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ocba - Re: [ocba] Study shows honeybees are starving because of Roundup

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: James Whisnant <jwhisnant AT gmail.com>
  • To: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Fred Fesel <fredfesel AT gmail.com>, Ocba <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Study shows honeybees are starving because of Roundup
  • Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 13:25:26 -0400

I think the article alluded to might be : http://jeb.biologists.org/content/217/19/3457

Effects of field-realistic doses of glyphosate on honeybee appetitive behaviour
Lucila T. Herbert, Diego E. Vázquez, Andrés Arenas, Walter M. Farina
Journal of Experimental Biology 2014 217: 3457-3464; doi: 10.1242/jeb.109520

​It appears the same research group did two studies - one regarding navigation (that Randall reviewed below) and this one regarding appetite.​ Bees were fed a sucrose solution containing different GLY concentrations (for 15 days) ad lib before various tests were conducted. I think Randall's concerns about direct oral dosing is valid. Unfortunately this is likely the only way to deliver a known amount of compound to be studied.

I would be interested to knowing if there are studies attempting to measure bee exposures in real world scenarios. This could correlate "real world" exposure to oral administration in other studies. I would expect this to present significant analytical (and other scientific) challenges.


On Sun, Aug 27, 2017 at 7:08 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:

The actual academic article this is supposedly based on is here: https://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/218/17/2799.full.pdf

The experimental methods are interesting -- they used tiny radio tags to track bees -- but the article doesn't say anything whatsoever about bees starving or CCD. In fact the results are the sort of thing where you might say, "That's interesting, maybe it could use more study" rather than anything else. The sample sizes were extremely small. The dosage used was described as: "The concentrations of herbicide used in our study were based on recommended levels for spraying fields and levels measured in natural environments" -- in other words, they fed bees "directly out of the bottle", which probably isn't how most honey bees would encounter glyphosate in the real world. There is no clear dose-response curve and the results are difficult to interpret (for example, the number of Control bees that failed to return to the hive was about the same as the number of treated bees, and the time it took the treated bees to return was only different in the first release, not the second, and only then in a single dose group out of 3 [the highest] based on only 8 bees' flights [8 BEES, not 8 colonies or 8 apiaries]).

I also need to point out that the editorial in the first link contains a great deal of misinformation, much of which gets passed around and around until people think it must be true because "everybody says it."

For example, it says, "The honeybee population has been dropping steadily over the past ten years. The National Agricultural Statistic Service has reported that the population has dropped from approximately 5 million bees to a mere 2.5 million." First, the 5 million number isn't from 10 years ago, it is from 72 years ago when the US was subsidizing honey and especially wax production during WWII. The wax was used to waterproof munitions. In the past 10 years, the population of managed honey bees has continued its upward growth as it has for the past 20 years; this is due to a steady recovery in the price of honey in the US, largely due to high import tariffs on Chinese honey, and also to high pollination rates as almond farming has exploded in California. The "2.5 million" number is also very out of date; the latest available figure from the US Agricultural Census is 3,282,570. More information on this is <here>.

More mis-truths are in statement, "The United Nations Environmental Programme reports that of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world’s food, 71 require honeybee pollination." The writer is clearly implying that 71% of the world's food comes from honey bee pollinated plants (they say "If the honeybee population continues to decline, the effects on the food supply will be disastrous"), but that is fraudulent. Actually the vast majority (90%, according to McGregor) of the volume of the world's food comes from only 12 crops: "rice, wheat, maize (corn), sorghums, millets, rye, and barley, and potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassavas or maniocs, bananas, and coconuts. The grains are wind-pollinated or self-pollinated, coconuts are partially wind-pollinated and partially insect pollinated, and the others are propagated asexually or develop parthenocarpically." (S.E. McGregor, Insect Pollination Of Cultivated Crop Plants, USDA, 1976. https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/20220500/OnlinePollinationHandbook.pdf). In the US, according to the most recently available UN FAO statistics, 90% of crop tonnage comes from 10 crops, none of which are dependent on honey bees and only one (cotton) that even is attractive to honey bees. The fact that honey bees pollinate large numbers of things like kiwi fruit and raspberries is interesting but irrelevant with respect to world food supplies. More information on this is <here>.

I hope this helps.

Randall Austin


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