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My Own Personal Bee-Gate

More habitat for bees will likely be one of the strategies coming from the Pollinator Health Task Force. (DTN photo by Pamela Smith)

Nancy the coat-check lady spotted the bee pin on my jacket lapel and immediately started to buzz. I was in New York, at some fancy-pants restaurant for a business meeting, and trying to blend. I'm quickly learning that wearing the bee pin -- a $5 find at a local antique store -- comes with an obligation.

"Oh my gosh...I've been so worried about the bees. I've read all about how the pesticides farmers used are killing the bees," gushed Nancy. Others in the coat-check line swarmed in to join the conversation. One guy had a relative that had lost dozens of hives. "They had to burn all their equipment and everything," he stated. There was a collective gasp.

"That would likely have been from American foulbrood," I said, explaining that I keep bees. Foulbrood is a horrible bee brood disease caused by a spore that I hope my bees never meet.

"So that's caused by pesticides too?" Nancy asked. The coats were piling up, so I quickly explained that bees have lots of problems and that pesticides certainly can factor into the equation, but the Varroa destructor, an external mite, is causing many of the current health issues.

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Whew. I can't seem to go anywhere these days without kicking over the proverbial beehive. A cab driver in Phoenix, who hailed from Morocco, also professed his disdain for pesticides before adding that zombie bees can come back to life after being frozen. (I've never seen a dead bee come back to life.) Another recent bee incident happened at a Whole Foods grocery in Omaha. Once again, the clerk spotted my bee pin and proceeded to stop all checkout lanes, grab the loud speaker and announce the presence of a beekeeper. People actually clapped.

Don't get me wrong, I love the attention bees are getting. I want to find the answer to what ails them. What worries me is that the headlines and many of the studies are not scientifically based. The fact that ordinary citizens can even come forth with the word neonicotinoid astounds me.

It's also troubling that farmers still seem slightly confused over how they fit into the whole issue of pollinator health, despite the fact that neonicotinoids are often fingered in what is being called a "bee apocalypse." Nearly every seed planted today is coated in a seed treatment containing a neonicotinoid. Randy Oliver, a biologist and beekeeper, maintains in his blogs (www.scientificbeekeeping.com) that there's not enough evidence for a complete ban of neonics as yet, but he urges farmers to control the very real problem of neonic-tainted dust (talc) exiting the planter. He writes that there's merit for planter emission tests and urges regulatory agencies to keep a sharp monitoring eye.

Expect more headlines soon. Last summer President Barack Obama established a Pollinator Health Task Force and charged them to come up with a strategy that is due to be released any day. Read more about it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/…

Co-chaired by the secretary of agriculture and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the task force also includes the heads (or their designated representative) of the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Interior, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Domestic Policy Council, the General Services Administration, the National Science Foundation, the National Security Council Staff, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and anyone else the co-chairs think should be included.

Wow. That's a lot of heads thinking about honeybees. One can only hope they take some directive from the insect itself. Thomas Seeley, Cornell University professor of biology, authored a book called Honeybee Democracy. He writes that one of the biggest misconceptions about bees is the queen calls all the shots, especially when it comes time to swarm and scout for a better home. Instead, he maintains that: "Honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate and consensus building."

Here's hoping common sense and good science prevails from this task force and not just more buzz to validate a fashionable cause. Within 10 months of a precautionary ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, UK farmers are reporting significant oilseed rape crop losses due to an infestation of cabbage stem flea beetles. That's bringing predictions that more pyrethroids will be sprayed over the top as a rescue treatment. Bees don't need those sorts of unintended consequences.

Pamela Smith can be reached at pamela.smith@dtn.com

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Comments

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Pamela Smith
4/22/2015 | 8:13 AM CDT
Curt that's a good synopsis of what I understand too. The value of nenonic seed treatments on soybeans depends on where you live to a certain extent. Southern growers have higher pest pressures. I will say that I've seen dramatic in-field examples of how helpful they can be with managing bean leaf beetle in the Midwest. Still, that's not an every year pest in my neck of the woods. One thing that does concern me are hints of nenonic in water. Bees drink more water than might be realized. Have you seen much written about that? One thing that makes writing about bees difficult and sometimes confusing is the pollinator services is quite different business from keeping bees that are not moved. They have challenges unique to that industry for sure.
Curt Zingula
4/22/2015 | 6:59 AM CDT
Pam, Forbes carried a very informative report on neonics. The tone of the report was that when politics trumps science we all loose. The EU has banned neonics due to public pressure but allows farmers to substitute organophosphates which are many times more deadly to bees. The report goes on to site mites as the major cause of CCD and also questions the practice of sending 2/3 of our honeybee colonies to California for almond blossoms in Feb. before the colonies have a chance to come out of hibernation and reproduce with healthy new bees. Also reported is the census of increasing bee colony populations that doesn't correlate with the introduction and use of neonics. Apparently the EPA noticed these things and decided in February to not ban neonics. EPA also concluded that there is no evidence of neonics on soybean seed adding to the farmers' bottom line.