
Exposure to neonicotinoids impairs honeybee winterization before colony collapse - mr_tyzic
http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol67-2014-125-130lu.pdf
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tptacek
Reprising a comment from an earlier honeybee thread:

For what it's worth, EconTalk had a really fascinating interview with a
honeybee economist (<\-- thing that exists!).

Turns out:

* Practically 100% of US honeybees are domesticated; wild honeybees were wiped out in the late 80s by Varroa mites.

* Honeybees aren't native to the US; I'm not sure if I heard this right, but it may be that _none_ of the social bees are.

* Colony collapse is largely a phenomenon observed during overwintering. Some 15% of domesticated colonies fail over the winter. CCD seems to have upped this figure to 30%.

* If CCD is causing problems for professional beekeepers, those problems don't seem to be reflected in the economy. The price of queen bees (raised by specialized apiarists to help other beekeepers split colonies) hasn't changed. The price of pollination services --- mostly for the California almond crop, which is fed by beekeepers from around the country --- hasn't changed significantly either, with the possible exception of a small spike in pollination fees at the peak of almond pollination season.

It's hard to reconcile what the economist reported with the alarmism
surrounding colony collapse.

It's also difficult to compare the impact of "neonicotinoids" with that of the
Varroa mite.

~~~
ordinary
_Honeybees aren 't native to the US_

Both wild and domesticated Honey bees were present in the Americas when
European colonists arrived. However, the common honey bee was not among them,
and the other (I hesitate to say 'native') species are indeed no longer
extant.

 _If CCD is causing problems for professional beekeepers, those problems don
't seem to be reflected in the economy. The price of queen bees hasn't
changed._

Queen pricing might not be as strongly correlated to CCD as you might expect.
Raising queens is indeed done commercially by specialized beekeepers, but if
you're already a beekeeper, it is not hard to do or learn. You can raise
dozens at the same time, in a single hive, and this does not stop that hive
from producing honey later in the season. It's therefore quite possible that
the increased demand in queens after overwintering has simply been met by an
increase in the supply.

~~~
001sky
_It 's therefore quite possible that the increased demand in queens after
overwintering has simply been met by an increase in the supply._

I think that this is the earlier point--

(ie, with no huge price ∆)

------
nkurz
The paper is short and clear. It's worth reading, and worth thinking about how
it could have been differently so as to be more conclusive, and how a followup
study might be improved.

1) There is no mention of whether the people caring for the bees were blinded
as to control versus treatment. This is simple, and should have been done if
it was not.

2) There were only 6 hives in each treatment group (control, imadacloprid, and
clothianidin). There are always constraints, but more hives would be a much
stronger study.

3) Lu's previous study found 100% mortality with 1/7th the dose of
imadacloprid. Why did they increase the dosage for this experiment?

4) There are 3 apiary locations, but they don't report the breakdown per
apiary. Did all the apiaries experience approximately equal losses in the
neonicotinoid hives?

5) Is there a "file drawer" effect here? If there had been one fewer treatment
hive collapse and one more control collapse, would this study have been
published?

6) Were any other studies performed? Or started and abandoned? I'd presume
not, but it would be great to have a clear statement from the authors.

7) Is it reasonable to assume that the dosage is spread evenly across all
bees? If the clothianidin LD50 is 3.4 ng/bee, and they are administering .74
ng/bee/day, it seems likely that some bees will die from acute poisoning.

8) They don't breakdown the numbers per hive, and instead give averages that
include abandoned hives. Were the surviving non-abandoned neonicotinoid hives
any weaker than the control hives?

My hope would be that the authors would provide the full data if requested,
but I'm constantly surprised that journals don't require this. Without
additional information, this seems like an interesting exploratory study that
neither confirms or denies any specific hypothesis.

I'd guess that there are enough beekeepers interested in future studies that a
larger scale study would be possible. Many bees are fed over the winter with
sugar, to compensate for the honey that is taken. Do you suppose that there
are beekeepers that would agree to a blind dosing of their bees if the lab
were to provide the (possibly poisoned) sugar?

------
awjr
This is one of these crazy situations where companies are lobbying the crap
out of politicians to keep these insecticides on the market.

These bees are fundamental to the production of most vegetable matter that we
eat. The financial implications of the loss of these insects is huge compared
to the 'loss' of money the insecticide companies would bear if these chemicals
were banned from sale.

------
anaptdemise
"Big Agro" is probably more inve$ted in this than "Big Chem". For those
skeptical conspiracy theorists...

"A survey of honey bee colonies revealed no consistent pattern in pesticide
levels between healthy and CCD-affected colonies when pollen, bees, and
beeswax were tested for the presence of 170 pesticides. The most commonly
found pesticide in that study was coumaphos, which is used to treat honey bees
for Varroa mites.

The pesticide class neonicotinoids (clothianidin, thiamethoxam, and
imidacloprid) has been accused of being the cause of CCD. The neonicotinoids
were developed in the mid-1990s in large part because they showed reduced
toxicity to honey bees, compared with previously used organophosphate and
carbamate insecticides."

[1][http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572](http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572)

------
jqm
I see wild bee colonies all the time in New Mexico and some built a colony in
my apartment wall in Arizona. These bees are serious... in fact, they kill
several people every year.

I see lots of articles on bee decline, often blaming pesticides, but they
don't seem to have affected wild bees (from my informal survey anyway). These
wild bees are very similar to honey bees... I doubt an untrained person could
tell the difference. I wonder why the decline in one and not the other? It
seems pesticides would affect them both. My guess it has to with genetics
and/or cultural techniques. I see mites mentioned sometimes as suspect.

~~~
aethertap
> I wonder why the decline in one and not the other? It seems pesticides would
> affect them both

I think the difference probably comes from the practice of transporting
domestic bees to large orchards and vegetable fields for pollination services,
where their diet is almost exclusively limited to agricultural products (which
are sprayed).

~~~
jqm
That's a good point. Wild bees probably happen into agricultural areas but not
as much and have the option to avoid them.

------
spitfire
Does anyone know where one could get good data on bee populations, migrations,
etc? or pointers to good bee keeping resources which might refer me on to data
sources?

------
gadders
Something interesting I heard the other day is that Australia has
neonicotinoids and no verrora mite and doesn't suffer from colony collapse.

------
fleitz
Sample size of 18... in other news vaccines cause autism.

~~~
pygy_
18 hives. That's a whole lot of bees.

Furthermore, the results are jarring. Bees deserted the twelve hives treated
with neonicotinoids, to the point that half of the hives died. The
survivinghives were seldom populated and either without queen or without
brood.

There was no desertion in the control group. One hive of the control group
died of some disease, but the hive was full.

~~~
fleitz
And one person is a whole lot of cells...

~~~
pygy_
The comment was indeed a bit disingenuous :-)

