Friday, May 17, 2013

Offering a little advice.

I need these bees to keep everything running all smooth!  And you need me to be doing that. It would also help if you kept yourselves from covering up the information you find about this problem.  In 2001, public scientists, not funded by industry,  concluded that feeding bees syrup containing just 0.1 ppb for 10 days would kill 50 percent of them. The next year, industry lobbyists announced that its own studies found “no negative effect can be observed on honeybee colonies” below 20 ppb. In other words, industry thinks bees can tolerate 200 times as much imidacloprid without dying (or suffering any harmful effects) as public scientists found.
The moral of the story is, listen to the scientists who don't have a paycheck riding on their results.  And actually act on their recommendations. That would help me out a lot.

2 comments:

  1. Perhaps a change in legislation is in order. In Europe they put a two year ban on certain pesticides due to chemicals in them. There wasn't solid evidence, but it was a precautionary measure. Here in North America you wait until you are triple sure. That kind of thinking can lead to irreversible damage.

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  2. You and your precautionary measures. I've got this under control. There is no need to worry.

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