
Largest-ever study of controversial pesticides finds harm to bees - etiam
https://www.nature.com/news/largest-ever-study-of-controversial-pesticides-finds-harm-to-bees-1.22229
======
jfoutz
Losing bees would suck so bad. Lots of plants co evolved, requiring
pollinators. Orchids are the weirdest, with special moths unique to them [1].
But so much stuff depends on bees. A whole bunch of kinds of fruit trees,
different kinds of beans, even celery.

Hand pollination is possible, of course, but that seems like such a pita.
Perhaps it's possible to automate.

We have a perfectly good, self optimizing system that constantly moves to
optimality. If we could just lighten up a little, not push quite so hard, or
even just do localized trials of intensive use pesticides and fertilizers, we
could find a balance of what the system can support.

Either go slow and look for local optimizations that are then distributed
widely, or engineer immunity, or both.

Ugh. I guess if it was easy, it wouldn't be a problem.

~~~
Houshalter
Honey bees aren't native to North America at least. If they went extinct,
native plants would be fine.

~~~
HarryHirsch
It's likely that bumblebees are equally affected.

~~~
saalweachter
Well, sort of. Bumblebees are probably as susceptible as honeybees, but native
bees will preferentially eat from native plants. If most farmers aren't
spraying many native plants, the exposure will be less.

~~~
tmnvix
> ...but native bees will preferentially eat from native plants.

Do you have a source for how significant this factor is? I would like to
believe it, but it sounds a lot like wishful thinking.

~~~
saalweachter
Not really; my source is a lecture at a beekeeping meetup (where the lecturers
range from top academics to 'a little bit crazy'). I believe the study in
question was trying to assess how honeybees, an invasive species, impacted
native bee populations; the study found little impact, and attributed it to
the preferential feeding. (The replanting of large swaths of America with
invasive plant species, such as wheat, presumably does have an impact on
native bee populations.)

I'd also note that many native bees also have a much shorter lifecycle - they
will be active for a very brief time at a very specific time of the year, when
their target plants are flowering, and then they lay their eggs, which will
remain dormant / develop slowly for nearly the full year, to hatch again at
the appropriate time. This means that you can successfully avoid killing them
by timing your pesticide application to avoid flowering plants. Honeybees, on
the other hand, are active year round (though confined to their hives in the
winter).

A larger threat mentioned in the talk to native bees was actually global
warming. Many native bees operate in narrow bands of latitude, only going so
far north and south. With the increases in average temperature, we're seeing
the southern border of many native bee species move north ... but for whatever
reason, not the northern border. I'm not sure why that would be (maybe there
are plant species they depend on which spread too slowly?), but it creates a
worrisome picture of their habitat being squeezed out of existence.

------
nl
Note that the new HONEST act is designed to stop the EPA being able to act in
studies like this because the environmental data can't be independently
reproduced.

See [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/how-
to-g...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/how-to-gut-the-
epa-in-the-name-of-honesty/519462/) and various other coverage.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Don't you love the cozy, feel-good names politicians attach to horrible
legislature?

~~~
yoodenvranx
This is straight from 1984 double-speak

------
kortex
American farming practices are a perfect storm of detriments to the honey bee.
Widespread use of pesticides is, of course, directly bad. The monoculture of
crops also exacerbates the accumulation of pesticides, since bees get a
smaller variety of food. And due to the heavily managed style of beekeeping,
hives are closer together and are inhibited from swarming, leading to even
more propagation of Varroa mites.

~~~
pasbesoin
During yesterday's evening walk past a corn field, it occurred to me that the
impending roboticization (?) of farming may enable synergistic multiple plant
fields/plantings on a large scale. What was the old (apocryphal, or not?)
Native American combination: Corn, squash, and beans? (I'm just going by
memory, as I was yesterday evening while walking.)

We may be on the edge of a new wave of a more organic farming, on a mass
scale. Using plant _communities_ and synergies to reduce or need for the more
simplistic, mass application of chemicals.

Without even getting into all the genetic engineering and the like that is
sure, however you feel about it, to continue.

~~~
tda
I have also had that idea. Instead of giant machines only capable of
harvesting monocultures, couldn't we downscale to small, autonomous vehicles
that can farm efficiently on a vegetable garden at scale. Many cheap drones to
farm the way our ancestors did using manual labour

~~~
hvidgaard
That would be quite the change. In fact, it could enable many people to
produce a lot on their own land, because they don't have to spend all the time
doing it.

~~~
pvaldes
The sound is a problem in this plan. Bees are very sensitive to vibration.
They would probably desert any cultured place with drones working continously.
Can be avoided if you schedule the drone work, but must be adressed.

~~~
pasbesoin
I wonder what the range of their sensitivity would be, for various scenarios.

If you have a bot passing through every couple of days, would they continue to
visit the rest of the field where the bot is not currently present?

Very interesting factor to consider and be concerned about.

------
simonsarris
Funded by Bayer and Syngenta.

The extremely cynical interpretation is that Bayer patented the first neonic
in 1985 and the major one (Imidacloprid) is now off-patent.

Bayer would probably love it to be banned, so that everyone has to switch to
some newer, less tested, _more patent protected_ discovery of theirs.

~~~
tstactplsignore
It's a cute story, but Bayer has disputed the results of this study, still
disagrees that their pesticides impact bee populations, and shows no signs of
phasing out sales as far as I know.

~~~
undersuit
>still disagrees that their pesticides impact bee populations

I know that you are using the word pesticide, but the insecticide is
question... would kill insects like bees?

------
ajarmst
Did anyone ever assert that neonicotinoids were harmless to bees? I thought
the questions were about whether the harm was sustainable at an effective
level of use, whether (and how quickly) bee populations (and which species)
could adapt to their presence, whether harm to pollinators could be mitigated
by changes in the way we use these pesticides. The harm also had to be
compared to the benefit of their use (generally in terms of improvements in
crop yield and quality). An ideal environment for pollinators has to be
measured in terms of the requirement to feed a population of human beings that
has doubled in my lifetime, and like it or not, pesticides and other chemicals
are part of that. The reason neonicotinoids were originally attractive was
reduced toxicity to mammals and birds, so it's not a no-brainer to replace
them with something else.

~~~
quickben
As far as I remember the story from many years ago:

FDA panel found the link, they recommended stopping the chemical.

The head of FDA pocketed the research/recommendation in his desk until
"further".

It was half a billion dollar industry of which that guy got a piece of the
money through some channel.

Net result:

USA had to import bees from Australia.

EU banned the set of chemicals

My grandfather, after 50 years of bee keeping lost half of the swarms, until
we figured out what's happening and what's killing them.

Lobbying shoduld be made illegal.

~~~
tptacek
"US had to import bees from Australia"? _They 're not a native species_. All
US honey bees are "imported".

~~~
scott_karana
Importing because of a recent mass wipeout is different than using descendants
of previous imports.

~~~
tptacek
Without stipulating that this actually happened --- that bee farmers today are
relying entirely on Australian imports --- you're still begging the question.
Why? What difference does it make?

~~~
scott_karana
Personally, I think any mass death event of an important species is
_extremely_ worrisome, irrespective of their source, and necessitates root-
cause analysis and careful examination of the current equilibrium.

------
exabrial
I think one important thing to point out here is this is a _insecticide_
study, not an _herbicide_ study, because they're very very different things.

That being said, I'd like to see the results replicated independently. As
there article points out, there are a bunch of asterisks in the claims... and
a lot of conflicting conclusions.

EDIT: Use the correct term pointed out to me

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Herbicides are a subset of pesticides.

(I know, I used to think “pesticide” meant it killed _creatures_ , but plants
are also pests.)

~~~
exabrial
Yep, you are indeed correct.

The correct comment should be: This article is about a specific class of
insecticide, not a herbicides.

Coincidently, I learned that Neonicotinoids means 'chemically similar to
nicotine', I thought that was a coincidence at first.

~~~
ipsin
So "nicotinoids" means "chemically similar to nicotine", and... "neo-" means
new. Some of the literature refers to nicotinoids and some to neonicotinoids.

What I haven't been able to figure out is if there was essentially a "second
wave" of nicotinoids that someone -- a scientist or marketer -- figured was
deserving of the "neo-" prefix.

~~~
dEnigma
One random, uneducated guess from me: Maybe the "neo-" prefix is only for
those that don't show up in nature, so they have to be produced in labs, and
are thus "new" to the environment?

------
tptacek
Here's WaPo on why you want to read more than just the headline on this:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-
science/wp/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-
science/wp/2017/06/29/controversial-pesticides-may-threaten-queen-bees-
alternatives-could-be-worse/)

------
giardini
Whoaaa! see

"Do Neonics Hurt Bees? Researchers and the Media Say Yes. The Data Do Not. "
at

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/06/the_data_do_not_support_the_idea_that_neonics_hurt_bees.html)

wherein they state:

"One problem: The data in the paper (and hundreds of pages of supporting data
not included but available in background form to reporters) do not support
that bold conclusion. No, there is no consensus evidence that neonics are
“slowly killing bees.” No, this study did not add to the evidence that neonics
are driving bee health problems."

...

"But based on the study’s data, the headline could just as easily have read:
“Landmark Study Shows Neonic Pesticides Improve Bee Health”—and it would have
been equally correct."

~~~
dredmorbius
Funny, I was just going to mention my good friend Jon Entine as someone to
watch out for. Thanks for providing the hook.

 _Jon Entine is a media-savvy corporate propagandist and pseudo-journalist who
fronts the opinions and positions of chemical corporations by pretending to be
an independent journalist. He has ties to biotech companies Monsanto and
Syngenta while playing a key role in another industry front group known as the
American Council on Science and Health, a thinly-veiled corporate front group
that Sourcewatch describes as holding “a generally apologetic stance regarding
virtually every other health and environmental hazard produced by modern
industry, accepting corporate funding from Coca-Cola, Kellogg, General Mills,
Pepsico, and the American Beverage Association, among others.”_

[http://www.propagandists.org/propagandists/jon-
entine/﻿](http://www.propagandists.org/propagandists/jon-entine/﻿)

That _Slate_ are engaged with a special partnership with Entine's propaganda
mill speaks exceedingly poorly of _Slate_.

Specific to the _Slate_ article, Entine claims that bee populations aren't
dying. The supporting link is to an article that states ... bee populations
are dying, and where they aren't dying and leaving corpses behind, they are
simply vanishing without a trace. Sadly for Mr. Entine's argument, neither
death nor disappearance makes for a health bee colony. He's attempting to
mislead, misdirect, and language-lawyer his way around a point. He fails.

I've encountered him previously. Ironically, if his propagandistic techniques
weren't so over-the-top self-parodying, he might have snuck past my bullshit
filter.

[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/1LmnHGHi...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/1LmnHGHi7yS)

~~~
cholantesh
The author of the Gplus screed should spend some time looking at Nassim
Nicholas Taleb's Twitter history. He might then understand the context of the
article Entine wrote. But then, both that piece and the Propagandists article
do little more than make guilt by association attacks.

~~~
dredmorbius
There's also Etine's "If you can't attack the science, attack the scientist".
Which a) has been pulled from his website but b) exists on the Internet
Archive and c) points to an article at _The American_ , motto, "The Journal of
the American Enterprise Institute" (yet another Libertarian / Free Market
Fundamentalism disinformation mill), and which goes into gory detail
projecting the whole mechanism of personal and reputationa attacks, on the
other party.

Ironic as those attacks were polished and perfected by the Libertarian / Free
Market Fundamentalism crowd, as well documented by Robert Proctor, Naomi
Oreskes, and others.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110430225600/http://www.america...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110430225600/http://www.american.com:80/archive/2011/april/milwaukees-
best-no-longer)

The _substance_ of that particular article: Entine's defence of the now
largely deprecated chemical bysphenol A, a/k/a BPA, an endocrine disruptor.

"based on other evidence -- largely from animal studies -- the FDA expressed
"some concern" about the potential effects of BPA on the brain, behavior, and
prostate glands in fetuses, infants, and young children."

[http://www.webmd.com/children/bpa](http://www.webmd.com/children/bpa)

------
rgrieselhuber
This is one area where the scientific method feels like a subpar approach to
deciding policy. I'll grant that it's likely better than the alternative in
most cases but man does it create some really dangerous blind spots.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The EU temporarily banned the chemical four years ago on the precautionary
principle.

I like this approach: the harm done by not being able to use these pesticides
for a while, were they to turn out to not be harmful, would surely be
outweighed by the risk of further harming the ecosystem.

~~~
nisa
This approach was also under attack while negotiating TTIP and other trade
agreements. Ironically it was badmouthed as unscientific - as if it's better
to throw any new heavily patented chemical on the market and let science
figure out reliably that it's problematic - something that can take up to 20
years if it's with possible at all with enough scientific rigor - of course
public research can't get any details due to patents and trade secrets - also
ecosystems are not exactly easy to replicate in the lab.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>of course public research can't get any details due to patents and trade
secrets //

Not sure about other jurisdictions but UK patent law allows an invention to be
worked for research purposes.

Presumably companies don't get licenses to produce chemicals for widespread
release to the environment without disclosure of the details, so trade secrets
shouldn't be a problem?

------
gerdesj
"Although the study found that neonicotinoids have an overall negative effect
on bees, the results aren’t completely clear-cut: the pesticides seemed to
harm bees at the UK and Hungarian sites, but apparently had a positive effect
on honeybees in Germany. Pywell notes that the German effects were “short
lived”, and the reason for them is unclear. They might be linked in part to
the generally healthier state of hives in the German arm of the trial, he
speculates"

Bollocks! Neonics harm bees because that is what they are designed to do -
break insects. I'm not an expert but there have been rather a lot of articles
in New Scientist describing "confused" bees relating to neonics over the last
few years.

~~~
dredmorbius
The data say what they do, and the article seems to reflect this.

Threshold and compound effects are not unknown in science.

Though given a comment on funding sources (Bayer and Sygenta -- formerly
Zeneca), some skepticism may be warranted.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684161](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684161)

------
alliao
[http://www.scienceinfo.news/monsanto-unveils-
neonicotinoid-p...](http://www.scienceinfo.news/monsanto-unveils-
neonicotinoid-pesticide-resistant-transgenic-bee/)

the last paragraph is rather enlightening...

~~~
leppr
Isn't this a satire website? The next article is named "Leaving the fridge
door open to halt global warming".

~~~
etiam
See nisa's recommendation for the 'about' link, which is very informative.

------
joecool1029
Time to bring back DDT. It was banned for misinformed reasons without any
evidence to show that accumulation contributed to cancer or anything else
nasty in mammals.[1] Neonics are reported to be 5,000-10,000 more toxic to
bees. [2]

A 5 minute walk in fields around me will lead to at least 3 ticks latching on.
We're now facing the Lone Star tick that causes a life threatening meat
allergy (wtf) and Lyme's disease. I've also personally reported one of the
first cases of West Nile virus in this state from a found dead bird. Now
there's Zika, which seems great for humans. Oh and we can't forget the re-
proliferation of bed bugs as well. But yeah, we should keep trusting the newer
classes of pesticides that don't work as well and haven't been studied as
thoroughly.

[1][https://junkscience.com/1999/07/100-things-you-should-
know-a...](https://junkscience.com/1999/07/100-things-you-should-know-about-
ddt/)

[2][http://www.tfsp.info/findings/harm/](http://www.tfsp.info/findings/harm/)

~~~
keenerd
Bed bugs are practically immune to DDT. I looked into this a few years ago
because DDT seemed like a perfect fit for the problem. (Mattresses are
indoors, easy to saturate and used for more than a decade.) Turns out the LD50
for DDT is like 100000 ppm.‡ Think about that. Ten. Percent. Of their body
weight.

(IMHO, DDT should be allowed for mosquito nets, as long as they are only used
indoors and people know to incinerate the old nets instead of throwing them
out. It is so darn effective and we were so boneheaded stupid the first time
around.)

‡
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug_control_techniques#Pes...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug_control_techniques#Pesticide_resistance)

~~~
joecool1029
> Bed bugs are practically immune to DDT. I looked into this a few years ago
> because DDT seemed like a perfect fit for the problem. (Mattresses are
> indoors, easy to saturate and used for more than a decade.) Turns out the
> LD50 for DDT is like 100000 ppm.‡ Think about that. Ten. Percent. Of their
> body weight.

Ugh, noted. Thanks for the correction. I am aware of some resistance among
specific mosquito species as well, but the residual repellant effect still
makes it crazy useful for application on screens, nets, and tents.

------
beloch
This is actually good news. Colony collapse disorder has been a pretty
mysterious problem up until now. Identifying a possible cause gives us a
chance to stop it. This might not even require legislation.

Now that farmers are aware of the link many will choose to reduce or stop
using neonicotinoids entirely. If they don't do this voluntarily, they may be
forced to do so by commercial beekeepers. Many farms rely on commercial
beekeepers who they hire to transport bee hives to their fields when
pollination is required. These beekeepers may simply refuse to hire out their
bees to farms using neonicotinoid pesticides. It threatens their livelihood
_directly_ after all.

This is certainly bad news for neonicotinoid producers, at least in the short
term. It's possible that neonicotinoids are not the problem and that reducing
their use will do nothing to stop CCD. However, it seems inevitable that this
is something that _will_ be tried. We can only hope that the alternatives that
farmers choose don't turn out to be even worse for bees.

------
andy_ppp
Pesticides harm your brain too apparently:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-
report-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-report-eu-
pesticide-link-brain-damage-lower-iq-billions-of-pounds-lost-organic-
food-a7771056.html)

~~~
tudorw
Organophosphates are very nasty indeed, if you look at research into those
with large exposures, farmers, sheep dipping in particular;

[http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/calls-
hillsboro...](http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/calls-hillsborough-
style-inquiry-sheep-dip-9118546)

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/uk-
gover...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/uk-government-
criticised-for-ongoing-delay-in-farm-poisoning-case-sheep-dipping)

or this; "The present findings suggest OP pesticides are more harmful than
previously thought, even at low levels of exposure."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3042861/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3042861/)

Then there is the Gulf War Syndrome which has been associated to high levels
of insecticide use;

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1319191/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1319191/)

and this more recently, 'Pesticides: an update of human exposure and toxicity'

" A huge body of evidence exists on the possible role of pesticide exposures
in the elevated incidence of human diseases such as cancers, Alzheimer,
Parkinson, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, asthma, bronchitis, infertility,
birth defects, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, diabetes, and
obesity. Most of the disorders are induced by insecticides and herbicides most
notably organophosphorus, organochlorines, phenoxyacetic acids, and triazine
compounds."

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-016-1849-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00204-016-1849-x)

~~~
tudorw
" In summary, young children may be especially vulnerable to pesticides
because of the sensitivity of their developing organ systems combined with a
limited ability to enzymatically detoxify these chemicals (13,123,126-131).
According to the National Academy of Sciences (13), children's OP exposures
are of special concern because "exposure to neurotoxic compounds at levels
believed to be safe for adults could result in permanent loss of brain
function if it occurred during the prenatal and early childhood period of
brain development" (13). Because there is so little information available on
the levels and routes of children's pesticide exposure, it is not feasible to
conduct a risk assessment predicting the likelihood of adverse effects based
on animal studies. Thus far, there are no data in children to support or
refute the hypothesized health effects of chronic low-level pesticide
exposure."

[https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/di...](https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.files/fileID/12739)

"We conclude that PT and PO are genotoxic, while DF shows mitogenic activity.
An important finding of this study is that PT had higher genotoxic potential
than PO, which warrants for further investigations to correctly evaluate the
hazards of exposure to these chemicals."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18418871](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18418871)

"Collectively, our results implicate gluconeogenesis as the key mechanism
behind organophosphate-induced hyperglycemia, mediated by the organophosphate-
degrading potential of gut microbiota. This study reveals the gut microbiome-
mediated diabetogenic nature of organophosphates and hence that the usage of
these insecticides should be reconsidered."

[https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13...](https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-016-1134-6)

------
jondubois
It must be painful to pay 3+ million for a study which ends up doing you a
disservice. I wonder if these researchers will be able to find work outside of
academia in the future now that other corporations know that they can't be
corrupted.

------
NickM
Reminds me of this excellent Radiolab episode:
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/what-dollar-value-
nature/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/what-dollar-value-nature/)

Even people who care nothing for the irreplaceable beauty of nature ought to
consider how much measurable economic value we risk destroying in the name of
short-term profits. Of course (as the podcast explores) it's a complicated
equation, but still a very compelling one.

------
Akonkagva2
Sounds like perfect Monstanto, destroy the ecosystem, kill bees, get loads of
money....

Bet this was planned long way before this research was done. Surely, folks in
the industry understand from A/B outcomes same as we do understand IT.

Our kids might get slightly worse earth ecosystem then we have now.

------
rullelito
Wouldn't this be a good challenge for evolution?

------
mdns33
yes we can automate, replace bees with robots. yes. we are the greatest.

------
moomin
Is smoking tobacco harmful to your health? Is lead in petrol poisoning
children? Is the earth heating up due to mankind's actions? Are bees being
harmed by pesticides?

Seems like all these things have answers that, being honest, we all knew the
answer to long before the question was "settled". But there was an awful lot
of money to be made prolonging the ambiguity.

~~~
okonomiyaki3000
I (and I'm sure many others) feel exactly the same way. But we also need to
admit the possibility of something like confirmation bias. So, you've
mentioned several cases where we finally got a result which was exactly what
we expected all along. Those cases stand out to use because they our brains
naturally prefer them to cases where we were wrong. So then I have a couple of
questions.

When were we wrong? What are some other cases which didn't turn out like we
expected? It may be harder to think of them but they must exist. What would
have been the consequence of acting too early on those cases based on our
speculation, now that we know we had been wrong?

Do you think we should start to take a more proactive approach to these kinds
of problems? I mean, should we look at a problem and assume it's caused by
whatever happens to look like the culprit?

~~~
Herodotus38
One example of where we are wrong is the commonly held belief that saccharin
causes cancer. I mean, it's artificial, it's cheating to get sweetness, it has
to be bad right? Turns out the initial studies looking at bladder cancer in
rats were misleading (lots of confounders).

See this link for some basic information: [https://www.cancer.gov/about-
cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d...](https://www.cancer.gov/about-
cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/artificial-sweeteners-fact-sheet)

There is a further good writeup on it in the great book "The Biology of
Cancer" by Robert A Weinberg, but it is a textbook.

------
dubyah
It's still more ambiguous than stated given the differing results per
country(both positive and negative) and they didn't control for fungicide use.

 _We clustered sites into triplets ( >3.2 km between sites) and randomly
allocated sites to one of three treatments: (i) clothianidin applied at 11.86
to 18.05 grams of active ingredient per hectare (g a.i. ha−1) with a fungicide
(thriam and prochloraz) and nonsystemic pyrethroid (beta-cyfluthrin) (trade
name Modesto); (ii) thiamethoxam applied at 10.07 to 11.14 g a.i. ha−1 and
combined with the fungicides fludioxonil and metalaxyl-M (trade name Cruiser);
and (iii) control OSR receiving a commercial fungicide (thriam and
dimethomorph in Germany and Hungary and thriam and prochloraz in the United
Kingdom) but no neonicotinoid seed treatment._

Fungicides may have synergistic effects when used with pesticides. [0][1][2]

The other study, "Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids reduces honey bee health
near corn crops" is a bit more credible. Corn is a non-uniform seed and more
apt to ablate the seed coat and generate significant dust issues, hence
Canada's regulation to for seed lubrication. Ground persistence and mobility
make setting up adjacent pollinator refuge sites a potential source of
neonicotinoids in addition to the irrigated surface water. That corn is wind
pollinated and only provides a nutrient poor pollen kind of exacerbates that,
I think. Contrast that with western Canada where CCD hasn't been observed in
canola regions, canola seed is uniform and canola provides both nutritious
pollen and nectar.

I still don't think an outright ban at this point is the right choice
especially given the limited alternatives and research into those
alternatives. Organophosphates are significantly worse for both humans and
bees. Pyrethrins aren't exactly safe for bees either, with both being broad-
spectrum insecticides and requiring more frequent application via foliar
spraying. Even IPM guidelines for a pest like the flea beetle rank several
types of neonicotinoids above using pyrethrins[3].

There really aren't any easy solutions but, reevaluating the use of
prophylactic seed treatment should be worth a consideration.

[0]:
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ps.4449/abstract](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ps.4449/abstract)

[1]:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558502/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3558502/)

[2]:
[http://lib.gig.ac.cn/local/ejournal/ETC/ETC1996/1504/ETC-199...](http://lib.gig.ac.cn/local/ejournal/ETC/ETC1996/1504/ETC-1996-15\(4\)-525-534.pdf)

[3]:
[http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r783301411.html](http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r783301411.html)

------
brookside
Beads?

------
notadoc
We need to hear all sides of this debate before coming to any conclusions.

It's probably time to inject as much political vitriol into this as possible,
and pretend to debate this controversial 'study' and so-called 'science' for
another several decades at a minimum to really verify the science. If the bees
aren't politicized and ranted against by talking heads, politicians, and cable
TV pundits, how will we ever know what to think of them?

Bees are for wimps, pollinating is part of the study thumping pro-science
evidence based agenda!

~~~
sctb
Could you please not troll like this on Hacker News?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
notadoc
My apologies, not meant to troll but rather be a commentary on how our nation
handles science and data.

------
singularity2001
Good, now can they confirm/publish that pesticides cause harm to HUMANS?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
“pesticides” covers a broad range of substances.

Which do you mean?

~~~
YellowCode
Glyphosate specifically

