By Clare Thompson
Anyone who's been stung by a bee knows they can inflict an outsized
pain for such tiny insects. It makes a strange kind of sense, then, that
their demise would create an outsized problem for the food system by
placing the more than
70 crops they pollinate -- from almonds to apples to blueberries -- in peril.
Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has died down, commercial
beekeepers have seen average population losses of about 30 percent each year
since 2006, said Paul Towers, of the Pesticide Action Network. Towers was one of the
organizers of
a conference that brought together beekeepers and environmental
groups this week to tackle the challenges facing the beekeeping industry and the
agricultural economy by proxy.
"We are inching our way toward a critical tipping point," said Steve
Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board (NHBAB) and a
beekeeper for 35 years. Last year he had so many abnormal bee die-offs that
he'll qualify for disaster relief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA).
In addition to continued
reports of CCD -- a still somewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee
colonies literally disappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their
dead bodies behind -- bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and
experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while
parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research
increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.
"In the industry we believe pesticides play an important role in
what's going on," said Dave Hackenberg, co-chair of the NHBAB and a beekeeper in Pennsylvania.
Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to
nicotine, called
neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular
called
clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are
used to treat seeds, so that they're absorbed by the plant's vascular system,
and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to
collect pollen. Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is
treated with
neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don't like to collect corn pollen,
but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage in corn, but they also
have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.
The
Purdue University
study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidin
in planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated maize seed. It
also found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Bt
corn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hive
entrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.
Evidence already pointed to the presence of neonic-contaminated pollen
as
a factor in
CCD. As Hackenberg explained, "The insects start taking
[the pesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from."
These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees' habitats only
strengthen the case against using the insecticides.
The irony, of course, is that farmers use these chemicals to protect
their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing, they harm other insects
essential to their crops' production -- a catch-22 that Hackenberg said speaks
to the fact that "we have become a nation driven by the chemical industry." In
addition to beekeeping, he owns two farms, and even when crop analysts
recommend spraying pesticides on his crops to kill an aphid population, for
example, he knows that "if I spray, I'm going to kill all the beneficial
insects." But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg's awareness of bee populations,
follow the advice of the crop adviser -- who, these days, is likely to be paid
by the chemical industry, rather than by a state university or another
independent entity.
Beekeepers have already teamed up with groups representing the almond
and blueberry industries -- both of which depend on honey bee pollination -- to
tackle the need for education among farmers. "A lot of [farm groups] are
recognizing that we need more resources devoted to pollinator protection,"
Ellis said. "We need that same level of commitment on a national basis, from
our USDA and EPA and the agricultural chemical industry."
Unfortunately, it was the EPA itself that green-lit clothianidin
and other neonics for commercial use,
despite its own
scientists' clear warnings about the chemicals' effects on bees and other
pollinators. That doesn't bode well for the chances of getting neonics off the
market now, even in light of the Purdue study's findings.
"The agency has, in most cases, sided with pesticide manufacturers and
worked to fast-track the approval of new products, and failed in cases when
there's clear evidence of harm to take those products off the market," Towers
said.
Since this is an election year -- a time when no one wants to make Big
Ag (and its money) mad -- beekeepers may have to suffer another season of
losses before there's any hope of action on the EPA's part. But when one out of
every three bites of food on Americans' plates results directly from honey bee
pollination, there's no question that the fate of these insects will determine
our own as eaters.
Ellis, for his part, thinks that figuring out a way to solve the bee
crisis could be a catalyst for larger reform within our agriculture system. "If
we can protect that pollinator base, it's going to have ripple effects ... for
wildlife, for human health," he said. "It will bring up subjects that need to
be looked at, of groundwater and surface water -- all the connected subjects
associated [with] chemical use and agriculture."
