Vanishing of the Bees

[Tommy]

I thought beekeepers would be interested in this. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/22/pesticide-manufacturers-own-tests-reveal-serious-harm-to-honeybees?CMP=share_btn_link

[PhilK]

Pesticides harming insects at high levels? Who'd have thunk it! While they should make it public (and it has now), this isn't a surprising result. If their research is to be believed, they have found that there are no significant effects at 40 and 50 ppb (they go on to state these levels are sometimes found in the field but usually it is closer to 10 ppb).

Nonetheless it does seem shady that they are keeping the research quiet.. they should use it instead to say "yes we have found our product harmful at high levels but it seems OK at levels experienced in the field"

[bwallace23350]

Yeah this does not surprise me and I bet it is more harmful at lower levels than they have admitted.

[CrazyTalk]

Nonetheless it does seem shady that they are keeping the research quiet.. they should use it instead to say "yes we have found our product harmful at high levels but it seems OK at levels experienced in the field"

Literally everything is harmful at high enough levels - so there's no real reason to release test results saying your pesticide kills bees at 10 times the highest observed levels. All that does is give fodder for the people who don't understand dosages.

[PhilK]

Good point CrazyTalk

[MimbresBees]

Literally everything is harmful at high enough levels - so there's no real reason to release test results saying your pesticide kills bees at 10 times the highest observed levels. All that does is give fodder for the people who don't understand dosages.

something I've said repeatedly on other forums.

to much emotion involved for the righteous

[KeyLargoBees]

There is a serious disconnect between the brain and the heart for all these well intentioned "cause jumpers" If they don't have a cause to be passionately ignorant about they aren't happy. I just did a presentation for a civic club down here in the Florida Keys about bees and actually got heckled from the audience when I made the claim that the mosquito spraying we have seen this year has been no different than in years past, even though the media has hyped it up,  and with the huge number of feral colonies we have empirical evidence suggests the bees aren't in trouble down here.....and even with documented proof from the mosquito control board comparing this year to last and listing the chemicals (same this year as last) used this tree hugger wanted to argue with me because he just knew the reports he had seen on SOCIAL media had more validity than the information i was presenting.