Pesticides, Continued: A New Category of Poisons May Be Causing Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

A new category of insecticides, meant to kill bugs that threaten food crops, may also be responsible for the colony collapse disorder that is wiping out our bee population, thereby threatening food crops.

The pesticides are called neonicotinoids, and are derived from nicotine. A front page story in today’s New York Times reports that the winter die-off of bees was far worse than expected, with some beekeepers losing 80 percent of their bees. Here’s what the Times says:

“… many beekeepers suspect the biggest culprit is the growing soup of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that are used to control pests.

“While each substance has been certified, there has been less study of their combined effects. Nor, many critics say, have scientists sufficiently studied the impact of neonicotinoids, the nicotine-derived pesticide that European regulators implicate in bee deaths.

“The explosive growth of neonicotinoids since 2005 has roughly tracked rising bee deaths.

“Neonics, as farmers call them, are applied in smaller doses than older pesticides. They are systemic pesticides, often embedded in seeds so that the plant itself carries the chemical that kills insects that feed on it.

Older pesticides could kill bees and other beneficial insects. But while they quickly degraded — often in a matter of days — neonicotinoids persist for weeks and even months. Beekeepers worry that bees carry a summer’s worth of contaminated pollen to hives, where ensuing generations dine on a steady dose of pesticide that, eaten once or twice, might not be dangerous.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture are investigating. — Tom Andersen, director of communications and community outreach.