Does EPA know pesticides are killing honeybees?

Honeybees are extremely valuable, tireless little workers. According to USDA, they pollinate about one-third of all of the food we eat and pollination is responsible for $15 billion in added crop value.

During the winter of 2006-2007, some beekeepers began to report unusually high losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon has been called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) because of its sudden onset.

What’s causing CCD? Theories range from cell phones to Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) and everything in between. But ask any beekeeper (I’ve talked with several) and they’ll point to what they say is the main culprit - pesticides.

Lees verder

Please Lord, not the bees

Everything you didn't want to know about Colony Collapse Disorder

It sounds like the start of a Kurt Vonnegut novel:

Nobody worried all that much about the loss of a few animal species here and there until one day the bees came to their senses and decided to quit producing an unnaturally large surplus of honey for our benefit. One by one, they went on strike and flew off to parts unknown.

Among the various mythologies of the apocalypse, fear of insect plagues has always loomed larger than fear of species loss. But this may change, as a strange new plague is wiping out our honey bees one hive at a time. It has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, by the apiculturalists and apiarists who are scrambling to understand and hopefully stop it. First reported last autumn in the U.S., the list of afflicted countries has now expanded to include several in Europe, as well as Brazil, Taiwan, and possibly Canada. (1)(24)(29)

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