Agriculture Is Killing Way More Bees Than We Realized, Huge Study Reveals

Spot on. Good points.

I see some criticism of glyphosate and GMO “Roundup Ready” crops above. While glyphosate has it’s toxicology problems in the food supply, it was responsible for moving US agriculture away from a tillage based crop production model to a no or minimum tillage model. The savings in topsoil alone make glyphosate (in spite of it’s problems) one of the greatest positive developments in large scale agricultural history. Add in water savings and reduced loading of nutrient laden silts into waterways and oceans and the positive net effect is even larger.

Now the advances in cover crops are again revolutionizing soil health, soil conservation, water use efficiency, and chemical free weed control. This adoption of cover cropping would either not have occurred without the preceding move to minimum tillage facilitated by glyphosate/GMO’s or it would have taken decades longer to happen.

 

The only regular tillage I do is ridging gravity irrigated ground for irrigation. Pivot ground gets planted and harvested. That’s it. I have corn and soybean fields that haven’t been tilled for well over 20 years. Some people in my area till more than me, but no till and minimum till are the default. Cover cropping is gaining popularity as well.

Last spring I planted two alfalfa fields to corn without any tillage. Just a shot of herbicide that killed most of the Alfala.

 

If I had a backhoe I would probably build another pond. I also like to raise fish. And I wonder if you can increase fish production by using different fish for different strata of water. Like bluegill for the mid range, catfish for the bottom etc. I have several "pools" with bluegill, catfish and water plants.

 

Annual ryegrass is a great cover crop. I’ve been using it for about ten years. I just plant corn and beans right into it. I don’t use a roller but I can see the advantages. Last spring I had some rye get 4 ft tall and set seed before I got the soybeans planted on that field. The beans yielded well, but the combine picked up some rye heads and some rye seed ended up in the soybean sample at the elevator. I got a little dockage for foreign material. A roller may have prevented that.

 

I use a Marshall rygrass for goats sometimes. It would be great for cattle. Here in Bama it is the prettiest green in an otherwise dull winter.

 

I don’t know much about your winters. I assume rye doesn’t ever go dormant, it just grows all winter?

I like winter wheat and ryegrass for the “green” factor as well. Even though they are dormant in the winter here, they are the last thing to lose the green color in the fall and the first thing to turn green in the spring.

 

The rye dies off in the summer. Zone 8b. We plant onions in December and potatoes in January.

 

LOL. Little different than here. When your rye is growing mine is dormant in soil with 2+ feet depth of frost.

 

Classic propaganda.

The first thing that should tip you off is the phrase "huge study."

Do you even know the difference between a study and an experiment?

From your link....

Exposure to a cocktail of agrochemicals significantly increases bee mortality, according to research Wednesday that said regulators may be underestimating the dangers of pesticides in combination.

That statement is not only irresponsible, it is unethical.

No conclusions can ever be drawn from any study ever. When you learn the difference between a study and an experiment, you will understand why that is true.

A responsible statement by ethical persons would be:

Researchers discover potential link between agrochemicals and bee mortality.

Also from your link...

A new meta-analysis of dozens of published studies over the last 20 years looked at the interaction between agrochemicals, parasites and malnutrition on bee behaviors - such as foraging, memory, colony reproduction - and health.

From that, we know the study is both flawed and biased, since it failed to weigh other relevant factors that might contribute to "bee mortality."

 

We're wine grape farmers and we are organic...so no strip spraying for weed control...all weed whacking. We also practice no-till.

Further, in my area many of the farmers who use RoundUp and other chemicals are still allowed to consider themselves 'sustainable'...I don't agree with this.

Your farming practices have minimal impact, but I wonder about the cumulative effect of millions of acres using chemicals most of which end up in our watersheds? What are the long term impacts? Some of my neighbors maintain their vineyards without a single blade of grass or weeds...it's just sterile-looking soil with grape vines...I cannot believe this is good for Earth and it's inhabitants...

 

Most of my ground is in trees. Trees ain't bringing much right now and I kinda like them. I have a small garden and plastic pots to do my experimental stuff. I think chemicals have a place in modern agriculture. I don't accept bare ground as a sustainable practice. The earth has a skin and it is soil. A weed is just scar tissue from an injury to the earth's skin. A scab so to speak. Keeping the soil covered is sustainable. But grapes like a less than ideal soil , no?

 

Yes, a few chemicals end up in the environment. And some are very toxic. But consider tons and tons of prime dirt and silt in the rivers killing off aquatic life until the river is good for nothing but carp and goldfish? Is a loss of tons of good topsoil per acre per year worth it? I have tried organic in a small garden and it will never be sustainable tilling. Not here in the warm southeast. The organic matter is literally eaten up each year. A foot of organic matter like hay or livestock manure will give you about an inch of good dirt the next year, undisturbed. If you till it in you lose it to bacteria. You have a good burst of nitrogen but you lose it. Undisturbed and worms eat it and make fertilizer. This feeds plants....and here is the kicker. This little bit of soil grows roots and leaves and stems of organic matter to further enrich the soil if left on the ground. I control weeds for a while and then it magically turn to goat food. Then I mow..then I spray. Then I mulch the hills or rows. Then I plant. When they are still small I will cover and spray for weeds again. Then I am pretty much done till harvest. Weeds after that are biodiversity. No bug spray.

 

For me, that particular parcel has Puget Sound frontage.

So, otters run across to my pond - cute and entertaining. But, if there are fish, they have dinner.

 

Studies are the most ethical method. You do realize that to conduct experiments requires that they kill the bees to study them?

Besides, it's common sense that if farmers use pesticides to kill insects, and bees are insects, that those chemicals will kill the bees.

 

The statements you complain about sound to me as something coming from sources of reporting, not scientific papers. We all know that science reporting is uneven at best.

Also, neither your example nor your preference are statement is in the absolute, thusI fail to see your complaint on that grounds, too:
- "may be underestimating the dangers"
- "discover potential link"

Both indicate something far less than certainty.

Beyond that, your last paragraph ignores that the science referenced IS what is claimed. It clearly identifies the study as a survey type of study (the kind the FDA does not accept). And, the text does not include how selections of science papers were chosen as contributors. That has a highly significant impact on the value as you point out. But, you are assuming that there were too few controls required by the selection process. How do you know? Did you read the criteria?

It's well known that such studies can not be accepted as a final conclusion, but they ARE important as they can justify serious investigation. They can indicate hypotheses that should be tested.

 

I have had no problems with wild animals eating my fish. Except them eating each other. I got some good sized ones. Might be time for a meal.

 

Wine grapes grow in all sorts of soils but sun and temperature are important...not too hot or too cold, little to no shade, no rain, stress water irrigation. Different varieties like different soils. Yields can be greatly effected based on soils and temperatures and drought. Vine roots go deep which allows some farmers to dry-farm...richer flavors but much lower yields. We have one block of vines planted just prior to WW1, another block planted about 25 years ago, and other blocks that have been planted in last ten years. No matter all the romance about premium wines, and the culture we operate in, at the end of the day we're farmers...dealing with market conditions, disease, yields, climate change, drought, soils, water shortages, and labor. UC Davis has told us farmers that 1 to 1-1/2 degree F. increase in average temperatures can reduce yields up to 25%...which will mean the farming will no longer be financially viable...

 

Muscadine is the wine grape here. Other grapes fail. But I really like Muscadine wines.

 

Well...a lot of chemicals end up in the environment and on large scales this cannot be good for the long term.

Lots of rivers are great spawning grounds.

We are in drought conditions so we have little choice but to do weed control...for us it's all weed whacking...

 

Muscadine wines are not exactly in big demand...they are a niche and/or regional product...

 

It was once the most popular wine in America.

 

I do believe that this information will begin to propel organic farming vs GMO's.....

 

There is no science. There are only studies which are not science.

It matters not.

All studies are surveys by definition. A survey cherry-picking data from a lot of other surveys is not science, which is why it is not possible to draw conclusions. That is also why such claims are misleading more often than not, because the name of the game is to get published and grab headlines.

And yet in 20 years no one has ever conducted an experiment.

It's not like it costs $50 Million to conduct such an experiment.

There are 10s of 1,000s of greenhouses in the US alone that are 40+ acres. Granted, when you get to 100+ acres, we're talking dozens and dozens instead of 1,000s, but 40 acres is more than sufficient.

You can account for every variable except EM radiation. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if there were greenhouses in the 10-60 acre range that had glass that shielded or attenuated short to microwave frequencies.

However, many greenhouses operate using AI so frequencies in the telecommunications range are already present.

Even so, you could conduct a small scale experiment on the effect of cell-phone frequencies on members of the same family, class or genus. I mean it would be bizarre to claim cell-phone towers are killing honey bees but have zero effect on bumble bees, other bees, wasps, hornets, etc etc.

You can put monitoring stations in the greenhouse to measure EM frequency levels.

Greenhouses are already in operation, so it's not like you have to build a greenhouse and run it yourself.

You can run simultaneous experiments at different greenhouses under different conditions.

You need what, a program director and 2-6 RAs on stipend for $12,000 to $15,000/year (maybe $20,000 in California or New York) to get the data every day from the 2-6 greenhouses and run it for 3-5 years.

 

Nope. Go read the ethical guidelines and get back to us. I'll give you a primer:

Regulatory ethical frameworks governing animal experimentation are a hallmark of modern biology. While most countries have ethical standards regarding the use of animals for scientific purposes, experiments involving insects are not included in these standards.

I realize you have never conducted an experiment ever in your life.

It is not common sense.

This is not the 1950s before DNA was discovered and electron microscopes became standard lab equipment, even at junior colleges.

Modern pesticides target certain specific insects, because, you know, we now understand how insects function with respect to their biology, including their neurology.

But, since you mentioned common sense, DDT, a common pesticide used until it was banned in 1972 because it killed damn near everything, apparently had no negative impact on honey bees.

You also ignore the fact that many farms allege to be organic, not using any pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers, and that while many farms might use herbicides, they don't use pesticides.

Did it not occur to you that something less sinister like your sprawling suburban building spree is destroying the habitat of honey bees?

Did it not occur to you that even though your sprawling suburban building spree may not be destroying the habitat of honey bees, it may destroy the habitats of organisms that prey on the organisms that prey on honey bees?

Did it not occur to you that when you bulldoze a forest to build your many McMansions, because, you know, you're "entitled," you are destroying the habitats of cardinals and various species of swallows?

Do you think the cardinals and swallows will go sit in a corner and sulk, or do you think they might relocate somewhere's else so that there's a helluva lot more cardinals and swallows than normal and since they eat honey bees, they're gobbling them up?

Well, now you have something new to think about.

 

No, this is just plain false.

Survey studies pick the studies of others and incorporate THOSE results as a sort of averaging process. Obviously, the results are HUGELY affected by what studies are chosen. Also, note that this study itself doesn't actually involve any original research.

Suggesting that is the same as actually creating quality clinical analysis is just plain ridiculous.

?? You really need to explain what you mean when you say this.

I have NO idea what all this is about.

Did you think I was opposed to greenhouses or something??