Insecticides

Dear Tom Vilsac,
I am writing you as a scientist and as an agribusiness-man who has used both aldicarb and neonicotinoid systemic insecticides commercially and who has suffered losses of honey bees foraging on treated crops. I have had personal experience using systemic insecticides on a commercial scale having been the owner of several agricultural businesses in the Northeast USA.

In the 1990's on two separate occasions I witnessed complete colony collapse of my bees. The first incident losing over a half a million bees that foraged on two acres of potted perennials which were treated with Imidacloprid. The second time I lost several hives to a neighbors 'Grubex' 1 control treated clover lawn. After seeing the total collapse of the hives we stopped using Imidacloprid and all other systemic pesticides. I no longer use any pesticides, or biocides and now practice sustainable organic methods of agriculture.

Species belonging to the family of the Apidae such as the bumblebee Bombus terrestris are widely used for the pollination of greenhouse crops. However, to obtain satisfactory yields growers need to protect their crops against plant diseases and pests who are up until today still mainly controlled by chemical pesticides. Consequently exposure to pesticides during foraging is not unlikely. To assess detrimental effects (lethal and sublethal effects) on the vector following pesticide exposure the classic toxicity test using microcolonies can be applied. However, beside toxicity pesticides are known to induce sublethal effects on the foraging behaviour. In this context, a foraging behaviour test was developed allowed to assess the impact on the foraging activity by use of two endpoints drone production and nest development.

'BEES AND PESTICIDES - THE STATE OF THE SCIENCE' from Pesticide Action Network North America which was submitted to the American EPA on 21st March 2012 as the basis for PANNA's petition that the EPA urgently review the legality of its decision to award Clothianidin a conditional registration, against the advice of its own Science division in 2003 (attached).

Dear Editor,
Sir Robert Watson, chief scientist at the Department of the Environment (Defra), has acted bravely in ordering a reassessment of the licensing of neonicotinoid pesticides in the UK.
Watson faces an uphill struggle; Defra, its Food and Environment Research Agency and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides have all resolutely ignored the many peer-reviewed studies from Europe, from as long ago as 1999, which proved the extreme toxicity of neoniocotinoids for honeybees, bumblebees and butterflies.
The wildlife NGOs are similarly in denial. With the honourable exception of Buglife, all have stood by silently as bees, pollinating insects, soil-invertebrates and farmland birds are wiped from the face of Britain's countryside.
Painful as it may be for Defra, the ACP and the leading wildlife bodies to admit that they got this wrong, they must call for a complete ban on these poisons now, or we will suffer complete ecological disaster in this country.

An extended radio interview with Tom Theobald about three new studies that have recently been published regarding the ways that neonicotinoids harm bees. The studies include one from Purdue, and two from Europe, and all three indicate that these new pesticides are causing more harm to bees than previously thought. Tom Theobald is the Colorado bee-farmer who uncovered the duplicity of the American EPA - in licensing Clothianidin against the official judgement of their own scientific officers. Listen to the interview: http://howonearthradio.org/archives/1807

The UK Government is to reconsider its refusal to ban neonicotinoid pesticides, the nerve-agent chemicals blamed for the collapse of bee colonies worldwide, the chief scientist at the Department of the Environment, Sir Robert Watson, told The Independent. Sir Robert, a former head of the UN climate panel, moved quickly to begin a comprehensive re-evaluation of the Government's stance after two new scientific studies, from Britain and France, strongly linked neonicotinoid use to bee declines. He said the new studies, and others, would be closely analysed. The Government has refused previous requests to consider a precautionary suspension of the chemicals, which have been banned in France and Italy, despite mounting evidence that they are harmful to bees and other pollinating insects, even in minute doses.

Twice in the past three years, the UK Government has been asked, on the basis of compelling evidence, to suspend the use of the new generation of neonicotinoid pesticides, until the increasingly worrying evidence that they are extremely harmful to bees and other pollinating insects has been shown to be unfounded. The first occasion was in 2009, by a coalition of environmental groups led by Buglife, the invertebrate conservation charity; the second was in 2011 by the Labour MP Martin Caton, after this paper's disclosure that America's leading bee scientist had found a harmful link. On each occasion the request was ignored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Today we report new findings that show that declines in bee colonies may be caused by a new generation of nerve-agent pesticides.
Defra ministers and officials cannot afford to brush aside the matter again.