To bee or not to bee

Sorry, I couldn't resist.



This post isn't about lawn care as it is about another industry I've been hearing rumblings from. In fact all year. To the point that bees are dying at a drastic rate and neonicotinoids are being blamed. This issue is now before the courts and well...

Since it isn't my area of expertise let me post something from Robert Wager of the University of British Columbia that sums it up best in this article obtained from Force of Nature. He brings up some interesting points on the pro-neonic side.




And what was the problem according to PMRA? Dust from seeding. And what did they do? Add a lubricant and some equipment changes to seeding machinery to eliminate the problem. A couple of key points not covered. A couple of things to think about re: neonics: First the western provinces use plenty of neonics and have very little CCD, Australia uses lots of neonics and has zero CCD (also has zero Varroa mits, hmmm)

Second, what do people think was used on seeds before neonics? Perhaps people should look up the EIQ of those older compounds and see how they compare to neonics before they call for a ban on neonics. This exact experiment is going on in Europe right now as they banned neonics for two years.

This whole story about Bees is very emotional but emotions make for very bad decision making tools in science based public policy.

Has anyone every asked what has changed with bee husbandry in the past couple decades? Very interesting. In Canada, colonies used to be destroyed each fall and all the honey harvested. new bees were purchased from the US each spring. Then the vorroa mite arrived in NA. That effectively ended the cross border movement of bees. So now the colonies over-winter but ask how much of the honey is left for the bees and how much is replaced with sugar water (hardly a equitable swap)?

No one wants to see bees harmed and as long as people keep shouting to fix the wrong thing, the real problems with bees will continue. It is very true there are real issues with bees and CCD but knee jerk blaming of one pesticide when evidence shows several reasons why its not that simple will not solve the real problems.


And there you have it from point A to Bee...sorry again.

A great site to learn about bees is scientificbeekeeping.com