We're all gonna die!


LeSellers
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I just read this article and my concern is heightened even further than it has been.

37 MILLION BEES FOUND DEAD AFTER PLANTING LARGE GMO CORN FIELD TREATED WITH NEONICOTINOID CLASS OF PESTICIDES!

Millions of bees dropped dead after GMO corn was planted few weeks ago in Ontario, Canada. The local bee keeper, Dave Schuit who produces honey in Elmwood lost about 37 million bees which are about 600 hives.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. While many bee keepers blame neonicotinoids, or “neonics.” for colony collapse of bees and many countries in EU have banned neonicotinoid class of pesticides, the US Department of Agriculture fails to ban insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc.

Nathan Carey another local farmer says that this spring he noticed that there were not enough bees on his farm and he believes that there is a strong correlation between the disappearance of bees and insecticide use.

New research shows that neonicotinoid pesticides kill honeybees by damaging their immune system:

A new study published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that neonicotinoid pesticides kill honeybees by damaging their immune system and making them unable to fight diseases and bacteria.
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Without bees, and huge numbers of them, we will starve. Bees pollinate most of our fruit and a lot of our other crops. Some estimates show that without significant numbers of bees, humanity would die off within five years (some say seven).

One reason I dislike GMOs is that this is one way pesticide producers make even more money (which I don't mind, if it's done in the open) is to alter crop DNA so the desired plants won't die when hit with, say, Roundup®. But the Roundup is still there, and we eat it. Roundup is a powerful poison (that's how it works, after all), and we're eating it, giving it to our children and pets. It's inside the plant so we can't just wash it off.

Anyway, the bees are dying, and it's not about honey.

Lehi

 

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Is ignoring data presented in a chart, and focusing on the snark, also some sort of fallacy?  Come on, man.  Look at that wiggly blue line.  Your panicky nonsense is so totally destroyed by it, your only hope is to shift the conversation to the inappropriate demeanor of the person who posted it.  Either that, or lower your heightened concern.  You go ahead and pick whichever one you like.  

Edited by NeuroTypical
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I'm a bee keeper (okeh, a failed beekeeper who just keeps trying: all three of my hives are gone). I read the articles in magazines (American Beekeeper Journal, etc.) and on beekeepers' blogs and other media. I can't recall an issue where Colony Collapse Disorder isn't discussed in some detail. Beekeepers are divided about why CCD happens, but there is little argument that it is a huge concern.

Some blame varrola, others different diseases, parasites,  and pests, but the most oft-named culprit is GMOs and pesticides.

So, the source of your information may differ from mine, but I'll take it from those who are fighting the fight and putting their money where their mouths are over some academic any day.

Lehi

Edited by LeSellers
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Oh, and the number of hives/colonies isn't the only issue. It's also heavily dependent on the number of bees in each hive. That number is dropping.

CCD has been a major concern for a decade. The worker bees simply abandon their colonies, leaving brood and food, as well as a "healthy" (whatever that means) queen behind. The colony dies because the quenn cannot take care of herself, much less the brood.

Here's another article on the same subject.

For the past eight years or so, we’ve been hearing the term “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD) to refer to the seemingly spontaneous abandonment of their hives by honeybees. Bees have been abandoning their hives for centuries, but the rate at which such collapses have been observed started to increase more drastically in the 1970s, reaching alarming proportions around 2006. While numerous causes for the phenomenon have been floated, from pathogens and parasites to electromagnetic radiation and a proliferation of genetically-modified crops, new research from the Harvard School of Public Health bolsters the case that a certain class of insecticides seem to be to blame.

Working with the Worcester County Beekeepers Association in Massachusetts,  the researchers exposed 12 colonies across three locations to a “sub-lethal exposure of neonicotinoids, imidacloprid or clothianidin.” Neonicotinoids are popular insecticides that are chemically similar to nicotine. The scientists also observed six untreated control colonies at the same locations. The study found that all the bee colonies went about their business normally through the summer and fall, but by the end of winter six of the twelve hives exposed to the insecticide had been abandoned. One of the six control colonies was also lost due to an infestation by a fungus.
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I am concerned. Whether it's GMOs (as many believe) or anything else, if the bees die, we follow pretty quickly.

Lehi

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1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

596f93a779932c2ba35fa0232664b584.jpg?ito

This stands at odds with the research here:

The total colony losses for the year — including the 28 percent in both summer and winter, and the meager additions of new colonies — ends up at 44 percent. Not the absolute highest ever; the 2012-2013 season beat this year by a few percentage points. But it certainly indicates that things are bad for honeybees (and, in turn, huge swaths of agriculture that relies on them for pollination, including the almond industry), and that we have, really, not much idea why. The study suggests a possible issue with viruses spread by the varroa mite, one common in backyard gardens; it reveals a much higher incidence of varroa infection than previously thought. But that’s only one piece of the puzzle.
===========================

No. I dispute your graph. It simply doesn't reflect the reality my friends and I are seeing, not to mention the professionals who make their living at beekeeping.

Lehi

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On 6/14/2016 at 9:49 AM, LeSellers said:

So, the source of your information may differ from mine, but I'll take it from those who are fighting the fight and putting their money where their mouths are over some academic any day.

Didn't you just get done telling me I was committing a fallacy by pointing out that I was on the side of science and you weren't?

Well, at the risk of continuing to be fallacious, let me raise my stakes: Anecdotes and personal investment in something, doesn't make you right.  Good science does make for correct conclusions.

You're not disputing "my graph", you're disputing the United States Department of Agriculture, statistics gathered by the government of Canada, studies done by Cornell University, and the UN's Food and Agriculture Statistics Division.

Nah, I'm on the side of science, and you aren't.  And with your quoted admission above, it's not a fallacy any more. 

Edited by NeuroTypical
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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

NT, I've also heard about issues with the honeybee population; from sources I thought were quite mainstream.  What gives?

Here ya go.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-off-the-bee-pocalypse-u-s-honeybee-colonies-hit-a-20-year-high/

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  • 1 month later...

Dear LeSellers, I am siding with you on this one. 

It has been proven that the scientific community is biased and that statistics have become very unrealiable since they are being paid. And if the Lord intended for us to play with the strands of life for food, he would have given us a pretri dish instead of fork and knife. 

I also can´t agree with Neuro Typical adherance to science as absolute truth ( according to that and most of them, there is no Lord but then it hardly matters to them ) maybe even possibly as a religion. I am a bee keeper and I lost 12 colonies out of 20 this year. In most likely hood, I will have to switch from honey to breeding because I fear for one of the most important creature on earth. 

In a very unscientific manner I decided to take samples of the dead colonies to a science lab and test of neonicotinoids and it was also positive for glyphosate. Call me unscientific but that is not something that my organic farmer utilizes. I would also like to add that the rest of the world does not necessarily agree with american science that is corporate sponsored. And if one overlooks the needs for exceptionalism that other scientific sources favor sustainable proportionate organic farming. 

GMO crops are after all a big business and if it was meant to ease world hunger, it does a poor job because it fails or manages to be moot due to unsavory business practices. Certainly Neuro Typical will back it up with corporate information and frankly, I invite him to do so. I can only say at the end of days, that there will be a price to pay for perpetual ignorance and arrogance with a unhealthy dose of disrespect towards our Lords creation. 

Edited by Hemisphere
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  • 3 weeks later...

Another article pointing to the same problem and the same probable cause. Here's an exerpt:

Quote

Date: July 27, 2016
Source: University of Bern [Switzerland]
Summary: Male honey bees, called drones, can be affected by two neonicotinoid insecticides by reducing male honey bee lifespan and number of living sperm. Both insecticides are currently partially banned in Europe. Researchers from Bern, Switzerland, together with partners from Thailand and Germany, call for more thorough environmental risk assessments of these neonicotinoids.

In recent years, beekeepers have struggled to maintain healthy honey bee colonies throughout the northern hemisphere. In the first study to investigate the effects of neonicotinoids on drones, and one of the first to study the effects of these agricultural chemicals on males in general, an international research team led by the University of Bern and Agroscope has found that two neonicotinoids may inadvertently reduce drone lifespan and number of living sperm. Because queen survival and queen productivity are intimately connected to successful mating with males, any influence on sperm quality may have profound consequences for the health of the queen, as well as the entire colony. In light of recent beekeeper surveys that identified poor queen health as an important reason for honey bee colony losses, this study further strengthens calls for more thorough environmental risk assessments of these insecticides, as well as other crop protection products, to protect bees and other beneficial organisms.

A research team from the institutes of bee health and veterinary public health at the University of Bern (Switzerland) and Agroscope at the Swiss Confederation (Switzerland), alongside collaborators from Chiang Mai University and Mae Fah Luang University (Thailand) and the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany) recently demonstrated in an article in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences that male honey bees, also called drones, are vulnerable to the neonicotinoids thiamethoxam and clothianidin.

Reduced longevity and sperm quality

The study showed that males maintained in the laboratory after colony-level exposure had a shorter lifespan and produced fewer living sperm. This could have important consequences for colonies because queens, which are essential to colony functioning, must be properly inseminated with healthy sperm from multiple males. Factors affecting the health of drones could therefore have profound consequences not just for the queen, but for the entire colony, as replacement of poorly mated queens is resource intensive and not without risks.

Lehi

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On 8/2/2016 at 6:04 PM, Hemisphere said:

the rest of the world does not necessarily agree with american science that is corporate sponsored.

One of the errors most people around the world have is that USAan science (and a host of other fields) is "corporate sponsored". That's only true in a fraction of cases.

What the problem is is that USAan science is government-sponsored. Grants and direct funding from a host of tax money sources, including to and within universities, has tainted science  (from "global warming" – or whatever they call it these days – to AIDS) such that the vast majority of research must toe the government line of risk defunding. That is problem enough, but the government line so toed invariably leads to greater government involvement in whatever "problem" these "researchers" discover.

Now, I must admit that government here is strongly influenced by corporations, so your point is true indirectly. Nonetheless, corporations are amoral: they are in it for the money, as they should be. But government is in it for the power. And that is most definitely not the way it should be.

Our Dept Agriculture (among others, the EPA, for example) gets a lot of money from agribusiness. Congressmen get a lot of money from agribusiness. Agribusiness wants to "steer" the decisions, regulations, and laws so it can make money. And the ROI is impressive. But government is in it for the power, as noted above. And, if making laws that give money to the lobbyists also advances its agenda, everybody wins. Well, everybody who's just a taxpayer, consumer, or other outsider.

Lehi

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1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

And that's why US, Canada, and UN scientists are lying to us about bees?

I don't follow...

Only some of them — those who get their paychecks from the government or Monsanto.

Look, you have your data, but there is some discrepancy between what you're projecting and what I'm reading from the people who are fighting the war.

My trust in "science" is tempered by the fact that they get their money from power-grubbing politicians and bureaucrats, who, in turn, get their money from Monsanto and Bayer.

Lehi

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On 6/14/2016 at 8:07 AM, NeuroTypical said:

BTW, Non-GMO crops (aka "Big Organic") uses pesticides.  You knew that, right?  If you're going off of the billion-dollar organic industry's fear- and hate-based advertising and public disinformation campaigns of course you wouldn't.

Neuro you know better than this. Cite your sources please.

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Guest Godless
7 hours ago, pam said:

While I don't disagree with the point you're trying to make, I wouldn't cite Food Babe as a reference. She's one of the biggest hacks in the health food movement.

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15 hours ago, pam said:

Saying non GMO products don't use pesticides is very misleading.

While that is true, it is equally untrue to say that all organic producers use pesticides.

There is no standard for the label "organic". General Mills and General Foods have co-opted the term and others, following in their wake have corrupted it.

There are producers "out there" who do not use pesticides and other patent (a key word) pesticides, and who rely on natural controls (lady bugs, Neem oil, BT, etc.). There are dairymen who do not feed their cows hormones and antibiotics. By necessity, their products cost more since they cannot afford to supply our food at the same price Big Agri does. But there is a demand and the Law of Supply'n'Demand is always in effect.

But, back to bees …

Lehi

Edited by LeSellers
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