A new Legislator and ex beekeeper introduced legislation to ban all neonics
in Maine.He is supported by a faction on our State Board, but the issue has
not been put before the members, just the Board which decided to speak for
all of us.

The most recent issue of our State newsletter had three articles on the
subject- Randy's and Jerry's writings, and Paul Dressen. All were balanced
and pointed to the real problem with bees and that is varroa, nosema and
virus. Obviously the Board did not read them or just disregarded the
message.

I decided to speak against the legislation so had to do some homework.
During that time I learned about SHB traps and fipronil. Fipronil was very
familiar as it was part and parcel of the fiasco in France, when Imid was
banned but nothing happened until fipronil was also banned.It is
interesting that now the EU has followed the same path and first banned the
neonics and now fipronil. So much for figuring out what the real problem
pesticide is.

According to the French, fipronil has the same effect on bees behavior
(disorientation) that the neonics have.

As more and more pesticides are studied, they also have the same effect as
the neonics depending on concentration (as was studied on Almond
pesticides).

Before, we did not really look at what happens to bees at low toxicity
levels of pesticides. Why bother since we were mostly interested in LD for
obvious reasons.

The spotlight on the neonics opened a pandora's box, especially since all
the stuff we beekeepers put in our hives overwhelms the stuff from away,
except for chlorpyrifos, another organphosphate. It was outlawed for use in
homes and gardens but not agriculture. Even with the ban, I am sure there
still is lots of it around since it third down in the Penn State study.

Back to the bill - it appears only the MSBA board is in favor (11 to 4
vote) and all of Maine Agriculture is against, so it puts beekeepers
against the groups they should be working with and not trying to put them
out of business.

The legislator has seen the writing on the wall and wants to pull the bill
since it will never make it out of committee, and reintroduce it next year
but only to ban them to the public. So the public will be able to use stuff
they still have stocked away in their basements like chlorpyrifos, which is
harmful to bees and people. Or Sevin, another bee killer.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html