Annette McGivney – When Stephen Buchmann finds a wayward bee on a window inside his Tucson, Arizona, home, he goes to great lengths to capture and release it unharmed. Using a container, he carefully traps the bee against the glass before walking to his garden and placing it on a flower to recuperate.
Buchmann’s kindness – he is a pollination ecologist who has studied bees for over 40 years – is about more than just returning the insect to its desert ecosystem. It’s also because Buchmann believes that bees have complex feelings, and he’s gathered the science to prove it. Continue reading →
“Even though Hv1a/GNA has potential as a safe pesticide alternative to neonicotinoid, colony collapse disorder is a complex dilemma, requiring a multi-pronged approach to correct.” – C Wright
THE BROOKLYN BOTANICAL GARDEN
Good news on the honeybee front — a team of scientists in the UK have created a biopesticide made from spider venom and plant protein that may provide hope for the endangered pollinators.
A study published in the research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B [PDF] states that the experimental, nontoxic biopesticide Hv1a/GNA is “unlikely to cause detrimental effects on honeybees.”
The insects were exposed to assorted levels of Hv1a/GNA for over a week and were only mildly affected. The substance did not have any measurable influence on the bees’ calcium channels, which are associated with learning and memory — an important factor because bees need to memorize routes to food and communicate it to the colony. And since developing honeybees were able to break down the substance during digestion, it did not have an impact on larvae.
A silver bullet solution for bee colony collapse?
For almost two decades, the world has been experiencing a mass die-off of honeybees — a full third of commercial beehives, which equates to over a million colonies each year. Classified as one of the biggest threats to our food supply by the USDA bee and pollination program, the cause of this mysterious syndrome was unknown up until recently. Four studies have shown that a major player in colony collapse turns out to be a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids.
“. . . Monsanto creates a problem – a systemic herbicide intended to ‘save the world’ from hunger as part of its GMO Roundup-ready proprietary production system that actually destroys the pollinators required to maintain our global food supply.” S Ji
What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world’s food supply now depends?
A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology titled, “Effects of field-realistic doses of glyphosate on honeybee appetitive behavior,” establishes a link between the world’s most popular herbicide – aka Roundup – and the dramatic decline in honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations in North American and Europe that lead to the coining of the term ‘colony collapse disorder‘ (CCD) in late 2006 to describe the phenomena.[1]
The researchers found that concentrations of glyphosate (GLY) consistent with the type of exposures associated with standard spraying practices in GM agricultural- and neighboring eco- systems reduced the honeybee’s sensitivity to nectar reward and impaired their learning abilities – two behavioral consequences likely to adversely affect their survival abilities. Moreover, while sub-lethal doses were not found to overtly affect their foraging behavior, they hypothesized that because of their resilience, “..forager bees could become a source of constant inflow of nectar with GLY traces that could then be distributed among nest mates, stored in the hive and have long- term negative consequences on colony performance.”
A Deeper Look at the New Study: Roundup Interferes with Bee Appetite and Learning
Annette McGivney – When Stephen Buchmann finds a wayward bee on a window inside his Tucson, Arizona, home, he goes to great lengths to capture and release it unharmed. Using a container, he carefully traps the bee against the glass before walking to his garden and placing it on a flower to recuperate.
What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world’s food supply now depends?