Skip to main content
Natural Society
Store
MENUMENU
  • Latest News
    • Latest News

    • Popular

      • GMOs & Pesticides
      • Health Politics
      • Good News
      • Environment
      • Marijuana
      • Toxic Weedkiller Dicamba Drift Damages Crops Across America

        Toxic Weedkiller Dicamba Drift Damages Crops Across America

      • With 79.4 Million Obese Citizens, the U.S. is Leading in Obesity

        With 79.4 Million Obese Citizens, the U.S. is Leading in Obesity

      • U.S. Life Expectancy Drops Amid Rising Suicide, Drug Overdose Rates

        U.S. Life Expectancy Drops Amid Rising Suicide, Drug Overdose Rates

  • Healthy Living
    • Healthy Living

    • Popular

      • Food & Diet
      • Fitness
      • Mind & Body
      • Weight Loss
      • Detoxing
      • How Tai Chi Proves to be a Gentle Solution for Improving Heart Health

        How Tai Chi Proves to be a Gentle Solution for Improving Heart Health

      • Nature Slashes the Risk of Diabetes, Heart Disease, and More

        Nature Slashes the Risk of Diabetes, Heart Disease, and More

      • It’s a Mindset: In Order to Get Fit, You Must THINK of Yourself as Fit

        It’s a Mindset: In Order to Get Fit, You Must THINK of Yourself as Fit

  • Home Remedies
    • Natural Medicine

    • Popular

      • Hemorrhoids
      • Strep Throat
      • Gout
      • Teeth Whitening
      • Gum Disease
      • Kidney Cleanse
      • Heartburn Drugs Linked to Early Death – How to Safely Find Relief

        Heartburn Drugs Linked to Early Death – How to Safely Find Relief

      • 6 of the Best Natural Remedies for Arthritis

        6 of the Best Natural Remedies for Arthritis

      • Kidney Cleanse: 22 Foods for Kidney Health

        Kidney Cleanse: 22 Foods for Kidney Health

  • Food as Medicine
    • Food as Medicine

    • Popular

      • Importance of MAGNESIUM
      • Dates
      • Chamomile Tea
      • Black Cumin (Nigella Sativa)
      • Nettle Tea
      • Sesame Seeds and Sesame Oil
    • Recent Posts

      • 11+ Reported Health Benefits of Basil Seeds

        11+ Reported Health Benefits of Basil Seeds

      • Ancient Medicine: Black Seed Oil’s 21 Powerful Health Benefits

        Ancient Medicine: Black Seed Oil’s 21 Powerful Health Benefits

      • 6 Little Known Reasons to Eat Cantaloupe this Season

        6 Little Known Reasons to Eat Cantaloupe this Season

  • Health Science
    • Health Science

    • Popular Topics

      • Exciting: New ‘Seaweed-Based’ Alzheimer’s Drug Shows Extreme Promise

        Exciting: New ‘Seaweed-Based’ Alzheimer’s Drug Shows Extreme Promise

      • Dementia Rates in the U.S. Fell 24% from 2000 to 2012, But…

        Dementia Rates in the U.S. Fell 24% from 2000 to 2012, But…

      • Could Probiotics Be Used as a Viable Treatment for Depression and IBS?

        Could Probiotics Be Used as a Viable Treatment for Depression and IBS?

Neonicotinoids Destroy 600 Hives, 37 Million Bees in Canada

bee

Latest News

Elizabeth Renter
By Elizabeth Renter
Posted On June 29, 2013

beeA bee here or a hive there may be chalked up to chance of a landscaping company with heavy-handed pesticide applications, like the case where an estimated 25,000 bees were killed in a small Oregon town. But when millions of bees are dying at once, in locales across Canada, there may be something more serious afoot. One thing these casualties have in common—recent corn plantings and the related insecticides.

According to The Ontario Post, one local Elmwood beekeeper lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees following nearby corn planting. He and others believe the culprit may be a class of insecticides, neonicotinoids, made by Bayer CropScience Inc. A smaller operation in nearby Hanover was similarly wiped out this spring when neighboring farmers began planting corn.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Dave Schuit said, the beekeeper who experienced the loss of 600 hives and 37 million bees. “I feel like we all have something at stake with this issue.”

Neonicotinoids were recently banned by the European Union for two years (a period starting Dec. 1, 2013) so that they can study how they are related to the dying bees in Europe. They are completely legal in both the U.S. and Canada, however.

The pesticides coat the corn seed. New air-seeders launch the seeds for planting while the pesticide dust is blown into the air. These tiny particles make their way to nearby honey operations and the bee population at large.

Purdue University looked closely at the mass casualties of U.S. bees and found, “Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms, analysis of dead bees revealed traces of thiamethoxam/clothianidin in each case. Seed treatments of field crops (primarily corn) are the only major source of these compounds.”

Sort of like injecting beef cattle with antibiotics “just in case”, farmers are using seeds covered with insecticides. This so-called preventative use does more harm than good in both cases.

“Large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinator services at risk,” said an investigative team of international scientists in the research that spurred the EU ban.

While beekeepers used to replace their queens every few years, they are doing it every few months in an effort to keep up with the decimated population. Meanwhile, officials in the U.S. and Canada alike seem content to watch these all-important pollinators die.

Additional Sources:

BBC

Purdue.edu

WilsonVilleSpokesman


2 responses to “Neonicotinoids Destroy 600 Hives, 37 Million Bees in Canada”

  1. Kenneth Eade says:
    July 1, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    Stop the insanity! Join http://beebay.org

    Reply
  2. Jackson H Bogart III says:
    July 1, 2013 at 4:28 pm

    I don't think most people realize how important bee's are to life as we know it. They do a lot more than produce honey. They are the mechanism by which so many plant species are pollinated. If the bees are wiped out world food supplies would be endangered to the degree that it could cause wide-spread extinction of other animals, humans included.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Newsletter

Featured Product

Essential Survival Tools

The Scrubba™ Wash Bag




  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Store