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Is Monsanto and Bayer the
cause of the killing of the bees?
Probable Cause for Honey Bees Dying
Posted by: "Janice Smith" jbsmith333@comcast.net
hi24sky
Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:30 pm (PDT)
http://viewzone.com/lostbees.bayer.html
Honey bees are dying all over the globe.
Here's why!
by Dan Eden for Viewzone
For over a year, the media has been reporting
about the dramatic loss of bees in Europe and
North America. As many as 50% to 90% of the bee
populations have simply vanished, leaving their
hives empty and forcing farmers to demand
investigations to determine the cause.
At first it was only the honeybees that were
decimated -- then the bumblebee populations
began to disappear. Bumblebees are responsible
for pollinating an estimated 15 percent of all
the crops grown in the U.S., worth $3 billion,
particularly those raised in greenhouses. Those
include tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. The
crisis was eventually given a name: Colony
Collapse Disorder or CCD.
CCD is a "fake disease!"
The most popular theory, aside from the varroa
mite [right] and cellphone RF radiation, has
been the belief that a virus -- similar to AIDS
-- has infected the bees. A team led by
scientists from the Columbia University Mailman
School of Public Health, Pennsylvania State
University, the USDA Agricultural Research
Service, University of Arizona, and 454 Life
Sciences found a significant connection between
the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and
colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honey bees.
A team of scientists from Edgewood Chemical
Biological Center and University of California
San Francisco identified both a virus and a
parasite that are likely behind the recent
sudden die-off of honey-bee colonies. Using a
new technology called the Integrated Virus
Detection System (IVDS), which was designed for
military use to rapidly screen samples for
pathogens, ECBC scientists last week isolated
the presence of viral and parasitic pathogens
that may be contributing to the honeybee loss.
But it now appears that a much more basic
culprit has killed the bees -- Bayer
Corporation. Colony Collapse Disorder is
poisoning with a known insect neurotoxin called
Clothianidin, a pesticide manufactured by Bayer,
which has been clearly linked to massive bee die
offs in Germany and France.
Clothianidin = "Colony Collapse Disorder"
Here's the story. One of the most important
crops is corn. It's used as a feed for chickens
and pigs and cattle. It's used in flour and in
the production of high fructose corn syrup. Just
about everything we eat depends on corn.
Recently, with the energy crisis, corn has also
been pressed to make ethanol to run our cars.
But corn has an enemy called the root worm.
This pesky bug, called diabrotica vergifera
vergifera, [right] burrows in the newly forming
roots of the corn plant and causes the plant to
wither and eventually die. Farmers have long
sought some type of pesticide to kill the bug
and, in 2003, Bayer Pharmaceutical introduced a
new product called Clothianidin. Their own
studies showed that this pesticide was highly
toxic to bees but justified the widespread use
because it could be applied to corn seed and
would be buried in the soil where it would
presumably be harmless to other creatures.
In theory, farmers were instructed to buy
special machines that would coat their seeds
multiple times with clothianidin and a special
adhesive, dry the seeds, and then plant them.
The poison is supposed to stick to the seed coat
and to be toxic to the rootworm as it attempts
to burrow in to the newly forming roots.
Bayer, who make the pesticide, and Monsanto, who
make the adhesive, have patented the method of
coating their proprietary seeds with
clothianidin, which are now growing all over the
globe.
Oooooops!
The first clue that Colony Collapse Disorder was
a simple case of poisoning -- similar to the DDT
bird kill-off decades ago -- was when
clothianidin was used on corn crops in Germany's
Baden-Wuerttemberg state.
In July of 2007, the German crop was infested
with the rootworm. The German government ordered
that every possible method should be used to
eradicate this pest, including the use of
clothianidin. Shortly after the seeds were
planted, in May of 2008, some 330-million bees
abruptly died!
According to the German Research Center for
Cultivated Plants, 29 out of 30 dead bees had
been killed by direct contact with clothianidin.
Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based
Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: "We have
been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids
for almost 10 years now. This proves without a
doubt that the chemicals can come into contact
with bees and kill them. These pesticides
shouldn't be on the market."
An investigation revealed that the seed coating
did not stay in the soil but was introduced to
the air (and the rest of the plant) by simple
abrasion -- the rubbing together of seeds -- as
they are stored, moved and injected in to the
soil by farming machines.
German authorities suggested that the seeds were
not treated with a special polymer, called a
"Sticker," which makes the pesticide adhere to
the seed. But it is noted also that the
formulation of clothianidin does not require
this "sticker" in typical applications and most
farmers find this additional coating too cost
prohibitive.
The German government quickly banned this
pesticide and gave compensation to the farmers
and issued a strong warning against using this
chemical in agriculture. According to the German
Federal Agriculture Institute,
"It can unequivocally be concluded that
poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of
the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from corn
seeds."
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (May 30, 2003):
"Clothianidin has the potential for toxic
chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other
nontarget pollinators, through the translocation
of clonianidin redidue in nectar and pollen."
[In the same report] "The fate and disposition
of clothianidin in the environment suggest a
compound that is asystemic insecticide that is
persistent and mobile, stable to hydrolysis, and
has potential to leach to ground water, as well
as runoff to surface waters."
"Clothianidin is highly toxic to honey bees on
an acute contact basis (killing 50% of tested
populations at greater than 389 mg/kg). It has
the potential for toxic chronic exposure to
honey bees, as well as other nontarget
pollinators, through the translocation of
clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen. In
honey bees, the effects of this toxic chronic
exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal
effects in the larvae and reproductive effects
in the queen."
Clothianidin = neurotoxin
The cigarette industry used to brag that one or
two cigarettes doesn't give a person lung
cancer. Likewise, the pharmaceutical companies
are quick to show that feeding bees a specific
amount of neurotoxins, like clothianidin,
doesn't kill the bees. And, of course, this is
true.
While small traces of clothianidin may not kill
bees outright, it can and apparently does
interfere with their ability to navigate to and
from the hive. The pollen that they manage to
bring back to the hive is then further
concentrated and exposed to the entire colony,
causing suppression of their immune systems and
subsequent infection by any number of parasites
and pathogens. This is exactly what beekeepers
and farmers have been reporting -- half empty,
infested bees or abandoned hives with no dead
bodies to be found anywhere. It has also been
noted that the empty colonies are absent the
usual parasitic bugs that typically take
advantage of an abandoned hive. The colonies
appear sterile.
Not Just Corn
The tragedy in Germany and France showed that
bees who became exposed to clothianidin also
infected bee colonies that were not harvesting
corn pollen, thus spreading the toxin to regions
at some distace to areas cultivating corn
plants. It is theorized that they could have
become disoriented and mingled with bees from
other colonies or contaminated the pollen of
plants where other bee colonies were also
pollenating.
Same old story...
Money talks. Agro-business is huge and their
influence is deep in the sciences and politics.
Their own scientists must know very well that
their product has threatened the global
population of bees, yet they allow the
conspiracy theories of a mysterious "Colony
Collapse Disease" to endure. Clothianidin and
imidacloprid (another pesrticide also banned by
Germany and France) account for much of Bayer's
agrochemical profits.
I used to think of Bayer as the company that
made aspirin and medicine, but I recently saw a
list of poisons that they made and marketed to
kill everything from microbes to insects. It
seems odd to me that a company that makes
poisons also makes medical cures... Is there a
link there? Perhaps it's just different sides of
the same dollar or Euro.
UPDATE
(08-18) 18:37 PDT -- The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency is refusing to disclose
records about a new class of pesticides that
could be playing a role in the disappearance of
millions of honeybees in the United States, a
lawsuit filed Monday charges.
The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to
see the studies that the EPA required when it
approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience
five years ago.
The environmental group filed the suit as part
of an effort to find out how diligently the EPA
is protecting honeybees from dangerous
pesticides, said Aaron Colangelo, a lawyer for
the group in Washington.
In the last two years, beekeepers have reported
unexplained losses of hives - 30 percent and
upward - leading to a phenomenon called colony
collapse disorder. Scientists believe that the
decline in bees is linked to an onslaught of
pesticides, mites, parasites and viruses, as
well as a loss of habitat and food. $15 billion
in crops
Bees pollinate about one-third of the human
diet, $15 billion worth of U.S. crops, including
almonds in California, blueberries in Maine,
cucumbers in North Carolina and 85 other
commercial crops, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Not finding a cause
of the collapse could prove costly, scientists
warn.
Representatives of the EPA said they hadn't
seen the suit and couldn't comment.
Clothianidin is the pesticide at the center of
controversy. It is used to coat corn, sugar beet
and sorghum seeds and is part of a class of
pesticides called neonicotinoids. The pesticide
was blamed for bee deaths in France and Germany,
which also is dealing with a colony collapse.
Those two countries have suspended its use until
further study. An EPA fact sheet from 2003 says
clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic
exposure to honey bees, as well as other
pollinators, through residues in nectar and
pollen.
The EPA granted conditional registration for
clothianidin in 2003 and at the same time
required that Bayer CropScience submit studies
on chronic exposure to honeybees, including a
complete worker bee lifecycle study as well as
an evaluation of exposure and effects to the
queen, the group said. The queen, necessary for
a colony, lives a few years; the workers live
only six weeks, but there is no honey without
them.
"The public has no idea whether those studies
have been submitted to the EPA or not and, if
so, what they show. Maybe they never came in.
Maybe they came in, and they show a real problem
for bees. Maybe they're poorly conducted studies
that don't satisfy EPA's requirement," Colangelo
said.
www.ProgressiveConvergence.com
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