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market-farming - [Market-farming] CCD, Imidacloprid, Oh My! (was: Glyphosate--Huber)

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  • From: Richard Stewart <rstewart AT zoomtown.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] CCD, Imidacloprid, Oh My! (was: Glyphosate--Huber)
  • Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 23:34:06 -0400

On Apr 6, 2012, at 9:04 PM, John Ehrlich wrote:

> Do you need more evidence?

I have to chime in.

We've been discussing this on and off the Bee-L forum (a group of hobby
beekeepers, pro beekeepers, and researchers). This was a horrible study.
Harvard should be ashamed that this made it as far as it did.

First off it is clear that this has not been peer reviewed, certainly not
anyone dealing with bees or a toxicologist. People went into this study to
deliberately PROVE something.

Next, I've actually read the study. Its bunk.

In it claims the following:

Descriptions of failing hives that do not actually appear to be CCD and do so
in the winter when it is difficult to tell if its CCD at all. CCD is
normally something that is defined as an event that happens in non-winter
seasons with a Queen and young brood and capped brood and eggs. This is not
the case in this study as reported in the paper.

"When other conditions cause hive collapse--such as disease or pests--many
dead bees are typically found inside and outside the affected hives." How
many beekeepers are in this group? This is not true at all.

The author also claims that " These study results lend credence to our
hypothesis that the systemic property of imidacloprid is capable of being
translocated
from treated seeds to the whole plant, including corn kernels and therefore
likely into HFCS." That is an assumption and the author then claims that
assuming this it is also possible for imidacloprid to be found in HFCS.
Imidacloprid is used in VERY small quantities in treating corn. The chemical
of choice is clothianidin (which is actually can be found in alarming amounts
in wax comb...something to be alarmed about but HEY, they SOLVED THE MYSTERY
right!?).

He claims CCD started in 2006 when it started occurring much earlier.

He completely makes up his concentrations of doses and works in numbers that
are 100 TIMES levels considered toxic (400 ppb).

He makes an amazing lead at t the end of the paper: "Therefore, we are
confident that the imidacloprid dosages applied in this study would be
comparable, if not lower to those encountered by honey bees inside and
outside of their hives." Yet he has ZERO data supporting this.

There is zero data about pests with the exception of a brief mention of
varroa which they then treated for using Apistan which is not all that
effective against mites AND is a type of pyrethroid, an organic compound used
in many household insecticides!!!!

In one of the discussion revolving around this some have pointed out that if
you read between the lines this paper may actually show that in a normal
exposure honeybees may actually have a very high tolerance for exposure to
imidacloprid.

So what is my problem with all of this? There are several studies floating
around out there that are TOP NOTCH. One and ONLY one so far shows that the
one single thing all CCD colonies have in common is that they suffer from
both an Iridovirus and Microsporidian. It was peer reviewed and never made
any claim to find the answer (quite the contrary it opened up a bunch of more
questions). Others , like toxicology reports on content of old wax have been
done and have shown an amazing amount of residue but not a lot of research
has been done to show the interaction of the level of contamination or its
interaction with each other in the forms of binary agents...some of which
were put there by the beekeepers themselves.

In the end this study proves that if you force feed bees overly toxic levels
of insecticide they will die. This is horrible science and horrible
journalism.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com
rstewart AT zoomtown.com





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