It's Day 128 of the Year 2019 CE (Gregorian), meaning that it's May 8, 2019 (Gregorian), or 13.0.6.8.9 by the long count
I receive an e-mail newsletter from UC about things going on in the UC system. Recently it contained an article entitled The ‘bee safe’ pesticide that isn’t by By Mario Aguilera, UC San Diego, Thursday, April 11, 2019, which can be found here: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/bee-safe-pesticide-is-not-safe?utm_source=fiat-lux&utm_medium=internal-email&utm_campaign=article-general&utm_content=text . It concerns a multi-year study conducted by scientists at UC San Diego concerning "Silvanto", a broad spectrum insecticide developed by Bayer CropScience AG which is classified and touted as "bee safe". The study, which was published April 10 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B calls that classification into question. It is difficult to do an adequate "fair use" abstract of the article in question because it is so short, so everybody should really go read it for themselves, but I'll try to present the gist of it.
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Bee Safe
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The bee safe label means that this insecticide can be sprayed on fields even while they are in bloom, and even while bees are actively foraging in those fields. As a result, it has been growing in popularity world wide since it was first registered for commercial use in 2014. It is currently so registered in 30 countries, including the US, with more than twice as many other countries in the pipeline. Obviously, if it isn't really that safe, this is a major problem that needs to be addressed, and it is unlikely that so-called "self regulation" by so-called "responsible" growers is the answer.
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Standard Protocols
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Two weaknesses or flaws in the normal testing protocols are in play here. The first is the propensity to test chemicals, drugs, medications, foods and food additives, and pretty much everything else in isolation. In the real world, very few things actually exist in the environment in isolation. The classic example is drug interactions, which are periodically discovered and included in various advertising and other warning labels. "Do Not Take With Alcohol" -- ring a bell? As the environment is more and more saturated with more and more assorted chemicals, the number of possible two chemical interactions skyrockets, and the number of possible multi-chemical interactions goes off of the charts. Generally, only the most minimal testing for such interactions is performed regarding anything and any environment, from the soil or water or air to the stomach or bloodstream. And, it appears that the testing of Silvanto was remiss in this area, despite the fact that it does recognize a couple of problem interactions, though it only advises against mixing incompatible chemicals in the same tank, instead of prohibiting application to the same fields. The study reported on did find problems with respect to deleterious effects of chemical "cocktails" involving Silvanto.
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The other problem is with respect to the populations tested. Bee toxicity testing protocols allow for the testing of impacts on only the younger "in hive" worker bees, which ignores any possible negative effects on the older "forager" bees. This would be akin to testing hormone supplements strictly on pre-adolescent humans. Any result is guaranteed to be inconclusive as to the entire population. In this case it is even crazier, because the forager bees are the ones out there where the stuff has been directly applied to the fields, who will likely have greater exposure and upon which the success of the entire hive is predicated. The study found that the effects on forager bees was much more severe than upon hive bees.
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While those are the two "principal" issues with existing testing methodologies, it should be noted that the study also found differential effects of the insecticide depending upon multiple other factors, such as temperature and the like.
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I'll toss in a couple of passages from the article here, but it really warrants a full reading. It is relatively short and worth the effort.
The scientists provided the first demonstration that pesticide cocktails reduce honeybee survival and increase abnormal behaviors. They showed that worst-case, field-realistic doses of Sivanto, in combination with a common fungicide, can synergistically harm bee behavior and survival, depending upon season and bee age. Bees suffered greater mortality — compared with control groups observed under normal conditions — and exhibited abnormal behavior, including poor coordination, hyperactivity and apathy.-
The harmful effects of Sivanto were four-times greater with foragers than with in-hive bees, the UC San Diego study showed, threatening their foraging efficiency and survival. Both kinds of workers also were more strongly harmed in summer as compared to spring.-
In a nutshell, Silvanto is clearly not bee safe and should not be so labeled. What citizen action, besides voluntary refusal by "responsible growers" to use it when bees are foraging, an perhaps citizen campaigns to pressure said growers into such behavior need to be determined. It is unlikely that any registering/licensing bodies will reverse themselves barring massive die offs, though pressure should be applied to them too. Simply recategorizing from "bee safe" to not bee safe would seemingly do much to address the forager issue, and demanding greater temporal gaps between application of fungicides and this product could perhaps remedy the cocktail effect. Of course, simply not using pesticides and generally relying upon Integrated pest Management practices is an even better solution, but one that is unlikely to be followed by many, if any, growers. I did a quickie search for Silvanto at the Pesticide Action Network sits (www.panna.org) and got no hits, so they presumably have no action plans as of the date of this writing (mid April). Image is Miel et Abeilles (honeybees stocking) by Pierre GRAND and is public domain.
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Its an open thread so have at it. The floor is yours .
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I won't be around when this posts.
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Cross posted from caucus99percent.com