WHAT'S KILLING OUR BEES

Was it on the BBC or ITV ?

Can't watch live telly see.

 

BBC Two Zigs

glad to hear it was good as i recorded it for myself earlier

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/no-ban-on-pesticides-that-threaten-bees-8114020.html

There will be no ban on neonicotinoids by the British government. Is it me or is this an incredibly stupid thing to do?

Money, money, money...

 

Unfortunately nothing is black and white. I petitioned for the ban on neonicotinoid pesticides a while ago, because on balance, those who knew what they were on about seemed to mostly be saying they were contributing to the decline of bees. However the other side argues that by banning them, you force farmers to use other products that may be just as bad or worse. I can understand that point. I know that farmers don't always follow the rules.

The 'other sides' argument is flawed though, and this is what our government seems to overlook. If by banning one type of insecticide you force farmers to use other, potentially more dangerous ones, then surely those other potentially more dangerous ones also need to be looked at too.

Then there is the bigger picture. Insecticides kill insects. That's why they're called insecticides. In the context of this topic, the pesticides we're talking about are insecticides. Aphids are insects. So are ladybirds, wasps, lacewings etc. Aphids have a very short lifecycle. They breed in huge numbers several times in a year. Their predators have a longer lifecycle, and breed in smaller numbers fewer times in a year. This means that the pest species have more chance of developing resistance to pesticides than their predators do. Its simple numbers. If 1 in 10 of any species survives being sprayed, and there are 10 of them that got sprayed, then only survives. Its going to take him/her a while to find a mate in neighbour territory to breed with. If there are 1000 that got sprayed, then 100 survive locally so there is still plenty of opportunity to breed locally. The larger number is the pest species, the smaller number the predator, so the pest population booms relative to their natural predators. This means that not only are they not controlled at all by their natural predators any more, but also, as they are descended from survivors of being sprayed, they are likely to have some resistance to the spray. So what must the farmer do? He must use a larger dose of spray to protect his crops. And so the cycle goes. I read something a few years ago now where some scientists are rightly getting concerned that pesticide levels on food crops are approaching a level that is toxic to us. The dose can't get any stronger without rendering the crop useless, and you can't stick with the the status quo because of the decline of predatory insects and the increasing resistance to insecticides of pest species.

The long term solution, it seems, is to back off from monoculture intensive farming techniques and promote a healthier eco system. That would, in the short term, lower output, raising food prices, which will make us all complain. However if we were far less wasteful (and most of us are guilty of it) and learned to use up all the food we buy, we would need to buy less, so the farmers would need to produce less, so there'd be less strain on the land, so then we could have it both ways. Sadly I think none of that will happen until we reach crisis point and I reckon it would take government intervention like war time rationing before the majority make any real effort.

 

great post there Clue

 

Possible breakthrough on bee deaths: http://www.treehugger.com/natural-s...cause-bee-deaths-and-its-really-bad-news.html

 

Interesting, but I think most of us know its down to pesticides and fungicides , studies have found that in the City Of London were the healthiest across the country , no farms spraying acres of crops with all sort of .......

Going off subject , all the flooding across the UK we didn't need scientist/politicians to explain the details...... most people already knew that dredging ditches and rivers would of helped some homes and land flood less.

 

I think there is a more general problem here. The fact is, us monkeys, and that's pretty much all we (humans) are, don't understand even half of how nature works. Yet too many of us insist we do.

On the very rare occasions when I use chemical sprays, I always think, I don't fully understand how this works, but I think its fair to assume that things that it will meet have not evolved to safely breath/metabolise this synthetic compound.

The worst spray I use (occasionally) is roundup. All the documentation says its harmless to all animal life (except aquatic life), but I wont let my kids anywhere near it, and I wont let them go into the garden for a couple of hours after I've used it, just to be on the safe side.

I honestly can't understand how some people can think with such certainty that they've found a good new way to do things, when history proves time and time ago that 'good ideas' of yesteryear have caused utter chaos a few years later. I can think of lots of examples, but one that springs to mind is the introduction of japanese knotweed and himalayan balsam. Another, apparently in Australia a particular frog or toad was introduced to tackle some other pest species. It was so successful that now it is the pest species, eating all the smaller native species. Intensive farming practices is the classic. I was reading something a while ago now that land is becoming less productive because its lost all its structure due to a combination of taking more out than was put in, plus constantly compacting it with heavy machinery, plus the fact that pest species that the pesticides are supposed to kill are becoming resistant, so you need to apply more, to the point where you can't apply more without making the crop actually toxic and therefore useless.

 

Now inconclusive apparantly: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27980344

But Bayer have this to say:

"If you look at the tree bumblebee, it is eating the same food as the other bees, and is being exposed to the same pesticide load and weather conditions and yet it is flourishing, whereas some other bees are not. If it were pesticides causing the mass destruction of our fauna, surely you would see effects on all bees?"

 

I cant imagine how the world would feed its massive overpopulation without the use of chemicals.
What we actually need is a couple of billion people to commit mass suicide every now and then and get things back into balance.
As that aint likely to happen, how about going back to a few of those old pesticides that were "more dangerous", but didn't kill bees.

I think the problem revolves around who are they "more dangerous" for, us or the bees.

 

I am acutely aware of the decline in bee numbers in the garden where I live. When will they take notice ? Sadly, probably not until the last hive disappears,
Jenny
makes me so ...

 

This year I've noticed a massive increase in Bumble Bee numbers (there's thousands around the bramble patches), plus there's also quite a few Honey Bees about - didn't see any Honey Bees around here last year (well maybe I saw about 2 or 3).

 

There's a thing going round facebook at the moment, picture of a bee saying, if we go, you lot have got 4 years, we're taking you with us.