Where have all the bees gone

One of the things I am interested in is honey bees. I never have had a hive, but I hope that someday I may; meantime I watch from afar. Anyway, the last few years there has been a spreading problem among beekeepers called CCD—Colony Collapse Disorder—which simply means that the bees disappear from their hives, usually through death. Many have suspected that it is the result of the use of pesticides, but only recently has proof begun to emerge. I quote from Catch the Buzz, a bee industry newsletter:

Imidacloprid, a systemic insecticide, moves through the treated plant to the nectar and pollen. The chemical remains persistent in soils for several years, can be taken up by subsequent plantings and weeds, and expressed in their pollen and nectar. No mechanism exists to protect honeybees from this exposure. Due to the vitally important nature of pollinators we recommend that imidacloprid be removed from use in the United States. Simply stated there is just no way to protect bees from this danger.

There is a good deal of evidence to back up this request at the cited URL. Please read it.

How, you ask, did we allow this to happen? Let me quote again:

The reader may ask how did we find ourselves at the point where an extremely dangerous chemical compound has come into such widespread use, threatening the very existence and viability of the pollination framework of the country. The answer is simple. Deregulation, the same concept which precipitated our financial collapse, has precipitated an environmental collapse no less serious. At the same time that financial institutions were being given a free reign to regulate themselves on the naive assumption that industry knew best, pesticide regulation was being turned over from EPA to industry on the same assumption.

US EPA used to do pesticide screening in honeybees, do pesticide toxicity study themselves, but today industry directs and funds the critical toxicity studies to determine product safety themselves. The studies are shown to EPA for registration purposes, then filed away as “proprietary information” far from the scrutiny of the public eye. Enforcement actions are not taken by EPA; instead these critically important functions are delegated to individual state departments of agriculture, under an arrangement ironically called a “primacy agreement.”

The problems faced by the beekeeping industry are not limited to one single chemical compound. They are in fact linked to a pervasive regulatory failure. When the EPA was first set up, it was in response to environmental challenges of an unprecedented nature. At that time the country was using 200,000,000 pounds of active ingredient chemical pesticides. Today that number is over 5,000,000,000 pounds of active ingredient. Simply put, the country is drowning in chemicals. These very “economic poisons” are doing their job too well, and because of the deregulation process we are faced with a perfect storm today capable of destroying our countries[sic] pollinator base which will carry with it agricultural and environmental catastrophe.

The fundamental change which is necessary is to return to a system at EPA which independently tests chemical compounds before they are released for widespread use. Precaution and prevention are words which need to return to environmental protection. Massive field experiments, such as what has occurred with the neonicotinoid class of systemic insecticides is just too high risk of a behavior.

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If you let industry police itself, what do you expect? We have seen what happened in the banking industry, with the resulting recession/depression. Can we afford to wait for the bees to disappear?

You say you don't eat honey? That's not the issue! Bees are pollinators; a huge percentage of our crops depend on their pollination. No bees, a lot less food. Less food, higher prices and the genuine possibility of real food shortages.

I have hesitated to post on this issue for a long time, for fear of being seen as a "wolf-crier," but this is getting too serious. But, there is hope; the White House is now keeping honey bees! See here for the details.
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