[log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask]) writes:
The book is no longer available from Amazon or Chapters/Indigo. Google
lists no sellers for it any more
I think you can still get it from Larry Conner, maybe he will respond?
Stan:
As per debating the issues, I interpreted your statements to say that
testing in the US for label registration was simply a matter of toxicity
testing in a laboratory, which in fact is only a part of the tiered approach,
that is described in the referenced book.
As per the newer and older pesticides, I've been involved in this area
since 1968, and I've seen the pendulum swing back and forth. In the 60s and
early 70s, beekeepers were organized in their concern about pesticides, and
the test protocols described in the aforementioned book were put together
after a lot of meetings and discussion by leading researchers, EPA,
beekeepers, and companies. EPA heard lots of complaints from beekeepers, and they
responded.
A program was also put in place to compensate US beekeepers for bee losses
attributable to pesticides, and EPA provided a laboratory to analyze
samples. Then Carter rescinded the program and beekeepers had by then split
into two voices nationally, not one consolidated one. Suddenly, getting paid
for bee damages became mainly a litigation issue, and many beekeepers
became a lot less interested in pursuing damages. Then, along came trachel and
then varroa mittes, and pesticides were literally forgotten, except for a
few of us studying them and the poor saps who went out and found piles of
dead bees in front of their hives.
CCD brought a new awareness of bees, bee problems, and the media and
public got involved. Suddenly, pesticides were re-discovered. Now, as Stan
and many others on this list know, pesticide problems continued for all the
period from before mites to the present, but reporting of incidents became
iffy, and those few who had real problems found little help from their state
or provinces, and virtually none from the federal level. Pesticides and
bees had taken a back seat at EPA to waterfowl and pesticides (after all,
some of us hunt and eat birds). I tried on many occasions over those years
to get beekeepers and EPA to pay more attention to bees and pesticides, but
to little avail until the media picked up on CCD.
From the early 1900s through end of WWII, most pesticides were based on
inorganic chemicals - which surprise, also were released by some heavy
industry - things like arsenic, copper, lead, sulfur. There were verified bee
kills from heavy industry in Europe and in the US dating back to 1914 or
earlier. WWII saw the development and use by the military of DDT. End of th
e war, DDT and other synthetic, organic pesticides, especially chlorinated
hydrocarbons suddenly came into widespread use. Just as suddenly, the
inorganic pesticides and the pollution kills were forgotten, as the new
pesticides resulted in dramatic, quick kills, characterized by piles of dead bees
in front of hives. EPA came into being, and the protocols described in the
Johansen and Mayer book were published in the Federal Register. Everyone
was focused on bee losses due to synthetic, organic pesticides.
That doesn't mean the inorganic pesticides and pollution incidents went
away. Initially, they were just ignored. Then we phased out most of the
inorganic pesticides and stopped putting lead in gasoline, but the pollution
issues are still with us, just forgotten.
What happened after WWII, with the help of Rachel Carson, the spotlight
shined fully on the chlorinated hydrocarbons as the great killer of bees.
These chemicals eventually were banned or phased out, and newer, even more
toxic chemicals appeared. Organophospohates, carbamates, etc. Even bigger
piles of bees. Yet, varroa eclipsed all of this, not only in the US but
around the world. No one was paying attention to pesticides, unless one was on
the receiving side because someone sprayed the bees out of existence.
The neonics were introduced in the mid-1990s, and no one in the US noticed
until the flap about CCD in 2006, when everything became suspect. There
were isolated cases with obvious impacts, and you had first hand experience,
but I believe the growers were trenching in the pesticide rather than
treating seed?
That's not to say that you didn't have a justified problem. There have
and I suspect will always be some problems, especially with new products or
misapplication. Just a there have been at least a few drift/dust issues
over past years. However, you asked about older and newer chemicals.
I do see differences. The older pesticides were clearly toxic, and the
piles of bees hard to miss. Yet, the colonies often recovered. Those older
chemicals were frequently in ppm levels when an incident was observed. And,
I know from both my own testing and from the nature of the modes of
action, virtually all of those pesticides had sub-lethal impacts, its just that
no one was studying and reporting them.
In fact, for every reported 'sublethal' effect attributable to neonics in
new publications, I think it should be mandatory to benchmark against at
least one of the older pesticides to see if it produced the same effect AND
for these sublethal experiments, it should be mandatory for the researcher to
have the bees in the test screened for varroa, viruses, and nosema to
avoid unknown stress factors entering into the study, and confounding the
results or producing erroneous conclusions.
I learned about the older chemicals and sublethal responses under DoD
funded projects where we used bees as a rapid response alarm system for the
military in terms of being able to detect releases of chemical warfare agents.
Bees displayed intoxication, rejected contaminated foragers, changed the
sounds produced by the colony, showed a wide array of
behavioral/memory/avoidance responses to assays such as PERS, got lost going through mazes,
tried to avoid contact, got defensive, the list is long and these types of
effects can be seen at incredibly low exposure concentrations. There's
nothing unique about sublethal effects that limits them to neonics. And, many of
the sublethal affects that we observed were transitory, like when you or I
have to much to drink, and yes, bees get drunk on alcohol, can die of
acute alcohol poisoning, and usually sober up, but I haven't been able to
determine whether they get hung over.
Until just a few years ago, we couldn't look at multiple pesticides using a
single sample prep, such as Gastonia can do; we couldn't detect ppb levels
of chemical in samples. And, I note that just since 2005, limits of
detection have dropped from 5-10 ppb for many pesticides down to 1 ppb.
So, we now get reports of impacts to bees at supposed ppb levels, with no
piles of dead bees, but with the claim that the colonies are being
devastated. But, something else has changed since varroa - we've got both tracheal
and varroa mites, we know we have at least 20-22 bee viruses, and that
viruses plus varroa, and I think viruses plus nosema,can be devastating. We've
also got two nosemas, hive beetles, and new things like phorid flies, and
the spread of africanized bees.
In the past, the literature and my own experience concluded - piles of dead
bees indicate acute poisoning except in the rare case of some viral
epidemics. I've learned NOT to conclude that piles of dead bees are indicative
of poisoning - I've seen too many cases of little or no pesticide residues
in bees/pollen/nectar, but lots of evidence of varroa and/or nosema and a
diverse array of viruses.
Bees in the 2000s are NOT like bees from the 70s in terms of pests and
pathogens - there's been a virtual explosion of the numbers of pests and
diseases and the levels. So, if you are going to try to discern what's going
on, you can't assume that the only thing that has changed is the introduction
of neonics.
Clearly, the neonics are less hazardous to humans and other higher
animals. They target insects. Personally, the data we've collected over past two
years in corn belt and canola regions indicate very low levels of
clothianidin in pollen/nectar of crops grown from treated seed. Its also clear
that bees just don't much care for field corn pollen. Given a choice, they'll
find something else to collect. We couldn't find any real evidence of any
frequent or high exposures in terms of the amounts in pollen or nectar
during the bloom period. The averages for pollen were barely above the
instrument limits of detection of 1 ppb, and the canola nectar average was below
the stated detection limit.
Other than scattered incidents of planter dust, based on 86 fields, I'd say
treating seed is a good way to reduce hazards to bees during the bloom
period. The dust problem is solvable - it appears to be a consequence of
continuous corn growing practices - a form of the old orchard management issue
of weeds and cover crops in bloom. The fixes: 1) improve the stickers
and carriers, 2) improve the drills with better dust containment, 3) educate
the growers and beekeepers - if you drill through cover crops or weeds in
bloom, there's a risk to bees. For those fields with pivot sprinklers -
turn them on before drilling, or alternately, drill at night.
I'm not dismissing your comments about longer term impacts, less ability of
the colonies to recover.
I pay close attention to reports by experienced beekeepers of viability
and failure to thrive. Its just that figuring out the real problem isn't
easy. Case in point, the work by Reed Johnson on Pristine, brood, and queen
problems. He accidentally replicated the problem, not with Pristine, but
with a chemical he used as a positive control, then discovered that the
chemical in question was being put into tank mixes with Pristine. Its
preliminary data, but it appears that the queen breeders were right - but they
were focused on the coincidental phasing in of Pristine at the same time as
Dimilin, which they hadn't even noticed. correct observation in terms of
abnormal brood development, but it was due to an endocrine disrupter, not the
fungicide. Reed's working on confirmation, but I think he's right.
Complex issues, not getting any simpler. One thing Malcolm Sanford, James
Tew, and I agree upon - when we started, one was given a quick Beekeeping
101 course, told to throw in some antibiotic in the spring, and collect the
honey.
Vastly different in these days with a diverse array of pests, diseases, and
chemicals. Gone are the days when a grower applied one fungicides once
during the growing season (which the Johansen and Mayer book concludes are of
little risk to bees). I've now seen 5-7 fungicide applications to a
crop, with 4-6 different chemicals, as just another example of the complexity.
So, I believe you Stan, when you report problems. Its just that there's
no simple answer without some serious, thorough investigation. Too many
variables, all in play, at the same time.
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