#neonicotinoid

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it has approved emergency use of a bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticide on up to 75,000 acres of Florida citrus crops, including oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, lemons and limes.

This marks the 10th year that the EPA has granted a so-called “emergency” exemption of clothianidin for use on bee-attractive citrus trees in Florida to target the Asian citrus psyllid, the vector for citrus greening disease.

“This is truly a race to the bottom when it comes to the ever-more toxic chemical soup being applied to these fields,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “When the EPA grants so-called emergency approval year after year to a pesticide that’s never undergone a full safety review there’s something fundamentally wrong about this approach.”

There are currently 16 different insecticides approved to combat this insect in Florida, including three other neonics: imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and sulfoxaflor, according to the University of Florida.

Imperiled pollinators that will likely be harmed by today’s approval include the American bumblebee, the southern plains bumblebee and the leafcutter bee.

The EPA has routinely circumvented the normal pesticide-approval process by allowing emergency exemptions for predictable and chronic situations that occur over many consecutive years. Emergency exemptions allow the use of pesticides that are either not approved or are approved for some uses but prohibited for certain other uses.

The most extensive study to date on neonicotinoid pesticides concludes that they harm both honeybees and wild bees.

Researchers said that exposure to the chemicals left honeybee hives less likely to survive over winter, while bumblebees and solitary bees produced fewer queens.

The study spanned 2,000 hectares across the UK, Germany and Hungary and was set up to establish the "real-world" impacts of the pesticides.

The results are published in Science.

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

A new study shows just how dangerous pesticides can be for bees.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America this month, found that bee populations can take a hit for generations if a bee is exposed just once to a common pesticide during its first year of life.

"Especially in agricultural areas, pesticides are often used multiple times a year and multiple years in a row," study lead author and University of California in Davis ecology Ph.D. candidate Clara Stuligross told The Guardian. "So this really shows us what that can actually mean for bee populations."

Stuligross and her team studied a type of bee called the blue orchard bee. These bees are about the size of a honeybee, but they live alone and have a blue, metallic color, National Geographic explained. They are also important pollinators for native U.S. wildflowers and crops like apples, cherries, almonds and peaches.

The researchers exposed the bees to a neonicotinoid called imidacloprid, which is the most commonly used neonicotinoid in the U.S. and one of the most used in California specifically, according to The Independent.

Neonicotinoids are well known to be harmful to bees and other insects because they bind to their nerve cells and prevent the insect from transmitting electrical signals, National Geographic explained. However, this study is unique in showing how exposure can continue to impact bee populations for generations, something known as the "carryover effect."

The scientists exposed the bees to the pesticide at different life stages and got the following results, The Guardian explained:

Bees exposed only in their first year of life saw 20 percent fewer offspring.

Bees exposed once as adults had 30 percent fewer offspring.

Updated: Neonic and Pesticide Free Nurseries

After picking out dead honeybees from a honeycomb frame recently, I pledged to use only plants that are neonic free. Neonics or neonicitonoids have been implicated in recent bee declines as well as other factors, such as loss of habitat and the game changer bee parasite- varroa mite. There are a number of studies that have conflicting findings and beekeepers aren’t convinced that there is a…