White House Supports Bees

The White House announced that the Pollinator Health Task Force has established a National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/Pollinator%20Health%20Strategy%202015.pdf. Involving numerous governmental agencies, the strategy is designed to address the marked declines in populations of honey bees and other pollinators, including North America’s 4000 species of native bees. It also addresses conditions affecting monarch butterflies; their populations have declined by 90 percent. Goals of the strategy include reducing honey bee colony winter losses to historic levels of no more than 15 percent, increasing monarch butterfly populations, and restoring seven million acres of land for pollinators. Some of the features of the strategy include developing affordable pollinator-friendly seed mixes and developing best management practices for minimizing pollinator exposure to pesticides. Public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management may be opened for honey bee forage. Wildflowers may be planted atop contaminated sites following clean-up by the Environmental Protection Agency. We should finally see expansion of pollinator habitat on highway rights-of-way and the development of a native seed reserve. A pollinator corridor for monarch butterflies is planned to extend along I-35 from the Texas border with Mexico northward to Minnesota. One feature of the strategy involves planting native plant species that bloom at different times to ensure continuous bee nutrition. A most important feature of the strategy involves protecting pollinators from exposure to pesticides. The neonicotinoid insecticides will be re-evaluated along with their use as seed treatments.

Today’s picture is taken from the poster announcing The White House Garden Lecture Series. I was honored to be invited to speak on bee-friendly gardens at this event in Collierville, Tennessee. The White House bee hive and pollinator garden build awareness of the importance of pollinators in the health of citizens and the environment. The White House is home to America’s oldest continuously landscaped gardens. This comprehensive bee protection strategy is welcomed by beekeepers. Thanks to all who worked toward its development.

--Richard

Neonics Questioned

Neonicotinoids are now the most widely used insect killers, and their safety to beneficial insects remains in question. “Neonics” are used to control pests in soybeans, cotton, and corn crops. The use of neonicotinoid insecticides coincides with the massive die-off of honey bees in Europe and North America. This means that the use of these new insect poisons and the deaths of bee colonies occurred at the same time. This timing alone does not mean that the insecticide killed the bees. However, nothing has cleared the neonicotinoids; Environmental Protection Agency scientists and others suspect that these insecticides are contributing to the colony losses. If they are contributing to the bee colony deaths, the situation will continue as long as these insecticides are being used. A number of studies are looking at neonicotinoids. The International Union for Conservation of Nature reviewed 800 peer-reviewed reports and prepared a Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) of their findings, http://www.iucn.org/news_homepage/?16025/Systemic-Pesticides-Pose-Global-Threat-to-Biodiversity-And-Ecosystem-Services. They concluded, “In reviewing all the available literature rather than simply comparing one report with another, the WIA has found that field-realistic concentrations of neonics adversely affect individual navigation, learning, food collection, longevity, resistance to disease and fecundity of bees.” Meanwhile, EPA scientists noted in a memorandum, http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Memo_Nov2010_Clothianidin.pdf, involving the neonicotinoid insecticide Clothianidin that its “major risk concern is to nontarget insects (that is, honey bees). Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid insecticide that is both persistent and systemic….Clothianidin is highly toxic on both a contact and an oral basis.” The scientists site incident reports involving other neonicotinoid insecticides that “suggest the potential for long term toxic risk to honey bees and other beneficial insects.”

A promising study conducted in Arkansas found low levels of neonicotinoids in the reproductive parts of soybean and cotton plants—good news, since this is where honey bees gather nectar. Following the Arkansas study, Little Rock television reporter, Sarah Fortner, interviewed Jon Zawislak and me. View the “Science with Sarah” episode at http://www.thv11.com/videos/news/local/2015/02/06/23011219/. That’s Sarah and me examining a honey bee hive.

--Richard

Neonicotinoids and CCD

Beekeepers have long suspected the role of the neonicotinoid insecticides in the great upsurge of honey bee colony die-offs that have continued since 2006. Named Colony Collapse Disorder, the loss of honey bee colonies has persisted for eight years in spite of efforts by researchers to identify a cause and by beekeepers to replenish their hive numbers. According to the Bee Informed Partnership’s recently released report, http://beeinformed.org/2014/05/colony-loss-2013-2014/, annual losses have averaged an unsustainable level of nearly 30 percent. A relatively small-scale study by Harvard School of Public Health, http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol67-2014-125-130lu.pdf, reveals interesting findings. Honey bee colonies exposed to either of two low levels of neonicotinoid insecticides, imidacloprid or clothianidin, abandoned their hives during the winter, defining symptoms of Colony Collapse Disorder. This report contrasts somewhat from the results of a previous study on the effect of pesticides that lead to susceptibility to the honey bee gut pathogen, Nosema ceranae. The larger study, reported in PLOS ONE, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0070182#authcontrib, finds large numbers and high levels of pesticides in honey bee hives. The researchers found 35 different pesticides in sampled honey bee pollen and high levels of fungicides.

Until recently, fungicides, chemicals designed to fight fungal infections, were considered safe for honey bees. Recent studies are finding fungicides to have an adverse effect on honey bee health, often making insecticides and miticides more toxic to bees. In the PLOS ONE study, fungicides were found to lead to Nosema infection. Needless to say, the search for the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder has revealed the complexity of the problem. There are many factors contributing to honey bee health, including nutrition, parasitic mites, pest insects, viral, fungal, and bacterial diseases, and environmental chemicals. Studies are finding insecticides, miticides, fungicides, and herbicides in the bee hives. Combinations of chemicals and breakdown products of chemicals are often highly toxic to bees. Peace Bee Farm has participated in a number of the studies. Today, catalpa trees secrete nectar from the flowers and nectaries on the leaves.

--Richard

Treasure Valley, Idaho

Beekeeper Doug Cleveland and I sit by the wood stove of his Idaho wood shop and compare beekeeping in Idaho’s Treasure Valley with that in the Arkansas Delta. Doug is the president of the large and active Treasure Valley Beekeepers Club with commercial operators, sideliners, and backyard beekeepers gathering in Boise. Treasure Valley is protected by surrounding mountains. Although considerably farther north, the valley’s winter conditions are similar to those experienced in the Arkansas Delta. Treasure Valley, a high desert, supports a diverse agriculture through the use of an extensive system of irrigation canals that carry water from melting snow in the mountains. Throughout the valley, I see pallets of bee hives. Honey bees pollinate large fields of peas, beans, and mint. Treasure Valley spearmint is grown for its aromatic oil in 40 acre fields. Blue wooden boxes house alkali bees that pollinate alfalfa fields cultivated for seed production. The assembly points of commercial beekeeping operations today are littered with dead colonies. Recent reports show over-winter bee colony losses of 50 percent or more. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/science/earth/government-study-cites-mix-of-factors-in-death-of-honeybees.html?hpw. Numerous factors seem to lead to the heavy losses of bee colonies, including queen failure, starvation, parasitic mites, winter weather conditions, Colony Collapse Disorder, pesticides, Nosema disease, small hive beetles, and general colony weakness. This US report comes as Europeans ban neonicotinoid insecticides, widely questioned as leading to honey bee colony decline. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/business/global/30iht-eubees30.html. Having the systemic insecticides banned in Europe while extensively used in North America, there is the opportunity to make comparisons and study the effect these insecticides have upon honey bees. Let’s hope that independent researchers can learn from this two-year break in neonicotinoid insecticide usage.

Doug Cleveland and I share many beekeeping techniques. We both rely upon the hygienic behavior of resistant strains of bees to remove parasitic mites from the hives. We avoid harsh chemicals, and we both use thymol, derived from the oil of the thyme plant, to reduce colony mite loads. Today’s photo: Treasure Valley bee hives.

--Richard

Fruit Trees in Bloom

Wild plum trees are the first white-blooming trees seen in the forest in the early spring. The white blossoms of plums and pear trees often mark abandoned pioneer home sites. These are the first of a number of flowering fruit trees to bloom in the Mid-South. Their bloom is an important milestone on the beekeeper’s calendar. With the start of the fruit tree bloom, beekeepers expect to find prolific expansion of the bee colonies. Abundant nectar and pollen from plum, pear, apple, peach, cherry, and crabapple blossoms along with other emerging wildflowers stimulates the queens to lay eggs. Many of these fruit trees rely upon honey bees to cross-pollinate the blossoms with pollen from similar tree varieties to produce fruit. The peach, as in today’s photo, is an exception. Most peach varieties are self-fruitful; they produce fruit without the assistance of honey bees. This is fortunate today, as cool weather keeps the bees in their hives. The peach tree I find today, growing on an old farmstead, has no bee visitors. Early spring weather in the Mid-South is often unsettled. Effective pollination of fruit trees may be limited by cool or rainy days that prevent bees from flying.

The New York Times reports honey bee colony losses in 2012 at 40 to 50 percent, an increase over recent years. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/science/earth/soaring-bee-deaths-in-2012-sound-alarm-on-malady.html?_r=2&. Colony losses at this level seriously affect commercial beekeeping and fruit production. The majority of honey bee colonies in North America are used for crop pollination service. Many beekeepers suspect the systemic neonicotinoid insecticides in widespread use to control insect pests on crops as contributing to honey bee colony losses. The insecticide manufactures deny that their products are responsible for the bee die-off. Independent testing will be necessary to prove the safety of this new class of insecticides. Further study is also needed to determine the effect on bee health resulting from the interaction between the many environmental chemicals from pesticides to herbicides to fungicides encountered by foraging honey bees.

--Richard

Clothianidin Studies

The neonicotinoids are insecticides developed with the hope of being less harmful to wildlife and beneficial insects than the available insect killers, the pyrethroids and organophosphates. The neonicotinoids came into widespread use with the understanding that they would not kill beneficial insects like the honey bee and bumblebee. The use of neonicotinoids coincides with the die-off of honey bees and significant reductions in bumblebees. Two studies linking honey bees’ having difficulty in navigating from flowers to the hive confirm that neonicotinoids impair bees’ senses. The studies are reported by The Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-bee-research-details-harm-from-insecticide/2012/03/29/gIQAZrnGjS_story.html. The studies find that bee hives exposed to low levels of neonicotinoid insecticides have fewer bees and bumble bees produce markedly fewer queens. Bayer CropScience, a manufacturer of neonicotinoids, calls the studies inconsistent with their findings. Beekeepers and the Center for Food Safety petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of clothianidin that the EPA approved using Bayer’s tests.

Neonicotinoids are generally applied as a seed coating. The systemic action of the insecticide causes the poison to be distributed throughout the plant including the nectar and pollen, highly attractive bee foods. Traces of neonicotinoids are taken back to the bee hive by foraging bees. While beekeepers in the United States are taking annual honey bee colony losses of one third each year, the effects are often more subtle than total colony failures. Colonies are often described as simply not thriving. Bee populations may be low; bees may have shortened life expectancies; or hives may lack sufficient bees of appropriate foraging age. Each of these situations leads to colonies that are susceptible to diseases and parasites. With small populations, colonies don’t produce surpluses of honey. Bee hives used for pollination service fail when graded according to bee population. With the ever increasing use of neonicotinoid insecticides that have been shown to have a detrimental effect on pollinators, the crops, lawns, and golf courses flourish while honey bee colonies, native bees, and beneficial insects quietly disappear.

--Richard

Pesticides Enter Bee Hives

Indiana experienced a massive honey bee die-off during 2010 resulting from poisoning by clothianidin, an insecticide highly toxic to honey bees, which is widely used on corn. Honey bees do not forage corn, a wind-pollinated grass, for nectar. However, they readily fly through corn tassels collecting poisoned pollen on their bodies when the plants have been treated with systemic insecticides. Clothianidin is in a class of insecticides called “neonicotinoids,” nicotine-based neurotoxins that are sprayed on foliage, sprayed on the soil, or coated onto seeds to kill gnawing or chewing insects that eat foliage or other plant parts. Systemic insecticides are carried throughout a plant and poison all plant parts, including nectar and pollen. Purdue University researchers studied the Indiana bee die-off to determine how neonicotinoids are transported from corn fields to honey bees and bee hives. The scientists identified several methods of insecticide contamination of bee hives near neonicotinoid-treated Indiana corn fields. Most corn is planted with seed coated with systemic insecticides. Talc is added to mechanical planters to prevent seeds from clumping. The scientists found clothianidin levels up to 700,000 times the lethal dose for honey bees in talc dust exhausted from planters. Also, significant levels of insecticide were found in the soil of corn fields as well as fields not currently planted in corn. Neonicotinoids are considered persistent; they remain toxic long after use. Outside the corn fields, dandelions, wildflowers attractive to honey bees, were also found to contain clothianidin.

Clothianidin was found in pollen stored in nearby bee hives. An exceptionally toxic effect occurs when honey bees gather clothianidin-contaminated corn pollen from fields treated with common fungicides, a widespread practice in North America. Dead bees found surrounding the hives contained clothianidin, either eaten by the bees or contacted with the bees’ bodies. The researchers caution that “sublethal doses of insecticides can weaken bees and increase susceptibility to key parasites or pathogens.” The study by Krupke et al. may be viewed at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029268. Today’s photo: clothianidin-treated broom corn.

--Richard

GMOs and Neonicotinoids

Corn, or maize, is the most widely grown crop in the Americas. A beekeeper asked me if Bt corn and Roundup-Ready corn are dangerous to honey bees. This is among the commonly asked questions as beekeepers are facing annual colony losses of 30 percent. Beekeepers question the safety of chemicals used in the environment and changes in agricultural practices. Bt corn and Roundup-Ready corn are both Genetically Modified Organisms. In Bt corn, a gene is borrowed from the Bacillus thuringiensus bacteria. This modification allows the corn plant to produce its own Bt insecticidal protein. This technology allows for corn production with lesser application of insecticides, as the plant is producing its own insect killer. The effect of Bt corn on honey bees was tested in Germany from 2001 through 2004. Michael Schacker reports in A Spring Without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply, 2008, that Bt crops and GMOs are not correlated with Colony Collapse Disorder. There may possibly be some benefits for bees and other pollinators from the use of Bt technology in corn, as this may lead to a reduction in the use of crop insecticides. Roundup-Ready corn can withstand the herbicide glyphosate. Herbicides, like Roundup, are being tested now; however, results have not been published.

Following the appearance of Colony Collapse Disorder in 2007, the effect on honey bee health is questioned for all chemicals used around bee hives. A relatively new class of insecticides, the neonicotinoids, is highly suspected by many beekeepers as being involved in CCD and honey bee health problems. Among these systemic insecticides are imidacloprid and clothianidin. Of particular concern is the effect upon the bees of a less than lethal dose of a neonicotinoid insecticide when combined with certain honey bee viruses or the newly detected strain of Nosema disease. Honey bee colony collapses often occur in the winter. This winter has seen greater than normal snowfalls in the Arkansas Delta. Today’s photo: common starlings weather the snow.

--Richard

Clothianidin

Clothianidin is an insecticide belonging to a relatively new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. These nicotine-based chemicals are systemic in action, meaning that they are taken up through a plant to poison all of its parts. They are of great concern to beekeepers around the world because they poison the nectar and pollen consumed by honey bees and other pollinators. Clothianidin is often coated onto the seed of crops. It is in widespread use in the United States as an insecticide on corn, the nation’s largest crop. Other crops treated with clothianidin include canola, soybeans, sugar beets, sunflowers, and wheat. While corn, a grass, provides no nectar, it does produce a large amount of pollen, which is very attractive to honey bees. The use of clothianidin has steadily increased since its conditional registration in 2003. Beekeepers have experienced heavy winter die-offs from that time to the present.

The EPA quietly presented Bayer with full registration of clothianidin in April of this year following a seriously flawed trial funded by Bayer. The trial, conducted in Canada, placed hives near canola plots treated with clothianidin and untreated control plots. Remarkably, both plots were located so close together that the honey bees had free access to both. EPA scientists questioned the validity of the trial. Others experts analyzing the trial found significant flaws in its design: corn produces much more pollen than does canola; corn pollen is more attractive to honey bees; and canola is a minor crop in the US, while corn is the most widely planted crop. The neonicotinoids, including imidacloprid, are suspected by beekeepers and many scientists as contributing to honey bee colony collapse disorder. Clothianidin is a persistent pesticide, meaning that it remains in the environment for a long time, and the pesticide is highly toxic to honey bees. You may read the report at http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-12-10-leaked-documents-show-epa-allowed-bee-toxic-pesticide-. Without independent investigation, the neonicotinoids remain suspects in colony collapse disorder. Clothianidin is banned in Germany, France, Italy, and Slovenia.  Today’s photo: clothianidin-treated corn.

--Richard