US Honeybee die-offs caused by chemical sprays

[Yowbarb]

Yowbarb Note:
This Topic is to post and gather and discuss info on pesticides which kill our honeybees.
Please post any info you have, try to include the links. If you know of organizations which help, you can post them here, too.
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EARTHJUSTICE   

We're going to court to save bees!

Dear Barb,
Since I last wrote you about the dramatic bee die-offs, my colleagues and I have been hard at work.
In just a few short weeks, on April 10 and 14, we will go to court in two separate cases: to appeal the EPA’s approval of the toxic pesticide sulfoxaflor, shown to kill honeybees, and to stop the widespread use of other bee-killing pesticides.
My team is doing everything it can, but this fight against dirty chemical companies is a long-term battle that won’t end overnight ..... [ continues.... ]
Greg Loarie
Attorney
Earthjustice, California Office    info@earthjustice.org   http://earthjustice.org/blog 

[Yowbarb]

http://earthjustice.org/features/the-case-of-the-vanishing-honey-bee?gclid=CIOuwtrN1cQCFUo6gQod2okA4w

[Yowbarb]

Yowbarb Note: I cannot post the entire article at this time. Definitely worth the read. I posted the link at the bottom of this post, as well.
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http://earthjustice.org/features/the-case-of-the-vanishing-honey-bee?gclid=CIOuwtrN1cQCFUo6gQod2okA4w

Feature Story:  The Case of The Vanishing Bees

Pesticides & The Perfect Crime: In the widespread bee die-offs, bees often just vanish. One beekeeper calls it the Perfect Crime—no bodies, no murder weapon, no bees. What's happening to the bees?

Written by Tom Turner   Published on May 2, 2014

On a fine June morning last year at a Target store outside Portland, Oregon, customers arrive to a startling sight: the parking lot was covered with a seething mat of bumblebees, some staggering around, most already dead, more raining down from above. The die-off lasted several days.

It didn't take long to figure out that the day before a pest-control company had sprayed a powerful insecticide on surrounding Linden trees to protect them from aphids; but nobody warned the bees to stay away. In the end, an estimated 50,000 bumblebees perished.

The tragedy at Target wiped out as many as 300 bumblebee colonies of bees no longer available to pollinate nearby trees and flowers.

The deadly pesticide is one of a fairly new family known as the neonicotinoids—“neonics” for short—developed a decade or so ago to replace organophosphates and carbamates, which are also highly toxic but dissipate far more quickly.

Scores of plants—fruits, vegetables, ornamentals—are sprayed with neonics. The chemical penetrates the leaves and is taken up by the plant’s vascular system, turning the plant poisonous to insects eating the leaves, pollen and nectar. Alternatively, the plant’s seeds are soaked or the soil is treated with the chemical, with the same result. This is convenient for keeping beetles off your roses. It is lethal for bees and other pollinators.

And even if it doesn’t kill directly, as happened at the Target lot, sub-lethal doses interfere with the bees’ immune systems and make them vulnerable to pests. They can also damage the bees’ ability to navigate back to the hive.

Several of the neonics, incidentally, are made by Bayer, the same Bayer that made the aspirin in your medicine cabinet. Bayer is a German company; yet, since 2013, neonics may not be used on bee-attractive crops in Germany or any other country in the European Union.

This prohibition on use in the EU is a manifestation of what’s known as the Precautionary Principle, a fancy way of saying “Look before you leap.” In the United States we do it backwards: Chemicals are deemed innocent until proven guilty, sometimes with disastrous results.
[continued ]  http://earthjustice.org/features/the-case-of-the-vanishing-honey-bee?gclid=CIOuwtrN1cQCFUo6gQod2okA4w