 million then???

I can't/ wont comment on the Neonics in Rapeseed...... not my area, but don't use non related stuff to fluff up your position. Thats part of the problem on both sides of the Isle...


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## Rader Sidetrack

> The pesticides your railing didn't exist in _1980_...

But did those pesticides exist in *1900*? :scratch: 



BernhardHeuvel said:


> We have had 2.5 million bee colonies in 1900 in Germany ...


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## sqkcrk

I would have to look it up, but in Oct. or Nov. ABJ Peter Borst reported that colony counts are on the rise. If I recall correctly.


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## BernhardHeuvel

The reason I choose 1900 for comparison is, because that was the point where farmers in Germany gave up on mixed agriculture. Means before 1900 farmers grew cows, pigs, grains and veggies on one farm. Live stock and plant crops were depending on each other those days. Around 1900 that changed: agriculture splitted into farmers and ranchers. (Like in the bible...)

The old way to farm with mixed agriculture was good for the land and wildlife. And for bees.

After the First and Second World War bee hives were taken away as reparation. To France for example. The strain of dark bees which originated in the county where I live, can nowadaysbe found in Belgium. So hive numbers dropped again after the wars. Even despite beekeepers trying to split the hives and keep up the numbers.

1900 - 2.605.350 bee hives
1913 - 2.311.277
1921 - 1.930.382
1922 - 1.831.005
1991 - 1.214.702
1999 - 898.996
2008 - 621.823
2009 - 613.962
2010 - 619.197
2011 - 631.601
2012 - 622.109

Neonics have been in use since 1999 in Germany, but not very widespread. The hive numbers in 2012 I don't believe in, because I know that quite some beekeepers report no loss or a smaller loss - and buy package bees from overseas to replace the losses. I know many beekeepers in Germany and losses of 30 % each year is quite common. In Germany mostly old men do keep bees. In ten years about 60-70% of beekeepers will have died. Just because of the age. If that happens without replacement by new beekeepers, the numbers will again drop dramatically.

Neonics definitely make it hard to keep numbers up where I live. New beekeepers give up after some years because it is too much effort just to keep them bees alive. I don't say it's neonics alone but it doesn't help either, when the immune system of the bees is suppressed. I see it like shown here:
http://www.immenfreunde.de/forum/download/file.php?id=134


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## deknow

Berhard, what you are reporting is the kind of data that seems impossible to come by. Would you mind being a bit more specific?
What kind of application (spray, seed treatment)?
When were samples taken relative to the application?
What were the actual lab results?

Thanks Berhard,

Deknow


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## BernhardHeuvel

Spray. Pollen samples collected two days later in May. Honey sampled from bottled honey in Octobre. 

Laboratory results: 
0.076 mg Thiacloprid (a neonic) per kilogramm pollen
0.028 Milligramm [mg] = 28 Mikrogramm [µg] Thiacloprid per kilogramm honey

That is 28 ppb. (1 ppb*= 1 µg/kg) 

The LD50-value, the dosis that kills 50 % of the bees in 24 hours, is 17 µg/bee. (So one bee in my case has to eat 600 Gramm of honey to reach the LD50.) 

But as this study finds: "We demonstrate, however, that a daily exposure 1/100th concentration of the LD50 significantly affects the mortality rate of N. ceranae-infected honeybees." 
from: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0021550 

600 Gramm of honey contain 17 µg Thiacloprid divided through 100 = 6 Gramm honey are enough to trigger sublethal effects of some sorts, which most likely is the suppression of the immune system. Diseased and disoriented, that sounds too familiar to me.


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## deknow

Thanks Bernhard.

In the US, spraying an open bloom with bees present with an insecticide would be against label instructions, and therefore illegal. Is it the same in Germany?

Of course enforcement is always a problem.

deknow


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## gmcharlie

Interesting data Bernhard... the largest decline as I suspected was between 1900 and 1991. social economics being a huge issue. Your info on your levels is great. I am still waiting on lab results here. (they were promised in NOV).

I Do totally disagree with all the "Sub Lethal effects" garbage being touted.... its junk science. 
"I gota say something so I don't look foolish type of line."

I take in sub lethal dosages of 1000's of things a day... Even water in excess can lead to lethargy and dsyentary. While the LD 50 may not be a great number, "sub lethal" dosage info is total garbage that tells us nothing.
We may need a different value, but lets not rely on a guess.
the article on N Cerena infected bees to me tells me that we should work harder to get rid of it. thats easier then eliminating imiclorpids


Curious, I didn't know you guys were buying packages over there also? how large is the industry on that side of the pond?


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## BernhardHeuvel

Same here.

Have a look at: http://up.picr.de/12361099an.pdf

Chemicals plus nature...


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## deknow

gmcharlie said:


> I Do toally disagree with all the "Sub Lethal effects" garbage being touted.... its junk science. I gota say something so I don't look foolish type of line.
> I take in sub lethal dosages of 1000's of things a day... Even water in excess can lead to lethargy and dsyentary. While the LD 50 may not be a great number, "sub lethal" dosage info is total garbage that tells us nothing.
> We may need a different value, but lets not rely on a guess.


I'm not sure what any of that means. Are you not interested in the effects of things/dosages that have effects other than mortality?

The study the Bernhard links to is an interesting one...much better than the Pettis study that claimed the same thing (the main difference being that in this study they counted the bees that died, in the Pettis study, dead bees became discarded data).

The biggest problem I have with a study like this is that in the test the bees are deprived of a colony...none of the "bee things" that bees do to keep healthy (eat live cultures of beebread, assimilate the microbial culture of the colony, fly out of doors to deficate, interacting with comb, brood, etc) are available to these bees in a cage.

A human would succumb to many maladies if kept in solitary confinement with no plumbing and no bathing facilitities.

deknow


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## deknow

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Same here.
> Have a look at: http://up.picr.de/12361099an.pdf
> Chemicals plus nature...


Although this is a complex issue, I do have a problem with criticizing what a product does if it is misused to the point where the law is being broken.

Imagine if bees were "misused"? Would beekeeping be legal in urban areas if frames of brood (and adhering bees, of course) were being dropped on pedestrians from rooftops by gangs? ...if a group of beekeepers decides to encourage swarming in the city (and is successful)?

Of course this is interesting data (to me...I know to you it represents your own loss of bees/time/money/heart)...and thank you for sharing it. To me, however, this represents problems with what farmers in your area are doing than it does problems with specific pesticides....is there a spray they can spray on an open bloom that doesn't hurt bees and is still effective against the target organisms? If not, the problem is not thiacloprid.

deknow


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## gmcharlie

Deknow, My point is that the "sub lethal line" is totaly garbage. anything above a 0 could be called that. The LD 50 may not be the best but it is at the moment the standard. If we can scientifically show a better standard great. If we can show decrease mobility at some level fine...... but we have been trowing the term "subleathal dose" around like it means something. it means nothing. worse than nothing. 
Mayor Bloomberg says that more than 16 OZ of pop at a time is dangerous and should be regulated.
If we can show or demonstrate a new number cool.... at the moment we have one. lets stick to it, or correct it. not just make stuff up.


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## jim lyon

Bernard: Would it be correct to assume that because systemic neonic seed coatings aren't legal there in Germany, that farmers are instead controlling pests with various pesticide sprays including Neonic formulations?


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## BernhardHeuvel

@Jim: Neonic seed coatings are not forbidden nor banned in Germany. Just for certain crops like corn. In fact: corn. Only. For the next season 2014 it still is in the oilseed rape seed. It pauses from 2015 to 2015 in oilseed rape. It is allowed as a seed coating in sugar beets, asparagus, all sorts of grains....

@Charlie: The problem with sublethal dosages is the damage, that can't be repaired by the body. Even if the damage is very very tiny, not noticeable at first, it sums up over the time until the collapse. It certainly is important to discover when it comes to suppression of the immune system.

@deknow: The stuff got a permission/approval under certain and defined conditions. Which are not defined by practice but theoretically. As experience shows it is simply is not possible to follow the laws. Thiacloprid is approved as a spray in open bloom canola, but it says: spray in the late evening right before sunset. No windy conditions. 

It is a joke. A farmer cannot spray only at night with all the work he's got to do. Also it is windy here all year round where I live. 

The box says: B4 - which is a category that says it is bee-friendly (completely not dangerous to bees). What do you expect a farmer to think if he reads this? He of course sprays even if he notices bees in the open flowers. "It is B4 - no worries." The thing is, that the stuff is bee friendly if applied under theoretically circumstances. Even clothianidin and other systemics are labeled B4 or B3...because it is layed into the ground...well, the systemic action of the stuff transports it right up into the blossom, which is not of concern for the gov.

There are many beekeepers in Germany that get their bees, honey, wax and pollen tested in 
labs and the same or similiar results are obtained all over Germany. It is full of pesticides, stuff that doesn't belong to a natural product as honey is. It is in our drinking water, too, right from the tap! 

It does what it is suppose to do to social insects: disoriented&diseased, chemicals+nature finishing the job


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## deknow

BernhardHeuvel said:


> @deknow: The stuff got a permission/approval under certain and defined conditions.


I'm not equipped to discuss this further without knowing what "permission/approval" was given under what "certain and defined conditions".
It is a simple (and important) question as to whether the application that harmed your bees was done according to the law. The discussion (and solution) is very different depending on the answer.



> Which are not defined by practice but theoretically. As experience shows it is simply is not possible to follow the laws.


Any regulation that requires enforcement is one that requires something that isn't currently practiced (at least by those that need to be enforced). Any regulation that requires anyone to change anything is 'defined theoretically'.
To cite instances of the law not being followed is not the same thing as demonstrating that it is impossible to follow the law.
It has been many years since I was in Germany, but people I know who were running businesses had much more regulation from the govt than we have here....the question is, is the problem in regulation, or in enforcement?



> Thiacloprid is approved as a spray in open bloom canola, but it says: spray in the late evening right before sunset. No windy conditions.


Is that the sum total of the requirements? If we are going to discuss the legal requirements for something to be used in Germany, it would be helpful to know what all the requirements are.



> It is a joke. A farmer cannot spray only at night with all the work he's got to do. Also it is windy here all year round where I live.


I'm sure there are more difficult regulations that farmers in Germany follow than to spray at night.

If it is windy year round and the farmers won't spray at night, is there anything effective that can be used by the farmers that won't kill your bees and taint your product? Isn't this the real issue?



> The box says: B4 -...


Can you cite what this means specifically?



> Even clothianidin and other systemics are labeled B4 or B3...because it is layed into the ground...well, the systemic action of the stuff transports it right up into the blossom, which is not of concern for the gov.


Data like the data you have presented from such applications are generally lacking. One would think that if they were significant, someone would have been reporting it. ...and please, let's not talk about corn guttation from plants confined to small pots.



> There are many beekeepers in Germany that get their bees, honey, wax and pollen tested in
> labs and the same or similiar results are obtained all over Germany. It is full of pesticides, stuff that doesn't belong to a natural product as honey is. It is in our drinking water, too, right from the tap!


"Full of pesticides" lacks significance. What levels of what pesticides? Compared to what?

I'm not trying to be confrontational Bernhard, I know you to be thoughtful and intelligent. I'm looking for better data.

deknow


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## kilocharlie

It might be helpful to take a base-line of "normal mortality" over the course of the year for various populations of hives, then do an LD-10, LD-20, LD-30,...up to LD-100 over different dosage levels, recording mortality and over-winter mortality/survival rates of all the colonies in the study.

The study would need to be repeated over several years and several locations to show the effect of various wintering conditions in different areas.

Please forgive the following: LD-50 means the Lethal Dose at which 50% of the population dies. I post this just in case anyone else doesn't know it. I use LD-10 to mean a Lethal Dose at which 10 % of a population dies, LD-20 to mean a Lethal Dose at which 20% dies, etc.

I suggest this not for sadistic enjoyment, but for a better understanding of each pesticide, fungicide, or other chemical to which we expose bees. Anyone interested in such a study and willing to help, please make up a few extra colonies and queens, earmarking them for scienctific "sacrifice". We just might get some respect in fighting off this insane, rampant over-use of these chemicals with accurate scientific work published by reputable authority.

Which universities are leading the study efforts? I know Ohio State University, North Carolina State U., Florida State U., Washington State U., and UC Davis all have apiculture programs...who else?


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## gmcharlie

Its an interesting thought to have different levels. I am not opposed. the problem we have now is that there are a lot of what I would refer to as wild claims about sub lethal doses. While there may be some or even a lot of merit to them, we have no ruler what so ever to gauge.

The difficulty now is there are a lot of claims about disorientation at low levels. While I would agree that any of that is bad as it makes it impossible to grow a hive, there is absolutely no way to measure or quantify it. every hive has some bees that "look lost" or mill about or do not return..... To say its from _______ and its a problem is a whole other world of claims.


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## BernhardHeuvel

kilocharlie said:


> LD-50 means the Lethal Dose at which 50% of the population dies.


It is important to know, that LD50 means 50 % *in 24 hours*. 

There are other toxicity measures like LD50 48h and LC50 where c stands for chronic. (there are others like subchronic, subacute...)

Speaking of LD50 is the acute toxicity within 24 hours.


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## kilocharlie

gmcharlie- 

The claim of of disorientation at lower doses has some merit. An Italian student visiting at the University of California at San Diego reported that sub-lethal doses of imidacloprid caused bees to fly 1.7x farther while under the influence. His experiment had a bee treadmill, a bee super-glued to a wire on a central hinge pin (like a compass needle) with a "stadium" of paper striped so that the bee knew he was making progress forward as he flew. The unexposed bees in the control group flew a certain distance, the exposed group flew 1.7 times farther. It looked kind of hilarious watching a bee, glued to a wire tether, fly around and around those stripes, but it go the point across.

Bernard -
Thank you! Good clarification like that keeps us all on the same page. It helps us to realize that small doses can be fatal to a colony that uses behaviors like the social insects' trademark of labor division in caring for the young vs. foraging, when that colony has multiple stressors and is already close to the brink of destruction. Mites, viruses, nosema apis, nosema ceranae, and other stresses all reduce a colony's chances of survival over a winter. Loss of efficiency at foraging can easily push them over the edge. Trace exposure to fungicides have proven lethal on cold winters following late summer/autumn with low pollen stores. It can get a bit complex, but remember the house that Jack buildt? Sometimes that's what we're dealing with.


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## Paul McCarty

An LD50 may not be a good measurement to go by. A variation of the PEL (Permissible Exposure Limit) would be better. I bet it would be far different for such a small creature as compared to a larger sized human, but I am no chemist. When I go out in my civilian job and enforce workplace safety, we do not enforce the LD50, we enforce much higher standards. The LD50 is self defeating. It assumes automatic contamination to begin with. It would be better to develop a PEL type limit for honeybees.


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## kilocharlie

Paul -
That is right on the money - the whole point seems to be to determine what a permissible exposure limit is for the bees. The problem here being that these poisons are meant to kill insects like bees, so the number ZERO comes to mind, but it would not kill the other targeted insects such as the Asian Citrus Psilid. We need a "magic bullet" strategy here that renders target pests harmless and does not harm pollinator insects, a tough order to fill.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Bees in the canola field. Same procedure as last year.


















Bees in canola get a yellow mark on their head:



























Hoverflies and lots of other insects in the canola, too.


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