Science > Environmental Issues
Pesticides killing bees
Gandalf:
Hi soboerring,
Welcome to our forum. :)
We recommend all new members to post an introduction in the Newbies section telling us a bit about themselves, how they found the cass material, and how much of the work here they have read.
You can have a look through that board to see how others have done it.
treesparrow:
Shown last night a bbc 4 tv program entitled - Who killed the honey bees?
Available here for the next 6 days -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jzjys
or as download here -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jzjys/Who_Killed_the_Honey_Bee/
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It had a somewhat inconclusive ending. A couple of things did stand out for me though. One was the fact that one bee tested for pesticides was found to have 25 different kinds ( herbicides, insecticides and fungicides). It's really difficult not to believe that this is not having a deleterious effect on these insects, even if combinations of some of these pesticides are found in lower quantities.
The other interesting fact, although perhaps anecdotal, was that one bee keeper from London was experiencing no problems at his bee hives which were located in a heavily urbanised environment when other hives in nearby rural England had experienced greatly reduced bee numbers.
Liberty:
I saw this programme last night too, and as you said the conclusion pointed to possibly many factors mostly concerning pesticides and stress on the bees from moving locations. My thoughts kept coming back to not only the bees but us as the human race, and how our systems are cumulatively exposed to a whole cocktail of pesticides throughout our life time and how we cope, even with regular detoxing. Fascinating that the bees in London can happily cope with traffic pollution and mobile phone masts and the poor bees in the country side are killed by farmers spraying the fields for production of greater yield of crops. It does make me wonder that's it's all so upside down.
soboerring:
Here is how the European Union is playing another strategy to promote its patented pesticides in India which are surely harmful to bees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opJyp6KnaJw
Surprisingly number of well-known NGOs are involved in this along with the European Union.
treesparrow:
Decline of honey bees now a global phenomenon, says United Nations
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/decline-of-honey-bees-now-a-global-phenomenon-says-united-nations-2237541.html
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