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Honey bees - wild and domestic - perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Grains are primarily pollinated by the wind, but fruits, nuts and vegetables are pollinated by bees. Seventy out of the top 100 human food crops - which supply about 90 percent of the world's nutrition - are pollinated by bees.

"In the last four years, the chemical industry has spent $11.2 million on a PR initiative to say it's not their fault, so we know whose fault it is."
Jon Cooksey, writer, director, How to Boil a Frog.

What's Killing the Bees - and Why It Matters

Worldwide bee colony collapse is not as big a mystery as the chemical industry claims.

The systemic nature of the problem makes it complex, but not impenetrable. Scientists know that bees are dying from a variety of factors-pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, global warming and more. Many of these causes are interrelated. The bottom line is that we know humans are largely responsible for the two most prominent causes: pesticides and habitat loss.

Worker bees (females) live about six weeks in summer and several months in the winter. Colonies produce new worker bees continuously during the spring and summer, and then reproduction slows during the winter. Typically, a bee hive or colony will decline by 5-10 percent over the winter, and replace those lost bees in the spring. In a bad year, a bee colony might lose 15-20 percent of its bees.

In the U.S., winter losses have commonly reached 30-50 percent, in some cases more. In 2006, David Hackenberg - a bee keeper for 42 years - reported a 90 percent die-off among his 3,000 hives. U.S. National Agricultural Statistics show a honey bee decline from about 6 million hives in 1947 to 2.4 million hives in 2008, a 60 percent reduction.

The number of working bee colonies per hectare provides a critical metric of crop health. In the U.S. - among crops that require bee pollination - the number of bee colonies per hectare has declined by 90 percent since 1962. The bees cannot keep pace with the winter die-off rates and habitat loss.

Pesticides and Bees

Biologists have found more than 150 different chemical residues in bee pollen, a deadly "pesticide cocktail" according to University of California apiculturist Eric Mussen. The chemical companies Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, DuPont and Monsanto shrug their shoulders at the systemic complexity, as if the mystery were too complicated. They advocate no change in pesticide policy. After all, selling poisons to the world's farmers is profitable.

Furthermore, wild bee habitat shrinks every year as industrial agribusiness converts grasslands and forest into mono-culture farms, which are then contaminated with pesticides. To reverse the world bee decline, we need to fix our dysfunctional and destructive agricultural system.

Solutions That Save the Bees

Common sense actions can restore and protect the world's bees. Here's a strong start:

1. Ban the seven most dangerous pesticides.

2. Protect pollinator health by preserving wild habitat.

3. Restore ecological agriculture.

Ecological farming is the overarching new policy trend that will stabilize human food production, preserve wild habitats, and protect the bees. The nation of Bhutan has led the world in adopting a 100 percent organic farming policy. Mexico has banned genetically modified corn to protect its native corn varieties. Eight European countries have banned genetically modified crops and Hungary has burned more than 1,000 acres of corn contaminated with genetically modified varieties. In India, scientist Vandana Shiva and a network of small farmers have built an organic farming resistance to industrial agriculture over two decades.

Ecological, organic farming is nothing new. It is the way most farming has been done throughout human history. Ecological farming resists insect damage by avoiding large monocrops and preserving ecosystem diversity. Ecological farming restores soil nutrients with natural composting systems, avoids soil loss from wind and water erosion, and avoids pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

By restoring bee populations and healthier bees, ecological agriculture improves pollination, which in turn improves crop yields. Ecological farming takes advantage of the natural ecosystem services, water filtration, pollination, oxygen production, and disease and pest control.

Organic farmers have advocated better research and funding by industry, government, farmers, and the public to develop organic farming techniques, improve food production, and maintain ecological health. The revolution in farming would promote equitable diets around the world and support crops primarily for human consumption, avoiding crops for animal food and biofuels.

What the U.S. Can Learn From Europe About Saving the Bees

In Europe, Asia and South America, the annual bee die-off lags behind the U.S. decline, but the trend is clear and the response has been more appropriate. In Europe, Rabobank reported that annual European die-offs have reached 30-35 percent and that the colonies-per-hectare count is down 25 percent.

A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) scientific report determined that three widely used pesticides - nicotine-based clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam - pose "high acute risks" for bees. The nicotinoid pesticides-used in soils, on foliage, and embedded in seeds-persist at the core of the toxic pesticide cocktail found in bee hives.

A Greenpeace scientific report identifies seven priority bee-killer pesticides-including the three nicotine culprits-plus clorpyriphos, cypermethrin, deltamethrin, and fipronil. The three neonicotinoids act on insect nervous systems. They accumulate in individual bees and within entire colonies, including the honey that bees feed to infant larvae. Bees that do not die outright, experience sub-lethal systemic effects, development defects, weakness, and loss of orientation. The die-off leaves fewer bees and weaker bees, who must work harder to produce honey in depleted wild habitats. These conditions create the nightmare formula for bee colony collapse.

Bayer makes and markets imidacloprid and clothianidin; Syngenta produces thiamethoxam. In 2009, the world market for these three toxins reached more than $2 billion. Syngenta, Bayer, Dow, Monsanto, and DuPont control nearly 100% of the world market for genetically modified pesticides, plants and seeds.

In 2012, a German court criminally charged Syngenta with perjury for concealing its own report showing that its genetically modified corn had killed livestock. In the U.S., the company paid out $105 million to settle a class-action lawsuit for contaminating the drinking water for over 50 million citizens with its "gender-bending" herbicide Atrazine. Now, these corporate polluters are waging multi-million-euro campaigns to deny responsibility for bee colony collapse.

In May, the European Commission responded, adopting a two-year ban on the three necotinoid pesticides, and later added the non-neonicotinoid fibronil. Scientists will use the two years to assess the recovery rate of the bees and a longer-term ban on these and other pesticides.

Meanwhile, the U.S. dithers and supports the corporations that produce and market the deadly pesticides. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to allow the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, in spite of a U.S. Department of Agriculture report warning about the dangers of the bee colony collapse.

Also in 2014, President Obama signed the now infamous "Monsanto Protection Act" - written by Monsanto lobbyists - which gives biotech companies immunity in federal U.S. courts from damages to people and the environment caused by their commercial compounds.

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Honey bees - wild and domestic - perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Grains are primarily pollinated by the wind, but fruits, nuts and vegetables are pollinated by bees.

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Honeybees pick up host of agricultural, urban pesticides via non-crop plants

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Honeybees pick up host of agricultural, urban pesticides via non-crop plants

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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University study shows that honeybees collect the vast majority of their pollen from plants other than crops, even in areas dominated by corn and soybeans, and that pollen is consistently contaminated with a host of agricultural and urban pesticides throughout the growing season.

Christian Krupke, professor of entomology, and then-postdoctoral researcher Elizabeth Long collected pollen from Indiana honeybee hives at three sites over 16 weeks to learn which pollen sources honeybees use throughout the season and whether they are contaminated with pesticides.

The pollen samples represented up to 30 plant families and contained residues from pesticides spanning nine chemical classes, including neonicotinoids - common corn and soybean seed treatments that are toxic to bees. The highest concentrations of pesticides in bee pollen, however, were pyrethroids, insecticides typically used to control mosquitoes and other nuisance pests.

"Although crop pollen was only a minor part of what they collected, bees in our study were exposed to a far wider range of chemicals than we expected," said Krupke. "The sheer numbers of pesticides we found in pollen samples were astonishing. Agricultural chemicals are only part of the problem. Homeowners and urban landscapes are big contributors, even when hives are directly adjacent to crop fields."

Long, now an assistant professor of entomology at The Ohio State University, said she was also "surprised and concerned" by the diversity of pesticides found in pollen.

"If you care about bees as a homeowner, only use insecticides when you really need to because bees will come into contact with them," she said.

The study suggests that overall levels of pesticide exposure for honeybees in the Corn Belt could be considerably higher than previously thought, Krupke said. This is partly because research efforts and media attention have emphasized neonicotinoids' harmful effects on pollinators and their ability to travel and persist in the environment. Few studies, however, have examined how non-crop plants could expose bees to other classes of pesticides. Looking at Midwestern honeybees' environment through this wider lens and over an entire season could provide more accurate insights into what bees encounter as they forage, Krupke said.

Krupke and Long collected pollen weekly from May to September from hives placed in a nonagricultural meadow, the border of a cornfield planted with neonicotinoid-treated seeds and the border of a cornfield planted with non-treated seeds. They waited to begin their collection until after growers had planted their crops to avoid the heavily contaminated dust that arises during the planting of neonicotinoid-coated seeds.

The samples showed that honeybees collect the overwhelming majority of their pollen from uncultivated plants, particularly the plant family that includes clover and alfalfa.

The researchers found 29 pesticides in pollen from the meadow site, 29 pesticides in pollen from the treated cornfield and 31 pesticides in pollen from the untreated cornfield.

"These findings really illustrate how honeybees are chronically exposed to numerous pesticides throughout the season, making pesticides an important long-term stress factor for bees," Long said.

The most common chemical products found in pollen from each site were fungicides and herbicides, typical crop disease and weed management products.

Of the insecticides, neonicotinoids and pyrethroids were the most common in the pollen samples and pose the highest risks to bees, Krupke said. While both are toxic to bees, they differ in their relative risk levels. Neonicotinoids are more poisonous to bees but are primarily used on agricultural land. Conversely, pyrethroids are typically used where pollinators are likely to be - near homes and gardens with a diversity of flowering plants - potentially exposing bees to higher levels of chemicals and on a more frequent basis. The study showed distinct spikes of pyrethroids in August and September, months when many homeowners spray these chemicals to knock out mosquitoes, hornets and other nuisance pests.

Pollen from all three sites also contained DEET, the active ingredient in most insect repellants.

Krupke said that little is known about how these diverse pesticides interact with one another to affect bees. The toxicity of insecticides, for example, can increase when combined with certain fungicides, themselves harmless to insects.

The researchers did not assess colony health in this study.

The study was published in Nature Communications on Tuesday (May 31) and is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11629.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's North Central Regional Integrated Pest Management Program funded the research.

Writer: Natalie van Hoose, 765-496-2050, nvanhoos@purdue.edu

Sources: Christian Krupke, 765-494-4912, ckrupke@purdue.edu
Elizabeth Long, 330-202-3556, long.1541@osu.edu

Note to journalists: Christian Krupke is best reached by email ( ckrupke@purdue.edu) until June 6

ABSTRACT
Non-cultivated plants present a season-long route of pesticide exposure for honeybees
Elizabeth Y. Long 1; Christian H. Krupke 2

1 Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Wooster, OH 44691, USA

2 Department of Entomology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

E-mail: ckrupke@purdue.edu

Recent efforts to evaluate the contribution of neonicotinoid insecticides to worldwide pollinator declines have focused on honeybees and the chronic levels of exposure experienced when foraging upon crops grown from neonicotinoid-treated seeds. However, few studies address non-crop plants as a potential route of pollinator exposure to neonicotinoid and other insecticides. Here we show that pollen collected by honeybee foragers in maize and soybean-dominated landscapes is contaminated throughout the growing season with multiple agricultural pesticides, including the neonicotinoids used as seed treatments. Notably, however, the highest levels of contamination in pollen are pyrethroid insecticides targeting mosquitoes and other nuisance pests. Furthermore, pollen from crop plants represents only a tiny fraction of the total diversity of pollen resources utilized by honey bees in these landscapes, with the principle sources of pollen originating from non-cultivated plants. These findings provide fundamental information about the foraging habits of honeybees in these landscapes.

Agricultural Communications: (765) 494-2722;

Keith Robinson, robins89@purdue.edu
Agriculture News Page

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Honeybees pick up host of agricultural, urban pesticides via non-crop plants

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A Purdue University study shows that honeybees collect the vast majority of their pollen from plants other than crops, even in areas dominated by corn and soybeans, and that pollen is consistently contaminated with a host of agricultural and urban pesticides throughout the growing season.

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Let's get the city buzzing

Why Bees Matter

The UK is currently home to about 267 species of bee, including colony species such as the domestic honey bee Apis mellifera and 24 species of the bumblebee, as well as over 220 species of solitary bee, include leaf-cutting, carpenter, mason and mining bees.

Bees are pollinators, they fly from flower to flower collecting nectar and pollen to feed themselves and their young, distributing the pollen from flower to flower as they go. This process of pollen transfer is vital for many plants to produce seed and to reproduce, maintaining genetic diversity in the plants they pollinate. Other insects also play this essential role, such as butterflies and hoverflies, but bees are considered to be the most vital and prolific of the pollinators, given their special adaptations and exclusive diet of nectar and pollen. Some plants such as red clover, oilseed rape and tomato plants rely entirely on bees for pollination.

Honeybees utilise plant odour when foraging for flowers and recent honeybee research has shown that plant odour are concealed by nitrogen oxides released in vehicle exhaust fumes. It is thought that this will reduce the bee's ability to find suitable flowers and directly impact on levels of pollination.

Pollination is an essential service for many reasons; it is economically very important, allowing for the production of the majority of the fruits and vegetables that we eat and on which we rear livestock. It allows wild plants to reproduce, creating the diversity of plants and habitats that are all around us and allowing them to colonise new areas and spread around the country. Bees are an essential part of ecosystems, as pollination causes plants to make seeds that can then be eaten by animals such as birds.

What's Happening to the Bees

Bee populations are under pressure and many are believed to be declining globally, as a result of a range of issues such as disease, agricultural changes and habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. Climate change may also be having an impact on bees, not just as a result of changes to temperature, but also the influence on the timing of plant flowering and bee emergence through the year. If bees emerge too early or late the plants on which they rely may not yet have flowered or have finished flowering.

The honey bee is almost exclusively a domestic species these days, with wild colonies believed to be virtually extinct. However, even the domestic colonies are facing problems and beekeepers are struggling to keep their colonies alive and healthy as a result of viruses, diseases and parasites such as the Varroa mite ( Varroa destructor), a blood-sucking parasite that spreads diseases that can kill whole colonies if not detected and eradicated early.

Wild bee populations are also suffering as changes in land management and agricultural practices such as intensification of the use of farmland and the heavy use of herbicides and fertilisers has lead to fewer wildflowers available for bees to forage upon. Loss of hedgerows and wild unmanaged margins around fields has caused fragmentation of suitable habitat areas, especially for the more sedentary solitary bees, isolating populations from one another and preventing genetic exchange and reducing the supply of nest sites and foraging areas. Insecticide use can also impact bees, sometimes killing bees directly or damaging to their ability to navigate or reproduce, or reducing their resistance to disease. Insecticides containing neonicotinoids are being investigated as one of the most harmful substances for bees.

Different types of bee collect nectar and pollen from different types of flowers, and different plants flower at different times of the year, so the availability of a variety of plants is more beneficial than a monoculture. For example, bumblebees have a longer tongue than other bees and have a preference for flowers with a long corolla (tube), for example, foxgloves and dead-nettles. Bees with shorter tongues will avoid flowers where they can't access the nectar source and will favour flowers with a more open structure such as forget-me-nots or poppies.

What We're Doing to Help

In 2014, we launched a campaign and started making some lasting changes to the way we manage our open spaces to help our wild and domestic bees and provide more flowers for foraging and more habitat for nest sites.

What we've done so far:

The campaign promotedpollinator-friendly gardeningat council events

We've produced anaction plan to reduce levels of air pollution across the city, with measures to reduce the reliance on cars

We've usedbee-friendly plantsin planting schemes such as Lavender, Cosmos and Salvia

Pest Control no longer destroybumblebee nests, we move them or where possible leave them unharmed

Created bee-friendlyflower bedsand seeded colourful annual meadows

You are now allowed tokeep beeson yourallotment, so long as you have had some basic training fromNottingham Bee Keepers Association

We've relaxed the mowing or raised the grass cutting height in some parks to allow flowers such as clover, self-heal and daisyto flourish

We've generated an info pack forschools Bee-Friendly Schools Pack

We've started signposting our efforts with abee-shaped sign

What we're hoping to achieve in the future:

We're continuing to influence theplanting schemeswithin parks and traffic islands to include plants of value to pollinators

We're continuing to create and manage seeded wildflower annual and perennialmeadows

We're reviewing our use ofherbicides- trying to reduce general use and hoping to introduce wild routes where wildflowers are left to grow

Create someroad vergesfor bees with relaxed management or seeded meadow habitat

Working together with Friends of the Earth and other local interested parties to create aLocal Bee Action Plan

Bee Signs

You may have noticed some small metal signs popping up in various parks and open spaces throughout the city. These bees signpost specific flower beds, meadow areas and other areas where we are undertaking altered management measures to support our local pollinators as part of the Bee-Friendly Nottingham campaign.

Where have you seen one recently? Take a selfie of you with the sign and post it to our Facebook pageor Twitter feed to show your support for Bee-Friendly Nottingham!

What You Can Do to Help

Come along to one of oureventsand learn to make a bee home for solitary bees or bumblebees

Become a beekeeper

Buy local honey. Avoids the need for imported honey that might bring in foreign pathogens harmful to our native and domestic bees - it also supports your local beekeepers

Plant a wildflower meadow in your garden or diversify your lawn

Plant pretty garden plants that are good for bees. Some cultivated plants have been so heavily modified by human cultivation that they no longer provide nectar or have such complicated flower structure that bees can't get to it - avoid these flowers - see our download list for useful resources

Don't over-tidy your garden - don't clear away dead hollow stems in the autumn or winter months, they might have tiny little bees hibernating in them! Piles of dead leaves, deadwood and sheltered corners of gardens can make good sites for bees to make their home. Also, if you get the odd rodent making a home, once they have abandoned the burrow these are a favoured nest and hibernation site for bumblebees

You don't need to weed out everything that comes into your garden on its own. Species diversity is important for attracting and providing for a range of pollinators; many native flowers that will find their way into your garden might be good for bees. You could always create a wild area to grow 'weeds' or you could seed it or plant it with some native plants

Think about the availability of nectar and pollen throughout the year. Spring flowering species are important for queen bumblebees that have hibernated over the winter and late autumn flowering species are important for them entering hibernation

Ivy is a great source of late nectar for bees that are still active, so keep a bit in your garden and let it flower each year before you cut it back if you need to. Bee pollination will also allow the ivy to produce berries, which, if left for the winter, will help to feed your garden birds. There is even a species of solitary bee that is only active from September to November that feeds solely on ivy flower nectar (speciesColletes hederae;http://www.moraybeedinosaurs.co.uk/solitary.html) Although this species is only found in the south of England at the moment

Try walking, cycling, public transport or home working to reduce pollution from your travel and improve Nottingham's air quality. More information and help with planning a more environmentally friendly journey can be found at using the plan your journey

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Let's get the city buzzing The UK is currently home to about 267 species of bee, including colony species such as the domestic honey bee Apis mellifera and 24 species of the bumblebee, as well as over 220 species of solitary bee, include leaf-cutting, carpenter, mason and mining bees.

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Researchers developing natural pesticide alternative to target pests without harming honeybees

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Researchers developing natural pesticide alternative to target pests without harming honeybees

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https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/sustainable-food/news/researchers-developing-natural-pesticide-alternative-target-pests-without-harming-honeybees

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Researchers at the University of Sheffield's Institute for Sustainable Food are collaborating with industry to develop a natural, sustainable biocontrol which targets pests without harming honeybees and other beneficial pollinators.

A natural, sustainable alternative to pesticides that targets specific pests, without harming beneficial pollinators such as honeybees, is being developed with the help of researchers from the Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield.
Working in collaboration with industry partner and leading agricultural company, Syngenta, experts at the institute are helping to develop a pioneering biocontrol that uses dsRNA-based biocontrols to target plant pests.

RNA is a molecule essential for the coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA-based biocontrols exploit a naturally occurring process called RNA interference (RNAi) in which double stranded RNA (dsRNA) essentially stops the production of a critical protein in the target pest.

There is a significant need for innovative approaches to crop protection, driven by the need for greater food production, pest expansion linked to climate breakdown and the push for more sustainable farming practices.

New research published by the scientists in Analyst, a Royal Society of Chemistry journal, suggests this new approach could be key to addressing the threat to food security posed by plant pests, which account for a 40 per cent loss in global agricultural production and costs $100 billion every year.

Professor Mark Dickman, from the Institute for Sustainable Food and Director of Research at the University of Sheffield's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, led the study. He said: "The RNA biocontrols we are working on with Syngenta can help to address the sustainability challenge for farming. The idea is that dsRNA is applied to the crops, then along comes the pest, which eats the crop. The dsRNA molecule then kills the pest by triggering the RNAi mechanism. The advantage of this is that we can be highly selective. We have the ability to target a specific pest while protecting beneficial species, such as honeybees.

"A key challenge will be making enough of these biocontrols which are natural, biodegradable and sustainable, and to deliver them to the crops. We're currently working on production strategies to make the RNA biocontrols and methods to analyse this important product."

Mike Bean, Head of RNAi Platforms at Syngenta, said: "Syngenta has been developing the science behind RNA-based biocontrols for several years, led by scientists at our Ghent Innovation Centre in Belgium. We partner with a number of leading academic institutions and industry organisations to help address the many challenges involved in moving from concept to product.

"We are delighted to work with the experts at the University of Sheffield's Institute for Sustainable Food on some of the dsRNA production and analysis challenges as we continue to develop the high quality science and data that will be needed to bring this innovative and exciting product to market for the benefit of farmers."

The Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield brings together multidisciplinary expertise and world-class research facilities to help achieve food security and protect the natural resources we all depend on.

The study, Analysis of long dsRNA produced in vitro and in vivo using atomic force microscopy in conjunction with ion-pair reverse-phase HPLC, is published in the journal Analyst and can be accessed via: https://doi.org/10.1039/C9AN00954J

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Researchers developing natural pesticide alternative to target pests without harming honeybees

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Researchers at the University of Sheffield's Institute for Sustainable Food are collaborating with industry to develop a natural, sustainable biocontrol which targets pests without harming honeybees and other beneficial pollinators. A natural, sustainable alternative to pesticides that targets specific pests, without harming beneficial pollinators such as honeybees, is being developed with the help of researchers from the Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield.

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Neonicotinoid pesticides severely affect honey bee queens - Scientific Reports

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Neonicotinoid pesticides severely affect honey bee queens - Scientific Reports

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Neonicotinoid pesticides severely affect honey bee queens - Scientific Reports

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Scientific Reports - Neonicotinoid pesticides severely affect honey bee queens