Has everyone forgotten about IPM?

Clothianidin fails after only 2 years as a cotton seed treatment and needs an untested pesticide, sulfoxaflor, piled on top under a Section 18. Glyphosate overuse creates superweeds and genetic modification is underway to create 2,4-D resistant commodity crops. Now, corn farmers struggle to cope with rootworm resistance, and well educated professionals act as if this is a surprise.

The chemical companies smile, because the capture of American agriculture in chemical dependency is nearly complete.

Debate over the safety of aerial spraying

The issue of aerial spraying of agricultural pesticides has been controversial since it began and is the reason the Boulder County Beekeepers’ Association was formed in 1975. Earlier this month I circulated a story, Letter Says Aerial Application Safe Around Bees, that claimed the safety of aerial spraying for bees. It is short, read it as well as the comments. Then read the next story, Pesticide Drift, Sick Rural Residents Force Face-Off With Big Agriculture, which gives a much different view of aerial spraying. There are 8 pages of comments on the second article, try to read at least some of them because they are informative as well.

Coalition against Bayer Dangers

New on the Organic View.

The Coalition against BAYER (CBGNetwork or CBG) has launched a campaign asking the Bayer company for a total ban of neonicotinoid pesticides. According to CBG’s campaign, “Bayer managers have known the risks which neonicotinoid pesticides create for the environment since the early 1990s. The company downplayed the risks, submitted deficient studies to authorities and viewed the massive decline of honey bees and pollinators in many parts of the world as ‘collateral damage’.”

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer, and special guest host, Tom Theobald, talk to Philipp Mimkes, a physicist who has been working fulltime with the Coalition for the last 18 years. We will discuss the CBG’s Campaign To Ban Neonicotinoids and their most recent efforts.

Out of control and out of touch with reality

This came in at the end of last week: EPA does not suspend clothianidin. Apparently the source is the EPA web site.

This is an agency completely out of control and out of touch with reality. The position they are taking is an outrage, and if they truly believe that there is no problem, and they must because that is what they are saying, they should be removed from their positions immediately for incompetence and dereliction of duty. The underlying issue with clothianidin, which they conveniently ignore, is that it has never met the qualifications for registration in the first place. The EPA simply chooses to ignore the law and not only continues to do so, but is apparently poised to repeat that performance with sulfoxaflor.

Who holds these people to account? Where is Congress? Where is common sense? Where is any sense?

Bee deaths prompt insecticide re-evaluation

This Friday (July 20th) I am co-hosting a 30 minute program on The Organic View Radio Show. June Stoyer and I will interview John Van Alten, President of the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association, about the bee kills in Ontario and Quebec and the review of several neonicotinoids by Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, their EPA. This came as a result of a Better Farming article, Bee deaths prompt insecticide re-evaluation. This is a call in program so you can do more than just listen if you wish. The program starts at 2:00 Colorado time. It will available later as a pod cast too.

UPDATE, July 20th, 10:15 am:

Change of plans. We weren’t able to finalize the details with John Van Alten, President of the Ontario Beekeepers, for this afternoon’s interview, but have an even more timely interview. We will have Steve Ellis, longtime Minnesota commercial beekeeper and secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board. The subject will be the decision yesterday by the EPA to deny the legal petition filed in April calling for removal of clothianidin from the market. This should be an interesting, informative, and perhaps explosive interview. For those of you unable to listen live, it will be available as a podcast later. Today (Friday) 2:00 P.M. Colorado time, Connect a little ahead of time. See you on the radio.

Steve Ellis Talks About The EPA’s Decision To Reject Legal Petition On “The Neonicotinoid View”

Getting the story mostly right

Here’s a pretty well written artcle just out on the bee loss situation, The Plight of the Honeybee. More and more, the alternative press is getting the story mostly right, but the powers that be show absolutely no sign that they are going to change their behavior, and we continue to get nothing but excuses and evasions. Worse, it looks like they intend to ignore the criticism of clothianidin and it’s failure to be properly registered and instead will arrogantly repeat their performance with sulfoxaflor. And just to add to the mix I had a bear show up Saturday in a beeyard that is miles from the foothills and has been in place for over 30 years. If this keeps up it could get discouraging.

Is sulfoxaflor the next systemic?

I will do 30 minutes on The Organic View Radio Show today (July 13) on neonicotinoids, sulfoxaflor and the EPA.

Under pressure to spray

Finally, some uncommonly good sense from a mosquito control district, and right here in Colorado.

Paonia is seeing an unseasonably intense attack by mosquitoes. The North Fork Mosquito Abatement District reports receiving many calls from citizens asking or demanding that the district “Do something!” about the mosquito problem.

According to board president Kevin Parks, “Callers seem to generally assume that what is needed is that the District spray poison to kill the mosquitoes. Most callers have seen spray operations in the past, and have the idea that spraying is the reasonable response to this problem. Our board members have felt tremendous pressure to go along with this idea — to even go against their own judgment — just to relieve some of the pressure being placed on them.”

So far, the board has resisted the pressure to “go along to get along.” From their evaluation of the pros and cons of spraying, they are convinced that spraying would actually, unquestionably, do more harm than good.

This is not what most callers want to hear, according to Parks. They just want the problem to go away, and it is clear to them that spraying is the answer.

You can read the whole article, Under pressure to spray, in the Delta County Independent.

Canada re-evaluates registration of some neonicotinoid insecticides

The Health Canada Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) today announced that the agency is initiating a re-evaluation of Canada’s registration of two types of neonicotinoid insecticides (clothianidin and thiamethoxam). This notice adds two more neonicotinoids to the list that are already under re-evaluation (imidacloprid being the first).

Read the full article at FarmlandBirds.net.

Letter says aerial application safe around bees

Most of you newer and/or suburban beekeepers probably don’t have much direct experience with agricultural pesticide spraying, but it has been a significant threat to bees and beekeeping for a long time. This article about spraying appeared on Friday night and I commented while it was fresh. That generated a response from an applicator the next morning, and a comment from Minnesota beekeeper Jeff Anderson Sunday morning. Paul Hendricks of Englewood tried to comment, but his comments were not posted. Here they are:

I’m not comforted by any “professional” aerial applicator whose evaluation of his business is by a person with no skin in the game. Let Dr. Scott Bretthauer purchase 100 colonies at the market rate of $250 each and place by any field which Ag chemicals are constantly and incessantly applied and leave them there throughout an entire year; then pay for extensive necropsies of the hives which have failed (studies already done by other PhD’s) and he will have earned the right to speak. I have several decades of practical experience where only ground rigs were used and I learned that apiaries across the road from only ground rig spraying invariably experienced a constant diminution of their population. As a beekeeper with 36 years experience I can righteously assert that in all cases where Ag chemicals were used (there are other methods available which use no chemicals) my bee operation suffered irreparable uncompensated harm. I would like to reach out and strangle (generically speaking) PhDs who say “studies show,” when I can rightfully counter with “my experience is…”

Any assertions made that no harm was done cannot be ascertained the morning after a spray incident because the damage is often not evident until several months later when necropsies of the hive are done.

I successfully raised in the ballpark of 350 thousand pounds of honey before the sea of Ag chemicals overwhelmed me. Before one particular farm switched to GMO corn seed I raised the weight of a steer, approximately 850 pounds, from a single hive in Parker, Colorado. That farmer’s son-in-law has seen fit to change back to heirloom corn seed and I have hope of seeing good crops there once again. That farmer’s father-in-law, now deceased, told me he coped with the alfalfa weevil by baling the weevils into the first cutting. Weevils left alive in July were scorched in the heat and did not present a threat to 2nd and 3rd cuttings.

Dead bees tell tales and they speak loud and clear to scientists who properly exercise the scientific method. The best scientists in history have been run through the matrix of life’s experience before tackling such questions as, in this case, “why are these bees dying?” Poison is poison, no matter how you apply it and unfortunately bees don’t read the labels on any of Monsanto or Bayer or fill-in-the-blank’s pesticide. – Paul Hendricks