To Bee …

Chris Beytes

Never being afraid of controversy, we at Ball Publishing have begun a serious study of the bee/neonicotinoid insecticide controversy. It’s your typical tale of anti-chemical activists versus big chemical companies, with unexplained bee death the shiny object that catches the media’s attention. This story has touched our little corner of agriculture thanks to some activists in bee suits who are petitioning garden centers to pull insecticide-treated plants from their shelves.

Called Friends of the Earth, this group wants a ban on a class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids (neonics), which are widely used in agriculture. The neonics in our industry include imidacloprid, a popular systemic that saved poinsettia growers from the whitefly. Marathon is the most common trade version. Dinotefuran (Safari) and acetamiprid (TriStar) are two
others.

Neonics are targeted because some research and anecdotal evidence has implicated them as one of a half dozen or so possible contributing factors in the bee death syndrome known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). The other suspects are mites, malnutrition, pathogens, genetics, immunodeficiencies, loss of habitat and beekeeping practices.

Friends of the Earth is taking their fight to garden centers. To do so, they bought 26 garden plants at big box retailers, combined their stems, leaves and flowers into 13 composite samples and tested them for pesticides. Not surprisingly, they found traces of neonics in seven of the samples. However, they didn’t prove the presence of insecticide in pollen or nectar, the only place bees would come in contact with it.

Still, that bit of unscientific research (they call it a pilot study) was enough for them to don their bee suits and petition Home Depot and other big box retailers to stop selling neonicotinoid pesticides and any plants treated with them. To its credit, Home Depot has opted to side with Environmental Protection Agency regulatory policy until science or the EPA compel them to reassess their position.

Another issue is media outlets—mainstream and fringe—that jump on any sensational story with no regard to balanced reporting. When Friends of the Earth issued a press release about their study, it was picked up around the world in print and on-air—often inaccurately. A CBS News headline stated “Home Gardeners’ New Plants Could Be Killing Off Bees.” The story read, “ … 54 percent of plants bought at Home Depot and Lowe’s had neonicotinoid pesticides in their systems. Once treated, the pesticide stays in the plants for two years.”

Headlines and “facts” like that stick with consumers whether they’re true or not.

Then there are the bees themselves, which are not fuzzy cartoon characters but commercially bred agricultural laborers (immigrants from Europe, no less). Yes, they’re essential to as much as one-third of the world’s agricultural crops. But in the U.S., California almonds are the biggest users of commercial bees, with 60% of the country’s hives—1.6 million colonies—being trucked to California each February from as far away as Florida to pollinate 800,000 acres of almonds. That’s stressful on the bees. Winter is stressful on them, too. Malnutrition is an issue. So is a mite pest called Varroa destructor. This all according to the University of California—Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Politics plays a role. The European Union has placed a two-year precautionary ban on neonics on bee-attracting plants and cereal crops based on three studies. However, the Environmental Protection Agency has opted to not ban or restrict the use of neonics, but is currently re-evaluating them through the standard registration review. Should we do as Europe has done? Some think so. But then what about Australia, which has agricultural crops and neonic insecticides, but no cases of CCD, according to my sources there? Maybe it’s because Australia doesn’t have the varroa mite …

I bring all this up not to defend neonics or chemical companies but to bring you up to speed on this complicated and controversial topic. I’ve only scratched the surface of the story. As I learn more, I’ll share more.

In the meantime, arm yourself with as many facts as possible, just in case customers ask—or someone in a bee suit pickets your greenhouse or garden center. GT