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barry

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Have just been reading an article in the Independant this morning on the effects of pesticides on bees and ther insects, makes you want to cry !!
 
shame it is almost entirely based around unpublished non-peer reviewed work.

the bayer chap is quite right to state that until reviewed and published one cannot really comment on the work.
 
Oh come on Doc- they damn well know that there is a problem!!! :banghead:

But it is safe...r if farmers spray at dusk, when not windy and tell local bee keepers that they are about to spray... :smilielol5: -as if!!

B.....ks

Disease in hospital cannot be spread if everyone barrier nurses and washes hands very regularly. We have all seen that one... looks good on paper -

Bayer - STOP IT
 
we all know that neonics aren't good for bees BUT this particular piece of research needs to go through the proper channels before it can be added to the pool of evidence against them.
 
Private Eye

Private Eye has also been banging on about links between the BBKA and the pesticide industry for ages (well in advance of the the Independent featuring it).

In the latest Private Eye, there is an article that highlights Pesticide manufacturers efforts to make themselves appear "Bee friendly". It notes that Sainsbury's "Operation Bumblebee" - an effort to get farmers to set aside a hectare of land for wildflowers - is funded by Syngenta.

You can find the website by googling operation bumblebee

A small article but interesting!
 
Interesting this more and more of this now getting into the mainstream press perhaps things are moving forward as the evidence builds up.

I was at the launch of Capital Bee at the end of last year and the Environment Minister Lord Henley started the day off and took a few questions one was over the possible banning of neonicotinoid insecticides and the answer not to suprising

“when we see the scientific evidance that they cause harm then they will be happy to act on the findings but untill then no”

At that point a number of people shouted out who funds the reserch and he then went on to say words to the efect of

“we are commited to the welfare of the countryside and bees and we in the Government want to see the rest of Europe come up to our standards”

The sound from the room at this point one combined intake of breath
 
we all know that neonics aren't good for bees BUT this particular piece of research needs to go through the proper channels before it can be added to the pool of evidence against them.

These proper channels can stall for time and prevaricate till public attention drifts onto the next challenging subject.

Just how much more evidence do they need- maybe they are waiting for the one time when bees safely fly through a treated area???.:mad:
If they were killing off dogs/cows/sheep/cats/birds (do I need to go on) at the rate they kill bees then the world would be screaming- but bees are small.
 
I see that the "we claim to be scientific, but fly in the face of basic scientific principles" brigade are pontificating about this again......

- when we are faced with a substance about which we essentially know little, it is against all good scientific practice to "release it into the wild" before exhaustive tests are performed to ensure it's safety - yet because of the power of the pesticide companies, they are released on the company's say-so, and in the case of the UK are "passed on the nod" - no independent research is done at all....

In the case of neonicotinoids there is a vast body of evidence pointing to the dangers, and as the recent "leaks" have demonstrated, Bayer have known full well how damned dangerous it is for a great many years - that is more than enough that any sane person must demand it's immediate removal from the market until independent tests show it to be totally safe* - which is both reasonable, and scientific - all this tosh about "no peer-reviewed tests" is turning good science on it's head!

* Bayer has proved itself totally untrustworthy, therefore the tests MUST be independent

I sat and watched with horror for some years as the horrors of the organophosphate/sheepdip poisoning fiasco unfolded, whilst we had the same dangerous non-scientific claptrap trotted out in the defence of pesticides - had they behaved in a manner that was truly scientific, it would have been withdrawn as soon as the first cases of poisoning were spotted, and a great many people would be alive and unmaimed today that suffered and died through the same obfuscation and delays we are now seeing over neonicotinoids....
 
And as for Syngenta- for those with a short memory, have effectively grabbed control of most "bee research" in this country by their donation of monies for "research", which means the research is looking in every direction for problems - except one.................
Cynics have suggested that Syngenta makes the chemicals that kill bees, they also have a nice little business supplying bumblebees to do the jobs that honeybees used to do.......

Then at the other end we have companies like Bayer seeking to stop the beekeeping fraternity from realising pesticides are a problem.........

No conspiracy, just big evil companies doing what they do so well.........
 
And if these chemicals do eventually turn out to be harming our bees, which they will, who is going to compensate us for the damage we have suffered? Bayer? I don't think so. The government? I doubt it very much - then WHO?
 
I judge an issue I know not much about - and have neither the time nor inclination to read millions of words about by the simple adage..
"If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck.. it's a duck".


On that basis, the defenders of Bayer are either naive or deliberately ignoring what is in front of them...
 
Who'll compensate? - on recent evidence, noone - people who lost relatives, and a great many people crippled for life by organophosphates are still hoping for compensation - successive governments refuse to admit they were wrong in enforcing it's use for years, as it would cost them a small fortune to settle all the claims.

If people ever wonder why I regularly "go off on one" about pesticides, it is because of the ongoing travesty of their being forced onto us, and government (of all persuasions) collusion in allowing it.......
 
On the mere factual basis of truth, what task do they supply bumbles for that honey bees did?

PH
 
I do hope that 'government sources' aren't reading this thread Norton! not if you keep feeding them money making ventures that is!

It will go like this .....
  1. Government fails to manage pesticide licensing and revocation effectively.
  2. Bee health and numbers suffer as a result
  3. Government concern that impact on bee (and natural pollinator) pollinated crops will hit food chain
  4. Government recognises that small weak band of private individuals keep bees
  5. These bees can be used to monitor wider polliinator 'health and viability'
  6. We are committed to bees! 'Pollination important to the country' statement from government (said in a Churchillian way)
  7. Government forces compulsory registration of all beekeepers (actually not such a bad thing in my opinion - formalise beebase registration)
  8. Government then imposes a £50 / year registration and inspection fee
  9. Profits from registration 'used to research health issues in bees' - (government then removes the money they had committed and replaces it with ours)
  10. 'Our' money is given to Pesticidie companies to aid research into bee health
  11. This completely unbiased research tells us pesticides are not to blame - it is a complete eye-opener that no one in government saw coming, a change of approach is needed!
  12. Based on this government decides beekeepers are bad at keeping bees and so need more inspections (sorry I mean consultative support) - because it cant be a chemical environmental impact that is the cause of all this - our money has just proved that :-0
  13. Inspections now 2 a year at £100
  14. Beekeepers stop keeping bees

I reckon we are at point 6 currently.
 
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Used for? - pollination - http://www.syngenta-bioline.co.uk/productdocs/html/Bumblebees.htm - I grow several of the things listed, thankfully pollinated by my own bees, wild bumbles etc.......
They list "Tomatoes, Soft fruit, Aubergine, Melon, Courgette or Pepper" - I grow all of those with no need of importing Syngenta bumbles, but then my garden is positively heaving with life as I have never used any "icides" whatsoever (nor can I see any need to!)
 
also from today's Independent

"Michael McCarthy: This isn't just about bees – it affects everything

How will we characterise our age? By the birth of the internet? The rise of China? The first black US president? Perhaps in all those ways. But we could also say, less obviously but perhaps more fundamentally, that ours is the age when the insects disappeared.

Edward O Wilson, America's greatest naturalist, called invertebrates – the insects, the spiders, the worms, the snails and all their fellows – "the little things that run the world". He meant that these tiny creatures were at the very base of much of life. For example, in the case of pollination, where bees and other insect pollinators fertilise plants, and enable them to produce fruit and seeds, by transferring pollen between flowers.

In the past five years or so, pollinators, honeybees in particular, have started to vanish in many places, and governments have woken up to the problem, as pollination is worth billions.

In fact, insects such as butterflies, moths, bumblebees and mayflies have been disappearing for a long time, although hardly anyone except specialists has noticed or cared.

Their decline began half a century ago with the introduction of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals. But the decline has gathered pace over the past decade with the introduction of systemic insecticides such as the neonicotinoids, which are absorbed into every part of the plant, including the pollen and nectar which pollinating insects collect.

It is too simple to say that one has caused the other, but the link is being made. In his book The Systemic Insecticides – A Disaster In The Making, the Dutch toxicologist Henk Tennekes argues that neonicotinoids are now present in much of Holland's surface water, killing off aquatic insects and leading to a decline in insect-eating birds across the country.

If we care about the little things that run the world, we must wake up to what could be their biggest threat yet.
 

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