Neonicotinoids part 2 by Jeffrey Gibbs

 

This is the latest article authored by Northern Light’s CEO and founder Jeffrey Gibbs and published in the Australasian Beekeeping Journal September 2016.

The article discusses the contemporary issues Honey Bees are faced with.

If you wish to voice your concern you can phone or write to the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Health to call for a ban on neonicotinoids in Australia. Every voice counts.

Barnaby Joyce, Minister for Agriculture and Water:  02) 67613080   barnaby.joyce.mp@aph.gov.au

Sussan Ley, Minister for Health:    02) 6277 7220   minister.ley@health.gov.au

 

Neonicotinoids in Australia – Part 2

Author Jeffrey Gibbs

 

Honey bee populations in Australia are in crisis. The numbers of bees under the care of commercial honey

producers are at an all time low. Commercial beekeepers wintering losses of thirty per cent are now accepted as

the norm, according to Des Cannon, Editor of The ABK. Bee diseases have never been more prevalent in

Australia. Every commercial beekeeper is battling disease and this battle is a full time job. A battle fought by

beekeepers alone at the expense of their own time and money.

Eight out of ten (or more) commercial beekeepers are reliant on antibiotic to keep their bees alive. The choice is

between dosing or death. Contamination of honey with antibiotic is a live issue. Yet the Australian government,

honey packers and pesticide companies have not acknowledged the battle our beekeepers are fighting. In fact, it

is a massive cover up. If we haven’t got a problem, we can’t fix it.

The frontline brandished by government, honey packers and pesticide companies to defer any concern for the

honeybee is that ‘the Australian honeybee is not in decline, despite the increased use of this group of

insecticides [sic. neonicotinoids] in agriculture and horticulture since the mid 1990’s’. This statement was taken

from the ‘Overview Report, Neonicotinoids and the health of honeybees in Australia’, 2014, published by the

APVMA, author Les Davis1. An unfounded statement and simplistic argument, contrary to the anecdotal

evidence of beekeepers Australia wide. Estimates of hive numbers alone are not a true barometer of the health of

Australian bees, the old law is ‘breed bees or gather honey’. Beekeepers today are faced with a situation of

constantly see-sawing hive numbers as hives collapse and are supported back to health. Most hives in Australia

right now are way down on bee numbers. Len Walker of Inverell, the head of one of Australia’s most

experienced beekeeping families, claims fifty per cent losses of hives in his country. He states that a real sign of

the present weakened bee populations is the fact that bees need to be checked for strength prior to going onto

almonds.

Despite the government asserting good bee health in Australia, estimates of bee populations published by the

Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and cited by the APVMA in correspondence to me still

show a decline in managed hives. From 2006-2007 to 2014 there was a decline of 81,765 hives2. This makes the

statement that ‘Australian honeybee populations are not in decline’ from the APVMA 2014 Neonicotinoid report

a sham, if not a shame.

The European Union, Canada and the United States of America have partially or completely banned

neonicotinoids based on a mounting body of scientific concern. The Australian government at least concedes the

likelihood of complex sublethal effects of neonicotinoids, yet has not taken a stand on the use of neonics, which

should be the underpinnings of any environmental management.

This begs the question to whose interests are the government vested in? The long-term sustainability of our

beekeeping industry and food security or the dollar interest of pesticide corporations? Pesticide corporations

continue to have a field day in Australia at the expense of our honeybees and beekeepers’ pockets.

There are over 900 scientific, peer-reviewed studies globally indicating that neonics are having severe negative

effects on pollinators and suggesting regulatory agencies apply principles of prevention and precaution to all

neonicotinoids.

The European Academies Science Advisory Council (April 2015)3, World Integrated Assessment advisory

committee (Jan 2015)4 and the Belgian Superior Health Council (June 2016)5 have all reached the same

conclusion through comprehensive reviews of independent and industry sponsored science. Furthermore they

state that there are gaps in the science examining the complexity of ecosystem-wide sublethal effects. They raise

concerns for the persistence, mobility and water solubility of neonicotinoids and call for a review of the

adequacy of current toxic reference levels upon which the ‘safety’ of neonics are being reasoned3,4,5. Resultant is

an EU wide ban of thiamethoxam, clothianidin and imidacloprid. And the EU continues to review these

pesticides and tighten regulations for all neonicotinoids. Montreal, Canada called a total moratorium on the use

of all neonicotinoids on December 10, 2015. The irrefutable consensus is that neonics harm the honeybee. So

why is Australia so far behind the rest of the world?

A handful of American beekeepers and a group of stakeholders sued the US EPA in March, 2013 over

inadequate toxicity evaluations of clothianidin and allowing its registration based on inadequate studies. Thanks

to this pressure from beekeepers field trial results were released earlier this year by their government proving

imidacloprid toxic to bees 6,7,8. This shows the triumph of beekeepers over government and I strongly suggest

that you keep communicating with other beekeepers and keep your records of any harm to your bees past,

present and future. We may find Australian beekeepers in a similar position and your intact records may be

worth the quids you are losing now.

In Australia neonicotinoids are everywhere. They are the most widely used pesticides. It is important to

understand the way neonicotinoids operate within ecosystems and the neurological system of the honeybee to

understand the full threat of these pesticides. What we are up against are chemicals that have insidious sublethal

and complicated effects on bees and these effects are difficult to assess.

The honeybee is a highly social insect and relies on complex communication and navigational skills for foraging

behaviour and hive survival. Previous studies have examined individual field behaviour only. But it is the

‘system’ aspect that needs to be observed9,10. Neonics disrupt and incapacitate the honeybee’s abilities to

communicate and navigate; as a result the critical function at the colony level is damaged and breaks down6.

Bees require a lot of grooming within the hive to survive. The last thing you feel like doing when you are sick is

brushing your wife’s hair.

Neonicotinoids are completely water soluble and biologically persistent with a half-life of 19 years in heavy

soil16. Seeds coated with neonicotinoid will contain the pesticide throughout the grown plant. The honeybee is

routinely and chronically exposed to neonicotinoids by consuming pollen, guttation drops, nectar and

honeydew11, 13.

Treated seeds contains the highest concentrations of neonicotinoids. The broadscale use of neonics to coat seed

rather than the discriminatory use of these pesticides as a last resort has become common practice in Australia, a

practice banned in the EU and USA and criticised widely3,4,5. The amount required for sublethal effects is three

parts per billion. This equates to a pin prick divided many times in the bottom of a litre bottle. The coating on

one clover seed in a litre of water is enough to kill your hive. The neonicotinoid on one coated corn seed is

enough to kill 80,000 bees. One individual canola seed may contain 1 milligram of active ingredient 4, 13,14,16,18.

You may need to wonder about the water soluble neonicotinoid coating on hundreds of thousands of canola

seeds after two inches of rain. Bees drink a lot of water. And where are your bees drinking from? Everyone has

seen bees lined up around pools of muddy water in the canola paddocks. This is a main entrance into your

beehives15.

Partial restrictions on neonics to crops that bees aren’t attracted to are futile due to the solubility of these

compounds. Corridors and verges of native flora adjacent to agricultural lands (Ti-tree species near sugar-cane,

and turnip weed as particularly important examples) are contaminated with neonic pesticides. The

contamination from agricultural land is so far widespread, affecting underground water tables, wetlands, creeks

and river systems and binding to soils 4, 15.

I am getting stories all the time of what appears to be colony collapse disorder. One load of 140 hives dropped

down on our site for care seems to be in every respect what the rest of the world is CCD. The bees were on

planted clover, and there appeared to be no other crops or sprays around excepting the neonicotinoid clover

seed. It is now impossible to buy clover in Australia that has not been neonicotinoid-coated. Beekeepers need to

watch the effects of any neonicotinoid-coated crop including almonds, citrus, canola, sunflower, clover, field

grasses, corn and every other fruit and nut being pollinated.

Much of the honeybees’ demise lies in the assault on the immune system as a result of chronic long term

exposure to these pesticides10,11. It is the interplay of depressed immune function, pesticide toxicity, stress (from

shifting, wintering, drought, overstocking etc), disease and the band-aid use of antibiotic (to control EFB, and in

many cases to illegally suppress AFB) that leads to weakening your bees. As with the laws of nature, causes are

always multi-factorial10. How many bee keepers thought they were breeding good bees on the canola last year

and when they shifted found that the bees had disappeared?

Viruses may be present asymptomatically and kept in check by the modulation of a healthy immune system.

Neonicotinoids slowly depress immune function and although your hives may seem to be coping OK over the

summer and autumn, after adding the stresses of shifting and wintering you may see entire colonies collapse, as

diseases and parasites rapidly spread11. Stress leaves the bees less able to cope with pesticide toxicity. The bees

then lose navigational function and simply disappear11,13. A bee that can’t find its way back to the hive is as

good as dead16.

Bees are seldom exposed to a single pesticide and pharmacological knowledge of mixture toxicity is

underdeveloped3. Pollen samples were found with a whopping 124 pesticide residues and 77 residues were

found in nectar and honey in a study by Sanchez-Bayo and Goka (2014)13. Their results came from the USA,

France, Spain and Poland; with residues in honey including additional data from surveys in Greece, Spain,

Brazil and India; and residues in wax including other data from Spain and the USA. We just don’t know what

these chemicals do when they are combined. Some studies show alarming synergistic and antagonistic effects of

exposure to neonicotinoids combined with organo-phosphates/carbamates and fungicides3. In the UK it is

recommended not to apply neonicotinoids, fungicides and pyrethroid insecticides together1. A laboratory study

shows DMI fungicides increased the toxicity of some neonicotinoids 244 times!18

It is imperative to start thinking whole system functions and cumulative effects12. Reducing the exposure of bees

to toxins, reducing stress and increasing nutrition rather than trying to attribute colony collapses to one causal

viral or parasitic factor.

Antibiotics are yet another toxin for your bees. As neonicotinoid use has increased leading to sicker bees the

need for the use of antibiotics has skyrocketed. Antibiotics are a short-term remedy that weakens the bees

immune system, masks AFB and then allows disease, viruses, parasites to return with a vengeance. There is

barely a commercial beekeeper in Australia who doesn’t understand the terminology Olley’s Lolly. Over

approximately the last twenty years there have been massive amounts of tetracycline antibiotic pouring into the

beehives of Australia. In the mid 1990’s beekeeper’s were introduced to the release of neonicotinoids and Olley’s

Lolly. It seemed like not only everyone was using ‘Lolly’ but this was also the easiest access to the need for

antibiotic. The use initially was to spot-dose as disease cropped up. Nowadays blanket dosing is common. The

closer you get to the Victorian border the greater the need for widespread blanket dosing of ‘Lolly’. The

correlation is the treated crops such as almonds, fruit trees, canola, sunflower, lucerne and clover. It is obviously

clear, yet barely mentioned. You would be left to wonder how many bees we would have left in Victoria without

use of antibiotic. Our bees are sick, they are as crook as they have ever been.

According to Laurie Kershaw there is barely a commercial hive from Canberra to the bottom of Australia that is

not being dosed. From my investigations more than eight out of ten beekeepers down south are dosing

(interviews conducted by Jeffrey Gibbs over an extensive period of time and country). It would be terribly

difficult to run one thousand hives without the use of antibiotic in this country. With the bursting of disease and

hive beetle, the use of chemicals in beehives has reached an all-time Australian high. Some beekeepers are

scrambling for alternatives rather than weakening the immune system of their bees with antibiotic, yet they are

by far the minority in this country. A growing number of beekeepers in Australia are refusing to work pollination

because they know it is killing their bees. It is almost a certainty that if you can’t find good clean forest pollen to

detoxify and rebuild the immune system of your bees you are in trouble.

Every honey packer is well aware of the massive and increasing use of antibiotic in Australia to keep bees alive.

I have spoken to Ben McKee of Capilano and Jodie Goldsworthy of Beechworth Honey to confirm that not only

they but everyone is aware of the use of ‘Lolly’. Apart from weakened bees we are also running the risks of

contaminated honey through overuse of antibiotic. And this contamination is becoming an increasing threat to

the Australian honey industry.

Beekeepers in Australia are almost in full control of Australia’s food production. If we could only agree for

once, the political power of this unity is all that is required to have this insecticide banned in Australia. The fact

that our Government is one of the few in the world not to recognise that neonics harm bees is only increasing

the plight of the Australian beekeeper. In my opinion Australian Beekeepers are being used as a massive field

test on neonicotinoids. Australia is a worldwide excuse for insecticide companies who are blaming Varroa mite

for bee colony collapse overseas and claiming that Australian bees are healthy. Given the present situation of

most beekeepers in Australia, this is not only a joke but an insult. The only winners here are the pesticide

corporations, making a mockery of your present hardship.

Just yesterday, in light of this article going to publication, Capilano Honey has stated in an email to me that:

‘Capilano is committed to the health and wellbeing of Australia’s honeybees and as such does not endorse the

use of neonicotinoids. Capilano believes neonicotinoids should be banned. Capilano proposes a submission to

the APVMA calling for the restriction or total ban of neonicotinoids in Australia.’

I ask of every Australian Beekeeper, if ever there was a time in Australian beekeeping history to love and care

about the future of bees, and to show some direction to our industry, to unite and tell it how it is, it is now, on

this very topic.

Edmund Burke once said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do

nothing.’

 

 

REFERENCES

1. APVMA (Feb 2014) ‘Overview Report: Neonicotinoids and the Health of Honeybees’, www.apvma.gov.au

2. Correspondence with Kareena Arthy CEO APVMA (12 January 2016)

3. EASAC (April 2015) ‘Ecosystem services, agriculture and neonicotinoids’ EASAC Policy Report 26,

www.easac.eu

4. The Taskforce on Systemic Pesticides- World Integrated Assessment Advisory, (2015) ‘Assessment of the

impacts of systemic pesticides on biodiversity and ecosystems’, www.tfsp.info/assets/WIA_2015.pdf

5. Belgian Superior Health Council, (June 2016) Assessment of the effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on

biodiversity and health, Publication Number 9241, www.shc-belgium-be

6. Towers, P., Seiler, A. (Jan 6, 2016) Beekeepers, farmers and public interest groups sue EPA over failed

oversight of neonicotinoid coated seeds, PAN, www.pan.org

7. Schlesinger, V. (May 7, 2013) Can a lawsuit save America’s bees? Modern Farmer, www.modernfarmer.com/

2013/05

8. Housenger, J. et al. (Jan 4 2016) Preliminary pollinator assessment to support the registration review of

imidacloprid, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, United States of America EPA,

Washington, D.C.

9. Nazzi F. et al. (2012) Synergistic parasite-pathogen interactions mediated by host immunity can drive the

collapse of honeybee colonies. PLoS Pathogens 8, e100273

10. Nazzi F. and Pennacchio F. (2014) Disentangling multiple interactions in the hive ecosystem.

Trends in Parasitology 30 (12), 556–561

11. Lu, C. et al. (2014) Sub-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids impaired honey bees winterization before

proceeding to colony collapse disorder. Bulletin of Insectology 67 (1), 125–130

12. Sanchez-Bayo F. and Kouchi G. (2012). Evaluation of suitable endpoints for assessing the impacts of

toxicants at the community level. Ecotoxicology 21, 667–680

13. Sanchez-Bayo F. and Goka K. (2014). Pesticide residues and bees—a risk assessment. PLoS One 9,

14. Sanchez-Bayo F. (2014). The trouble with neonicotinoids. Science 346 (6211) 806–807

15. Samson-Robert, O. et al (Dec 2014) Neonicotinoid-Contaminated Puddles of Water Represent a Risk of

Intoxication for Honey Bees, PLoS One, 10(13)

16. Sgolastra, F., Gerard Arnold, G., Stitch, J. (28/10/2014) ‘Neonicotinoids: The needed ban. Researchers

discussion’, [The Bee Life Channel] Bee Life European Beekeeping Coordination

Retrieved from: http://bee-life.eu/en/article/78/

17. Blacquière, T. et al. (2014) Neonicotinoids in bees: a review on concentrations, side-effects and risk

assessment, PLoS One. 9(12)

18. Iwasa, T. (Nov 2001) Mechanism for the differential toxicity of neonicotinoid insecticides in the honey bee,

Apis Mellifera, Crop Protection 23 (2004) 371–378.