Bees and insecticides

By David Dawson

You may have heard of the huge decline of pollinating insects in recent years.  There are dozens of kinds of native solitary bees as well as different species of bumble bees and ‘honey bees’.  All are in serious decline.  Remember, a large part of our human diet relies on insect pollination, that includes most fruits, vegetables (seeds in the case of vegetables) and nuts, to list a few.

Over the 2012/13 winter and spring 46% of honeybees in Manitoba died.  Beekeepers can recover from these losses by importing expensive replacement bees from Australia or New Zealand, or splitting the strong surviving hives, but at huge financial cost.  Unfortunately the native solitary bees and bumblebees do not have the luxury of having a beekeeper to look after them so they cannot recover in the same way. 

What is causing these huge declines in insects?

CBC Radio reported recently on a research project from the University of Saskatchewan into the presence in the environment of a certain insecticide.  Their tests have shown that this particular insecticide is in ponds and wetlands up to 100 times the recommended safe levels!   Can you believe it, 100 times the recommended safe levels.  Another study by PMRA, a branch of Health Canada, that tested levels of this same insecticide in and around fields seeded with corn in the spring of 2013 and where bees were killed, showed some frightening results.  77% of dead bees were contaminated; 70% - 90% of pollen samples were contaminated; 54% – 90% of the spring feed in the comb was contaminated; 30% of water samples, 43% of soil samples and 72% of nearby vegetation was contaminated.  One of the conclusions by Heath Canada was that current agricultural practices related to the use of this particular insecticide for treating corn seed are not sustainable. 

This is a family of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, a modern chemical based on nicotine (as in cigarettes), and there are a few different brands supplied by the various international chemical companies.  Most of the corn, soybean and canola seed in Manitoba is coated with this insecticide before seeding.  Just to show you how toxic it is, the amount of chemical on one single grain of seed-corn is enough to kill 80,000 bees.  In Europe these horrible neonicotinoid insecticides have been banned but the recommendation by Heath Canada is to make the insecticide more sticky so that there is less dust blowing in the wind at seeding time.  What a pathetic response from Health Canada when wetlands are already contaminated up to 100 times the recommended safe level.  Only about 20% of the chemical is taken up by the plants, the other 80% staying in the soil where it takes about 12 years to break down.  Meanwhile, in following years, other crops are grown, whose seeds are similarly treated, resulting in an increasing build-up in the environment.

No competent farmer would expect a farm with poisoned soils devoid of invertebrate life, and without insect pollination, to sustain high yields long term, despite what the pesticide company’s propaganda might say.  Unfortunately most of our farmers are being very slow to see the light even though it is their children and grandchildren (and yours, dear reader) that will have to live in this contaminated environment.

So, how bad does it have to get before you will get mad enough to get involved in opposing this sort of creeping pollution?  Will you just wait until there is no fruit or vegetables on the supermarket shelves?  Please act now.  As a first step, join similar minded people in South Eastman Transition Initiative.