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Saturday, August 22nd, 2015

Pesticides linked to bee decline for first time in a countrywide field study

Author:     Alison Benjamin
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Thursday 20 August 2015 10.56 EDT
 Link: Pesticides linked to bee decline for first time in a countrywide field study
Stephan:   The evidence about the toxic effects of Monsanto's neonicotoids just keeps piling up. This English study establishes unequivocally for the first time a linkage between this pesticide and honey bee colony collapse. That this poison is still on the market attests to the power of the corporate oligarchy to control the government, even in the face of collapsing the world's food system.
Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr

Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr

A new study provides the first evidence of a link between neonicotinoid pesticides and escalating honeybee colony losses on a landscape level. (emphasis added)

The study found the increased use of a pesticide, which is linked to causing serious harm in bees worldwide, as a seed treatment on oilseed rape in England and Wales over an 11 year period correlated with higher bee mortality during that time.

The research, published in Nature scientific reports on Thursday, combined large-scale pesticide usage and yield observations from oilseed rape with data on honeybee loses between 2000 and 2010.

The total area of land planted with oil seed rape in England and Wales more than doubled from 293, 378 hectares (724,952 acres) to 602,270 hectares over that time and the number of seeds treated with the imidacloprid pesticide increased from less than 1% of the area planted in 2000 to more than 75% of the area planted with oilseed rape by 2010.

Comparing the pesticide […]

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