"(CBS News) Honey bees have been dying in large numbers in recent years, and there's new evidence of a drastic increase in the death rate. Some experts say the latest population drop poses a threat to our nation's food supply.

According to commercial beekeeper James Doan, 'A third of all our food is pollinated by honey bees.'

Doan makes a living renting out thousands of hives to farmers up and down the East Coast. His bees are part of a crucial lifeblood to U.S. agriculture. Doan said, 'I think people just need to really be aware that bees are so important, not just for honey production, but for pollination in the United States.'

Bees pollinate the majority of our fruit and vegetable supply: from apples and pears to green beans, pumpkins, and squash. And the list goes on.

But something is killing the bees at an increasingly alarming rate. Doan said, 'Every day and you'll look and you'll see 100 to 200 bees dead in front of the hive. Maybe even to the point of 40 to 50,000 bees laying out in the front of the hive, which is not normal.'

U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers say early indications suggest this winter will mark the highest death rate they've ever documented, and consumers could eventually feel the effects.

Doan said, 'Without them you're gonna have higher prices that you're going to pay for fruits and vegetables. And those higher prices are not going to mean better products.'

Bees used to die at a rate of 5 to 10 percent a year. Then, around 2006, that rate more than tripled in a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder. Now, some beekeepers say they're losing up to 50 percent of their hives.

Many blame a class of pesticide called neonicotinoids, or 'neonics.' Doan said, 'They block the nerve endings of the bee, and so the bee is paralyzed and then what happens is they starve to death, so you see the bee shaking, and it's a very horrific way of dying for a bee.'

Doan joined a coalition of beekeepers, environmentalists and consumer groups that recently sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to ban these chemicals. The lawsuit claims the 'EPA is well aware of recent studies and reports illustrating the risks to honey bees...but has refused to take any regulatory action.'

'We're finding these chemicals in the beehives,' Doan said. 'We know they're there. We're finding them in the bees. So we know they're killing bees.'"


Deepening honey bee crisis creates worry over food supply
CBS News

"If you like almonds, then 2013 brought some bad news. Each year, honeybees from across the country make the trek to California, which grows 80 percent of the world’s almonds, to pollinate the almond crop. But bees have been dying in unusually large numbers for several years now, and this year appears worse than most.The problems we face if we don’t have healthy populations of pollinators, particularly honeybees, extend beyond almonds. Three fourths of the top crops grown in the world require animals – mostly insects – for pollination. Odds are that most of your favorite fruits, nuts and melons are pollinated by honeybees.

Across the pond, the European Union has made major strides in shedding light on the role of certain pesticides in honeybee deaths. In fact, the European Commission has proposed a two-year ban on these pesticides. Meanwhile, at home, beekeepers remain frustrated that the U.S. government is not as forward-thinking. And, for another year, the saga of bee deaths continues.

The pesticides in question are called neonicotinoids. It’s a mouthful, but the root word is 'nicotine,' because they are chemically similar to the addicting tobacco compound. The most common of these is a pesticide called imidacloprid. Two others are clothianidin and thiamethoxam...


"When first introduced, neonicotinoids were thought to be relatively 'environmentally friendly' pesticides. Often they can be applied without spraying, by either treating seeds prior to planting or drenching the soil. The pesticides are taken up by and spread throughout the plants. Every part of the plant – including the pollen and nectar – contain pesticide residues. In theory, these chemicals will only poison 'bad bugs' that eat the plants.

A new report published by the European Union’s European Environment Agency chronicles a similar story as it unfolded in France. Back in the 1990s, French beekeepers noticed their bees dying in unprecedented numbers and they connected it to a then-new pesticide used in sunflowers, imidacloprid.

Nailing down the science on how much imidacloprid it takes to kill a bee and how much imidacloprid bees are exposed to was not easy. First, the amounts of imidacloprid in pollen and nectar fell below Bayer’s detection limit of 10 ppb. A decade later, France’s Scientific and Technical Committee for the Multifactor Study of the Honeybee Colonies Decline (CST) validated findings that the pesticide showed up in the pollen of treated sunflowers and maize at the rates of 3.3 ppb and 3.5 ppb, respectively, and in the nectar of treated sunflowers at 1.9 ppb...


"Although there’s little private citizens can do, beyond submitting comments to the EPA about these pesticides, contacting your representatives, and perhaps even getting your own beehive, you might be surprised to find out that these toxic pesticides are widely available for home use. Bayer sells imidacloprid in products sold for use on roses, flowers, shrubs, trees (even fruit and nut trees!), and lawns. Even the flea treatment Advantage sold for your pet contains it!

If you use a landscaping service or hire an arborist, they might have access to even more potent forms of these pesticides. Be sure you know what they are using – and remember that the bees are consuming any nectar or pollen produced by your plants, even if you think of those plants as non-edible."


Without honeybees, we may cease to be
By Jill Richardson

"The European Commission has proposed that member states restrict the use of certain classes of pesticide that are believed to be harmful to bees.

Sprays that use neonicotinoid chemicals should only be used on crops that are not attractive to the insects they said.

The sale of seeds treated with these chemicals should also be prohibited.

Bayer, one of the companies who make the pesticides, says they are convinced they can be used without harm to bees."


EU says pesticides linked to bee decline should be restricted
By Matt McGrath



I don't trust either one of them.

"Europe’s top food safety agency may be closer to nailing three old suspects for a mystery that goes back almost a decade: what’s been killing off honeybees? But there is still work to do.

For now, the European Food Safety Authority (EFDA) has concluded that three neonicotinoid class insecticides pose unacceptable hazards to bees. The three include clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam.

The three insecticides — approved for use in the United States — are said to damage bees by contaminating dust and collecting as residue on nectar and pollen, the new EFSA report says."


Top European Food Safety Agency Names Suspects for Bee Colony Collapse
By Dan Flynn

"Three reports by Europe’s food-safety body have stoked controversy over the possible links between the use of neonicotinoid insecticides and declining bee populations. One leading insecticide manufacturer has attacked the reports, calling them 'hurried and inadequate'.

A number of scientific studies have linked neonicotinoids to adverse effects on bee colonies (see Nature video) but some researchers believe that the drop in bee numbers seen in the United States, Europe and elsewhere is attributable to a combination of factors."


Reports spark row over bee-bothering insecticides
Pesticide manufacturer brands risk assessment ‘hurried and inadequate’

by Daniel Cressey

"The controversy over possible links between massive bee die-offs and agricultural pesticides has overshadowed another threat: the use of those same pesticides in backyards and gardens.

Neonicotinoid pesticides are ubiquitous in everday consumer plant treatments, and may expose bees to far higher doses than those found on farms, where neonicotinoids used in seed coatings are already considered a major problem by many scientists.

'It’s amazing how much research is out there on seed treatments, and in a way that’s distracted everyone from what may be a bigger problem,' said Mace Vaughan, pollinator program director at the Xerces society, an invertebrate conservation group.



The vast majority of attention paid to neonicotinoids, the world’s most popular class of pesticides, has focused on their agricultural uses and possible effects. A growing body of research suggests that, even at non-lethal doses, the pesticides can disrupt bee navigation and make them vulnerable to disease and stress.

Neonicotinoids are now a leading suspect in colony collapse disorder, a mysterious condition that’s decimating domestic and wild bee colonies across much of North America and Europe. The emergence of colony collapse disorder coincided with a dramatic increase in agricultural neonicotinoid use."


Backyard Pesticide Use May Fuel Bee Die-Off
By Brandon Keim

"What does the health of bees have to do with the corn crop? A growing weight of evidence links a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are used on nearly the entire US corn crop, to declining bee health...

Pesticide-treated forager bees brought back significantly less pollen in each forage run, and took significantly longer on each run, than those in the control group...

The reduced worker efficiency had two other 'knock on' effects for overall hive health. The first is that recruiting more foragers to collect pollen is a risky strategy—individual bees can get lost. The treated colonies paid the price—the neonic-only colonies experienced 50 percent more lost workers than the control, and the colonies exposed to both pesticides lost 55 percent more.

The other effect has to do with brooding—raising the next generation of bees for the hive. The treated hives showed significantly lower production of new bees—probably, the researchers suggest, because they had to divert bees from brooding duties to foraging duties, and also because of less overall availability of pollen.

All of these factors, the researchers conclude, lead to colonies that are less resilient to the many stresses that confront bees in the field: loss of habitat, parasites, and viruses. Two of the 40 colonies involved in the study collapsed over its four-week course, both from the hives treated with the combined pesticides. The clear takeaway is that neonic pesticides, both alone and in combination with another pesticide, significantly damage bee health. To grow our massive corn crop, we're killing our bees."


Do Bayer's Pesticides Make Worker Bees Lazy?
—By Tom Philpott

"I have to say I’m not one to inherently, blindly grant government too much power, but I do have to love the way the French are dealing with yet another study that says pesticides are killing bees. Within days of a scientific report that linked a synthetic nicotine known as Thiamethoxam to colony collapse disorder, the government announced it planned to ban the product.

"Get this: The French government is giving the manufacturer Syngenta all of two weeks to prove that Thiamethoxam is, in fact, safe for bees. Otherwise it’s off the shelves. In two weeks.

"Conversely the United States government has had all sorts of evidence — from its own scientists — that bees are being negatively impacted by this class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. They’ve been sitting on these facts for years, yet the governments in the U.S., and I might as well toss in Canada, do nothing. Beehives have been dying off at the rate of about 33 percent each year since 2006 and every bit of real evidence has pointed to these pesticides as the root cause, yet our political machines ignore the truth."


Par for the Course: As Bees Die, Governments Sit Idly By
Paul Tukey - on Safelawns Daily Post and Q&A Blog.

"IDofA [Illinois Department of Agriculture] appears to have targeted Ingram for his research linking Roundup to CCD. Of particular interest was Ingram's extensive research on Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, which began several years ago when hundreds of Ingram's hives had died. He later determined that Roundup sprayings near his property were to blame, which prompted him to actively research the subject and closely monitor his hives in conjunction with this research from that point onward.

"What he gathered, and subsequently taught to others, was concrete evidence that Roundup kills bees. He also used this information and his many years of experience to develop and refine ways of growing strong, chemical-free bees in spite of Roundup sprayings, a move that apparently upset IDofA, which operates primarily to serve the interests of chemical companies rather than the interests of the people.

"'Is Illinois becoming a police state, where citizens do not have rights?' asked Ingram, who has been deliberately denied his rights, to the Prairie Advocate. 'Knowing that Monsanto and the Department of Agriculture are in bed together, one has to wonder if Monsanto was behind the theft to ruin my research that may prove Roundup was, and is, killing honeybees.'"


Government tyranny: Illinois Department of Agriculture secretly destroys beekeeper's bees and 15 years of research proving Monsanto's Roundup kills bees
by: Jonathan Benson of Natural News

A North Carolina author muses on the government's role in protecting honey bees from harmful agricultural practices.

Free Market Or Call For Government Regulation
Pino from Tarheel Red




My simplified personal view is that when you do something that only hurts you, then it's none of the government's business.  If you do something that hurts your neighbor or others, then the government may have a small role to play in resolving the conflict.  Furthermore, the government has no business helping people who won't help themselves or even helping good people who are down on their luck.  Those situations are beyond the government's powers as limited by the U.S. Constitution.  The government's role is to protect the rights and liberties of U.S. citizens.  It is not the government's place to provide for us.  That is the job of the citizenry.  We provide for ourselves.  The local government (police) make sure we don't hurt each other.  The federal government (military) make sure foreign bodies don't hurt us.  It's really very simple, if you read the original Constitution and then follow it.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
- Ben Franklin

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
- John Adams

“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”  - James Madison

"Suppose I saw an elderly woman painfully huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. She’s hungry and in need of shelter and medical attention. To help the woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I’ve committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.
"Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money. Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree – 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that’s clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Put another way, does legality establish morality? Before you answer, keep in mind that slavery was legal; apartheid was legal; the Nazi’s Nuremberg Laws were legal; and the Stalinist and Maoist purges were legal. Legality alone cannot be the guide for moral people. The moral question is whether it’s right to take what belongs to one person to give to another to whom it does not belong."

Welfare state: Immoral and irredeemable
Walter E. Williams notes: 'The Constitution has not been amended to include charity'