Bayer´s Imidacloprid: Possible Culprit identified in Decline of Honeybees

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Thema: Bayer´s Imidacloprid: Possible Culprit identified in Decline of

Honeybees 

Datum: 08.06.07 18:46:54 (MEZ) - Mitteleurop. Sommerzeit

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·        

Protection of Bees: Open Letter to EU Commissioner of Health·        

Bee-keepers and environmental groups demand prohibition of pesticide " Gaucho "

·        

French Institutes Finds Imidaproclid Turning Up in Wide Range of Crops 

The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.), May 28, 2007

Possible culprit identified in decline of honeybees 

They are among the most sensitive and hardest-working creatures in nature.

Ancient navigators of the air, honeybees are guided between hive and flower by

the angle and direction of the sun. Their internal clock signals the time of

day a particular flower's nectar is flowing. And daily changes in the earth's

magnetic cycle alert those in the darkened hive to sunrise and sunset. A

mysterious ailment, however, is causing the great pollinators to lose their way

home.

The disorder, called " colony collapse, " has resulted in the deaths of

millions of honeybees worldwide and up to half of the 2.5 million colonies in

the

United States. The chief suspect, say many scientists, is the most commonly used

insecticide on the planet: imidacloprid.  " I grew up in the 1960s, and this

reminds me of Carson's " Silent Spring, " ' says Fisher, a New

Jersey

state legislator, referring to the 1962 book that warned the world about the

long-term effects of agricultural chemicals on the environment. Last week

Fisher escorted New Jersey's secretary of agriculture, M. Kuperus, to

some

hard-hit beekeeping operations in the legislator's Salem County

district. Launched in 1994 by Bayer, the German health care and chemical

company,

imidacloprid is used to combat insects such as aphids that attack more than 140

crops,

including fruits and vegetables, cotton, alfalfa and hops. Sold under various

brand names, such as Admire, Advantage, Gaucho, Merit, Premise and Provado,

imidacloprid also is manufactured for use on flowers, lawns, trees, golf courses

and even pets in the form of flea collars. The list soon could grow even

longer. Last fall, Bayer announced findings indicating imidacloprid's ability to

promote plant health even in the absence of infestation. But while it is a

successful insecticide, the chemical, in sublethal doses, may be wreaking havoc

on

honeybees' nervous systems. In the mid-1990s, imidacloprid was implicated in

a massive bee die-off in France, in which a third of the country's 1.5 million

registered hives were lost. After beekeepers protested, imidacloprid was

banned for several uses, including treatment of sunflowers and corn seed. At the

same time, beekeepers in Germany, Poland, Spain and Switzerland were suffering

similar losses.  " These things (imidacloprid insecticides) do a great job on

termites, fleas, ticks, but people forget honeybees are insects, too, " said

Jerry , president of the Apirary Inspectors of America and an entomologist

with the Florida Department of Agriculture. " It amazes me the disconnect that

chemical companies have - or are allowed to have - in terms of the effects (of

pesticides) on good insects. "  Honeybees come into contact with pesticides

because insects are needed to pollinate scores of crops, such as apples,

blueberries, cantaloupes, cranberries, cucumbers, pumpkins and

watermelons. Imidcacloprid is one of the newer chemicals especially effective

against a wide range of

pests. A member of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, it is a

synthetic derivative of nicotine and works by impairing the central nervous

system of

insects, causing their neurons to fire uncontrollably and eventually leading

to muscle paralysis and death. The potent chemical can be sprayed on plants,

or coated on seeds, which then release the insecticide through the plants as

they grow. In sublethal doses, however, research has shown that imidacloprid and

other neonicotinoids, such as fipronil, can impair honeybees' memory and

learning, as well as their motor activity and navigation. When foraging for food

and collecting nectar, honeybees memorize the smells of flowers and create a

kind of olfactory map for subsequent trips. However, in laboratory and field

studies, honeybees exposed to imidacloprid seem to wander off, which may

explain,

say scientists, why hives all over the world are turning up empty. Recent

studies have reported on the " anomalous flying behavior " of imidacloprid-treated

bees where the workaholic insects simply fall to the grass or appear unable to

fly toward the hive. In 2003, a French television documentary team filmed

honeybee activity after exposure to imidacloprid. Clumsy and uncoordinated,

their

legs trembling, the bees looked like drunks unable to find the key to the

front door of their hive. Others had trouble leaving the hive, seemed

disoriented, and when they were eventually able to make their way out, soon

disappeared,

never to return. The possibility that neonicotinoids are at the heart of the

bee die-off implies a far more complex problem because of the widespread use of

pesticides. Every year these chemicals are applied to hundreds of millions of

acres of agricultural lands, gardens, golf courses and public and private

lawns across the United States. Their use on major crops nearly tripled between

1964 and 1982, from 233 million pounds to 612 million pounds of active

ingredients. And since then, their use has exploded. By 1999, the U.S.

Environmental

Protection Agency reported 5 billion pounds of pesticides used on U.S. crops,

forests, lawns, flowers, homes and buildings. Because of imidacloprid's

emergence as a primary player in pest management, a painful paradox has

developed in

relation to the recent debate. Neonicotinoids are needed by farmers and

growers to maintain the health of crops, many of which also require pollination

by

honeybees.  " Neonicotinoids are now the best aphid insecticide we have, " said

Shearer, a specialist in fruit tree entomology with the Rutgers

Agricultural and Extension Center in Bridgeton, N.J. " It's very important to our

pests

that have shown resistance to other chemicals. It's very important to

eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes. "  Shearer notes that apple farmers, for instance,

don't

use Provado, which has imidacloprid as an active ingredient, until after the

bees, which are used for pollination, are removed from the orchards. " So it

doesn't seem to be a logical route of bee die-off, " he said. " It would have to

last 11 months. " However, Shearer also acknowledges that some published studies

indicate that imidacloprid can persist on both vegetation and in the soil for

weeks, months and perhaps years. In France, there have been inconsistent

results since the bans on imidacloprid went into effect. In 2005, for the first

time

in a dozen years, the French honey harvest improved, but only in certain

regions, according to the country´s beekeeping federation. Some U.S.

entomologists, who recently have been analyzing dead bees, have found a

remarkably high

number of viruses and fungal diseases in the carcasses, leading them to suspect

there may be other culprits besides neonicotinoids. A 2004 University of North

Carolina study, for instance, found that some neonicotinoids, in combination

with certain fungicides, increased the toxicity of the " neonics " to honeybees a

thousand-fold.  " I don't think there is one smoking gun, " said . " When

neonicotinoids are used on termites, they can't remember how to get home, they

stop eating and then the fungus takes over and kills them. That's one of the

ways imidacloprid works on termites - it makes them vulnerable to other natural

organisms. So if you look at what's happening to honeybees, that's pretty

scary. "  Last week the five-state Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension

Consortium released a progress report on colony collapse disorder. Its findings

included " the high prevalence of fungi in adult bees " which seemed " indicative

of stress or a compromised immune system; these symptoms have never been

previously reported. "  Another entomologist at the Rutgers center, Gerald Ghidiu,

knows there is no simple answer to the problem. " They've been looking at this

since the late 1990s, " said the vegetable specialist. " They've done quite a few

studies and they still can't find the direct link. Seventy-five percent of

the vegetable crops in Arizona gets imidacloprid, but they have no problems with

the honeybees right now. So why isn't it straight across the board? Everyone

is in the dark over this. "  Coalition against BAYER Dangers

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