Bee die-off perplexes scientists

[82_28]

Not saying there's any connection, but for topic's sake there's this super tear rending documentary of honey bees getting decimated by hornets:



After you watch it, you want to begin assassinating hornets and hug bees.

[NeonLX]

Hornets. I really, REALLY hate those blighters. I don't go out of my way to kill anything on this planet--except hornets. I've been nailed too many times by the b@st@rds and I think they're despicable.

They seem to be living instruments of the devil.

F*ckers.

[smoking since 1879]

Very good article here..

The weak condition of bee colonies in North America
http://www.beebehavior.com/weak_state_bee_colonies.php

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Albert Einstein

The number of managed colonies dropped from 5.9 million in 1947 to 2.4 million in 2005. While scientists have identified potentials causes of this year’s colony decline, there is no evidence that a single major problem has led to this long-term decrease. However, my experimental observation has shown that bees’ immune systems have been weakened significantly due to a number of factors. Once their immune systems have been compromised, colonies are less capable of overcoming such problems as mites, extremely cold weather, solar activity or diseases and viruses (as is probably the case with the Colony Collapse Disorder). The overall set of issues that has had a negative impact of bee immune systems can be divided into two groups: those that directly depend on bee management techniques, and those that do not. As such, the purpose of this article is to consider how beekeepers can help strengthen the immune systems of colonies in order to prepare them to combat a plethora of negative factors that the colonies will face continuously.

[Nordic]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22292570

Assessment of the environmental exposure of honeybees to particulate matter containing neonicotinoid insecticides coming from corn coated seeds.

Tapparo A, Marton D, Giorio C, Zanella A, Soldà L, Marzaro M, Vivan L, Girolami V.
Source
Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Università degli Studi di Padova , via Marzolo 1, 35131, Padova, Italy.
Abstract

Since seed coating with neonicotinoid insecticides was introduced in the late 1990s, European beekeepers have reported severe colony losses in the period of corn sowing (spring). As a consequence, seed-coating neonicotinoid insecticides that are used worldwide on corn crops have been blamed for honeybee decline. In view of the currently increasing crop production, and also of corn as a renewable energy source, the correct use of these insecticides within sustainable agriculture is a cause of concern. In this paper, a probable-but so far underestimated-route of environmental exposure of honeybees to and intoxication with neonicotinoid insecticides, namely, the atmospheric emission of particulate matter containing the insecticide by drilling machines, has been quantitatively studied. Using optimized analytical procedures, quantitative measurements of both the emitted particulate and the consequent direct contamination of single bees approaching the drilling machine during the foraging activity have been determined. Experimental results show that the environmental release of particles containing neonicotinoids can produce high exposure levels for bees, with lethal effects compatible with colony losses phenomena observed by beekeepers.

So. It's pesticides. What a surprise!

[hanshan]

...

Three studies all implicating the pesticides called neonicotinoids.
( & they planted 140 million acres in 2010 w/ these treated seeds - yikes)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/04/new-studies-colony-collapse-disorder.html?printable=true&currentPage=all

April 20, 2012

Silent Hives

Posted by Elizabeth Kolbert

In 2006, when beekeepers began to report that their hives were suffering from a mysterious affliction, a wide variety of theories were offered to explain what was going on. The bees were suffering from a virus, or a fungus, or a mite, or from stress, or, according to one much publicized hypothesis, they were being addled by cell-phone signals. (Supposedly the transmissions interfered with the bees’ navigational abilities.)

The Pennsylvania beekeeper Dave Hackenberg was one of the first to draw attention to the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder, or C.C.D., and, as a result, he became a celebrity, at least in apian circles. I interviewed Hackenberg in the spring of 2007, and he told me he didn’t believe that the culprit was a virus or a fungus or stress. Instead, he blamed a new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Now it looks like Hackenberg was onto something.

Over the last few weeks, several new studies have come out linking neonicotinoids to bee decline. As it happens, the studies are appearing just as “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson’s seminal study of the effect of pesticides on wildlife, is about to turn fifty: the work was first published as a three-part series in The New Yorker, in June, 1962. It’s hard to avoid the sense that we have all been here before, and that lessons were incompletely learned the first time around.

In the first of the new studies, published online in the journal Science, British scientists raised bumblebees on a diet of pollen, some of which had been treated with a widely used neonicotinoid called imidacloprid. Those colonies that had received the treated pollen suffered significantly reduced growth rates and produced dramatically fewer new queens. In the second, also published in Science, French researchers equipped honeybees with tiny radio-frequency tags. They fed some of the bees sucrose treated with thiamethoxan, another commonly used neonicotinoid. Then they let the bees loose to go foraging. The bees that had been exposed to thiamethoxan were much less likely to return to their hives. “We were quite surprised by the magnitude of the effect,” said one of the study’s authors, Mickaël Henry, of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research in Avignon.

In a third study, to be published soon in the Bulletin of Insectology, seemingly healthy honey colonies were fed high-fructose corn syrup that had been treated with imidacloprid. Within six months, fifteen out of the sixteen hives that had been given the treated syrup were dead. In commercial beekeeping operations, bees are routinely fed corn syrup, and corn is routinely treated with neonicotinoids.

“I believe one reason that commercial beekeepers are experiencing the most severe Colony Collapse Disorder is because of the link between high-fructose corn syrup and neonicotinoids,” said the lead author of the study, Chensheng Lu, a professor at Harvard. (Bayer CropScience, one of the world’s largest producers of neonicotinoids, has disputed Lu’s paper, as well as the other two.)

After the results of Lu’s study were reported, I reached Hackenberg on his cell phone. He was in Pennsylvania, where his bees were pollinating apple trees, and he was preparing to take them up to Maine to pollinate blueberries. He told me that because of the freakishly warm weather in the Northeast last month everything was flowering two to three weeks earlier than normal.

“This more or less proves what we thought all along,” Hackenberg said of the three recent studies. He pointed me to a lawsuit that several beekeeping organizations filed in March against the Environmental Protection Agency. It charges that the E.P.A. violated its own rules by allowing clothianidin—yet another neonicotinoid—to be widely used despite the fact that the field studies the agency had ordered on the effects of the pesticide had never been performed. In a leaked memo from 2010, two E.P.A. staff members raised concerns about allowing mustard and cotton seed to be treated with clothianidin, noting that the field tests that had been completed had been deemed to be inadequate.

“I think we’ve got a toxic mess,” Hackenberg told me. “I know we do.”

Neonicotinoids, which were introduced in the nineteen-nineties, are neurotoxins that, as the name suggests, chemically resemble nicotine. They’re what are known as systemic pesticides: seeds are treated with the chemicals, which then are taken up by the vascular systems of the growing plants. According to the Pesticide Action Network, at least a hundred and forty million acres were planted with neonicotinoid-treated seeds in 2010. This is an area larger than California and Florida combined.

In “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson wrote of systemic pesticides with particularly vivid horror:

The world of systemic insecticides is a weird world, surpassing the imaginings of the brothers Grimm. It is a world where the enchanted forest of the fairy tales has become a poisonous forest. It is a world where a flea bites a dog and dies…where a bee may carry poisonous nectar back to its hive and presently produce poisonous honey.
“The hives were dead silent,” Lu, the author or the corn-syrup study, said of the boxes treated with imidacloprid. “I kind of ask myself: Is this the repeat of Silent Spring? What else do we need to prove that it’s the pesticides causing Colony Collapse Disorder?”

Photograph by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

...

[Hunter]

Read somewhere recently in passing that Monsanto bought the 3 major companies doing all those studies in to the bee die off, kind of like Church of Scientology buying the Cult Awareness Network. Sickening if this is true.

[Nordic]

Yeah I was gonna look that up and post that when I had a chance. Sickening indeed. But everything Monsanto does is -- literally -- sickening.

They are, in fact, a threat to the human race and life on earth. They need to be dealt with accordingly. Occupy Monsanto, or something! They are a bigger threat to us than any of the supposed entities for which we pay billions in military crap to "defend" ourselves.

Monsanto is literally fighting against our "way of life" -- and they are therefore a mortal enemy of us all.

And what do we do about it? Complain. That's about it.

EDIT: Okay, it's later now. Here it is:

http://naturalsociety.com/monsanto-bee- ... arch-firm/

Blamed for Bee Collapse, Monsanto Buys Leading Bee Research Firm

Monsanto, the massive biotechnology company being blamed for contributing to the dwindling bee population, has bought up one of the leading bee collapse research organizations. Recently banned from Poland with one of the primary reasons being that the company’s genetically modified corn may be devastating the dying bee population, it is evident that Monsanto is under serious fire for their role in the downfall of the vital insects. It is therefore quite apparent why Monsanto bought one of the largest bee research firms on the planet.



It can be found in public company reports hosted on mainstream media that Monsanto scooped up the Beeologics firm back in September 2011. During this time the correlation between Monsanto’s GM crops and the bee decline was not explored in the mainstream, and in fact it was hardly touched upon until Polish officials addressed the serious concern amid the monumental ban. Owning a major organization that focuses heavily on the bee collapse and is recognized by the USDA for their mission statement of “restoring bee health and protecting the future of insect pollination” could be very advantageous for Monsanto.

In fact, Beelogics’ company information states that the primary goal of the firm is to study the very collapse disorder that is thought to be a result — at least in part — of Monsanto’s own creations. Their website states:

While its primary goal is to control the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) infection crises, Beeologics’ mission is to become the guardian of bee health worldwide.

What’s more, Beelogics is recognized by the USDA, the USDA-ARS, the media, and ‘leading entomologists’ worldwide. The USDA, of course, has a great relationship with Monsanto. The government agency has gone to great lengths to ensure that Monsanto’s financial gains continue to soar, going as far as to give the company special speed approval for their newest genetically engineered seed varieties. It turns out that Monsanto was not getting quick enough approval for their crops, which have been linked to severe organ damage and other significant health concerns.

Steve Censky, chief executive officer of the American Soybean Association, states it quite plainly. It was a move to help Monsanto and other biotechnology giants squash competition and make profits. After all, who cares about public health?

“It is a concern from a competition standpoint,” Censky said in a telephone interview.

It appears that when Monsanto cannot answer for their environmental devastation, they buy up a company that may potentially be their ‘experts’ in denying any such link between their crops and the bee decline.

[Luther Blissett]

Does anyone know if there's any truth to this? The original piece is from May of this year, but my urban farming Occupy group is discussing it now.

Government tyranny: Illinois Department of Agriculture secretly destroys beekeeper’s bees and 15 years of research proving Monsanto’s Roundup kills bees.

Full Article: An Illinois beekeeper with more than a decade’s worth of expertise about how to successfully raise organic, chemical-free bees is the latest victim of flagrant government tyranny. According to the Prairie Advocate, Terrence “Terry” Ingram of Apple River, Ill., owner of Apple Creek Apiaries, recently had his bees and beehives stolen from him by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (ID of A), as well as more than 15 years’ worth of research proving Monsanto’s Roundup to be the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) destroyed.

It began last summer when Ingram, who teaches children about natural beekeeping, gave a sample of his honeycomb to IDofA inspector Susan Kivikko (http://www.agr.state.il.us/programs/bee ... ctors.html) at a beekeeper’s picnic. Ingram explained that his bees would not touch the comb, and asked Kivikko if it could be tested for chemical contamination.

Kivikko told him that IDofA does not test for chemicals, presumably because its policy is to actively promote them, and instead took the comb and had it tested for “foulbrood,” a disease that Ingram says is greatly overblown. When the test allegedly came back positive, Kivikko proceeded to get the ball rolling on a witch hunt that would eventually lead to the illegal seizure and destruction of Ingram’s personal property.

Not only did Kivikko, as well as her colleague Eleanor Balson and superior Steven D. Chard, break the law by trespassing Ingram’s property on numerous occasions without a warrant, but they also committed numerous crimes by stealing his hives and equipment and destroying pertinent evidence before a hearing, which Ingram believes may have ultimately been rooted in a deliberate conspiracy by the state to hide the truth about Roundup, and subsequently steal his most vibrant bees.

Of particular interest was Ingram’s extensive research on Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, which began several years ago when hundreds of Ingram’s hives had died. He later determined that Roundup sprayings near his property were to blame, which prompted him to actively research the subject and closely monitor his hives in conjunction with this research from that point onward.

What he gathered, and subsequently taught to others, was concrete evidence that Roundup kills bees. He also used this information and his many years of experience to develop and refine ways of growing strong, chemical-free bees in spite of Roundup sprayings, a move that apparently upset ID of A, which operates primarily to serve the interests of chemical companies rather than the interests of the people.

“Is Illinois becoming a police state, where citizens do not have rights?” asked Ingram, who has been deliberately denied his rights, to the Prairie Advocate. “Knowing that Monsanto and the Department of Agriculture are in bed together, one has to wonder if Monsanto was behind the theft to ruin my research that may prove Roundup was, and is, killing honeybees.”

Sources for this article include:

Be sure to read the full Prairie Advocate story about Terry Ingram, which includes a video interview, here:
http://www.pacc-news.com/5-2-12/heart_ingram5_2_12.html
http://www.agr.state.il.us/programs/bee ... ctors.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/035920_beeke ... z1vXkaDlnx

[justdrew]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/oct/22/bees-pesticides



Here we go again. Yet more research has been published in the world's most prestigious, peer-reviewed journals showing that extremely widely-used pesticides have very damaging effects on bees, yet the only response from the government is inaction.

The new paper, published in Nature, shows that bumblebees foraging naturally and exposed to realistic doses of pesticides suffer in two key ways. First they are about twice as likely to die: two-thirds of the bees are lost when exposed to two pesticides compared to only a third when not exposed. Second, the exposed bees are half as successful in gathering food.

The new results reveal, again, shameful failings in the regulatory regime. The ecotoxicology tests currently required only look at honey bees. Yet bumblebees, the subject of the new research, are just as important in providing the pollination that creates much of the food we eat. Tomatoes, for example, rely on bumblebees. Furthermore, bumblebees are very different, bigger in size individually, but living in colonies of just dozens, compared to the tens of thousands in honey bee colonies.

Another failing is that current tests require just 96 hours of exposure, but the new research only saw the damaging effect after three weeks. "If we had done our study for just 96 hours, our conclusions would have been very different," says Nigel Raine, at Royal Holloway, University of London, one of the research team.

Yet another failing is that pesticides are only tested individually, not in the combination bees are exposed to in reality. The new work clearly shows a damaging cumulative effect from a combination of just two pesticides.

The reaction from pesticide manufacturers is the same as ever: the experiments are "unrealistic". Raine rejects this: "It is hard to see what you could do better." I think he has a point. The only truly "realistic" experiment would have no intervention at all, meaning you could collect no data. The manufacturers are making the perfect the enemy of the good. They also claim their own data shows there are no harmful effects, yet have not published it.

The manufacturers do have some scientists supporting their view that there is too little evidence of harm to act. James Cresswell, an ecotoxicologist at the University of Exeter, said:" It certainly wouldn't be fair to say that this research spells doom for wild bees."

Creswell also criticised research published the journal Science in March, which showed that honeybees consuming one pesticide suffered an 85% loss in the number of queens their nests produced. Subsequently, Creswell was granted £136,000 by pesticide manufacturer Syngenta to fund a research post. Cresswell said there was no connection between the two. "I consider myself an impartial scientist," he told me, adding he had not spoken to Syngenta until after his criticism was sent to Science.

The UK government has already reviewed some of the evidence of the serious harm pesticides cause to bees but, unlike other countries, chose to do nothing. But parliament is now investigating the issue, with the call for evidence open until 2 November.

"Ministers may want to start doing their homework on pesticide policy and biodiversity, because we will be calling them before parliament to answer questions," said Joan Walley MP, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, when announcing the enquiry. "In particular, we will be scrutinising the evidence behind the government's decision not to revise pesticide regulations or follow other European countries in temporarily suspending the use of insecticides linked to bee decline."

The questions are mounting: this latest research shows the need for answers is becoming ever more urgent.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

Bee-harming pesticides escape European ban
European commission proposal to suspend the use of neonicotinoids fails to gain backing of UK and Germany
Damian Carrington
Friday 15 March 2013 12.37 GMT

Rally calling on the EU to ban the use of bee poisons and other pesticides in Brussels
A member of NGO Avaaz holds a placard next to a giant inflatable bee during a demonstration calling on the EU to adopt a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides. Photograph: Eric Vidal/Reuters

The world's most widely used insecticides, linked to serious harm in bees, will not be banned across Europe. The European commission proposed a two-year suspension after the European Food Safety Authority deemed the use of the neonicotinoids an unacceptable risk, but major nations – including UK and Germany – failed to back the plan in a vote on Friday.

The result leaves environmental campaigners, scientists and some politicians bitterly disappointed. "Britain and Germany have caved in to the industry lobby and refused to ban bee-killing pesticides," said Iain Keith, at campaign group Avaaz. "Today's vote flies in the face of science and public opinion and maintains the disastrous chemical armageddon on bees, which are critical for the future of our food." He said Avaaz and other groups would now consider a legal challenge.

The chemical companies that dominate the billion-dollar neonicotinoid market, Bayer and Syngenta, will be relieved, as will the UK government. Ministers had argued that more scientific evidence was needed and that a ban could have caused disproportionate damage to food production.

Conservationists argued that even greater harm results from the loss of bees and the vital pollination service they provide. Almost three-quarters of the UK public backed the proposed ban, according to a poll released on Wednesday, and Avaaz had amassed 2.5m signatures across Europe in support.

EC officials said: "The commission takes note of the member states' response to its proposal but remains committed to ambitious and proportionate legislative measures."

Suspensions have previously been put in place in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia, but the EC proposal would have applied across all 27 member states. Friday's vote by member states' experts on the standing committee on the food chain and animal health failed to reach the required majority either in favour or against the suspension.

About three-quarters of global food crops rely on bees and other insects to fertilise their flowers, and so the decline of honeybee colonies due to disease, habitat loss and pesticide harm has prompted serious concern.

A series of high-profile scientific studies in the last year has increasingly linked neonicotinoids to harmful effects in bees, including huge losses in the number of queens produced, and big increases in "disappeared" bees – those that fail to return from foraging trips.

The UK's environment secretary, Owen Paterson, faced criticism from one of his Conservative predecessors. Lord Deben, who as John Gummer was environment secretary, said: "If ever there were an issue where the precautionary principle ought to guide our actions, it is in the use of neonicotinoids. Bees are too important to our crops to continue to take this risk."

Paterson had said in February: "I have asked the EC to wait for the results of our field trials, rather than rushing to a decision." However, the results were not available at Friday's meeting because the field trials have been seriously compromised by contamination from neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used insecticide. Prof Ian Boyd, Defra's chief scientist, said: "At the control site, there were residues of neonicotinoids in pollen and nectar."

Green MEPs across Europe had written to every nation's environment minister, including Paterson. "By spreading uncertainty via apparently 'science-based' arguments, the agrochemical companies are acting as 'merchants of doubt' and are therefore blocking effective action by European policymakers," said the letter.

The EC proposal was to ban the use of three neonicotinoids from use on corn, oil seed rape, apples, carrots, strawberries and many other flowering crops across the continent for two years, after which the situation would have been reviewed.

Evidence submitted to an ongoing parliamentary inquiry in the UK cites a long list of failings in the existing regulation of neonicotinoids. Currently, only the effects on honeybees are considered, despite 90% of pollination being performed by different species, such as solitary or bumblebees, hoverflies, butterflies, moths and others. Another failing is that the regime was set up for pesticide sprays, not systemic chemicals like neonicotinoids that are used to treat seeds and then spread through the growing plant.

Even the National Farmers Union, which argues that there is no need for change, admitted: "It is very well-known that the current pesticide risk assessment systems for bees were not developed to assess systemic pesticides."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ropean-ban

[seemslikeadream]

US government sued over use of pesticides linked to bee harm
Beekeepers, conservation and food campaigners accuse Environmental Protection Agency of failing to protect the insects

Damian Carrington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 March 2013 09.38 EDT
Jump to comments (36)

Honeybees swarming on a comb in a beehive. A coalition of beekeepers, conservation and food campaigners is suing the US government over the use of neonicotinoids. Photograph: Rex Features
The US government is being sued by a coalition of beekeepers, conservation and food campaigners over pesticides linked to serious harm in bees.

The lawsuit accuses the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of failing to protect the insects – which pollinate three-quarters of all food crops – from nerve agents that it says should be suspended from use. Neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used insecticides, are also facing the prospect of suspension in the European Union, after the health commissioner pledged to press on with the proposed ban despite opposition from the UK and Germany.

"We have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that the EPA needs to protect bees," said Peter Jenkins, an attorney at the Centre for Food Safety who is representing the coalition. "The agency has refused, so we've been compelled to sue."

"America's beekeepers cannot survive for long with the toxic environment EPA has supported," said Steve Ellis, a Minnesota and California beekeeper and one of the plaintiffs who filed the suit at the federal district court. "Bee-toxic pesticides in dozens of widely used products, on top of many other stresses our industry faces, are killing our bees."

The EPA declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said in a statement: "We are working aggressively to protect bees and other pollinators from pesticide risks through regulatory, voluntary and research programmes. Specifically, the EPA is accelerating the schedule for registration review of the neonicotinoid pesticides because of uncertainties about them and their potential effects on bees." However, even the accelerated review will not be completed before 2018.

The pesticides named in the lawsuits are clothianidin, manufactured by Bayer, and thiamethoxam, made by Syngenta. Neither company chose to comment on the lawsuit, but industry group Crop Life America (CLA) is representing some of the companies.

"The CLA fully supports and trusts the rigour of EPA's review process for crop protection products, including neonicotinoids," said Ray McAllister, senior director of regulatory affairs at CLA. "This class of product represents an important component of modern agriculture that helps farmers protect their crops. Neonicotinoids are thoroughly tested and monitored for potential risks to the environment and various beneficial species, including honeybees."

A series of high-profile scientific studies in the last year have increasingly linked neonicotinoids to harmful effects in bees, including huge losses in the number of queens produced, and big increases in "disappeared" bees that fail to return from foraging trips. Disease and habitat loss are also thought to be factors in the recent declines in populations of bees and other pollinators.

A proposal to suspend the use of three neonicotinoids across the EU ended in a hung vote on 15 March. But Tonio Borg, the European commissioner for health and consumer policy, said this week he would take the proposal to appeal. If member states maintained their positions, the insecticides would be suspended. "The health of our bees is of paramount importance," said Borg. "We have a duty to take proportionate yet decisive action to protect them wherever appropriate."

The lawsuit against the EPA argues that, via "conditional registrations", the regulator rushed the neonicotinoids into the market without sufficient examination and since that time has failed to take account of new information. "Pesticide manufacturers use conditional registrations to rush bee-toxic products to market, with little public oversight," said Paul Towers, at Pesticide Action Network, part of the coalition.

The action by the coalition, which also includes the Sierra Club and the Centre for Environmental Health, follows an emergency petition in March 2012 which demanded the EPA suspend the use of clothianidin but was not acted upon. Also issued this week was a report from the American Bird Conservancy, which said the "EPA risk assessments have greatly underestimated [the risk to birds], using scientifically unsound, outdated methodology."

[beeline]

http://www.eutimes.net/2013/05/russia-warns-obama-global-war-over-bee-apocalypse-coming-soon/


Russia Warns Obama: Global War Over “Bee Apocalypse” Coming Soon

The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war.

According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three hours to even meet with Kerry, who had traveled to Moscow on a scheduled diplomatic mission, but then relented so as to not cause an even greater rift between these two nations.

At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, are destroying our planets bee population, and which if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.

So grave has this situation become, the MNRE reports, the full European Commission (EC) this past week instituted a two-year precautionary ban (set to begin on 1 December 2013) on these “bee killing” pesticides following the lead of Switzerland, France, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine, all of whom had previously banned these most dangerous of genetically altered organisms from being used on the continent.

Two of the most feared neonicotinoids being banned are Actara and Cruiser made by the Swiss global bio-tech seed and pesticide giant Syngenta AG which employs over 26,000 people in over 90 countries and ranks third in total global sales in the commercial agricultural seeds market.

Important to note, this report says, is that Syngenta, along with bio-tech giants Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and DuPont, now control nearly 100% of the global market for genetically modified pesticides, plants and seeds.

Also to note about Syngenta, this report continues, is that in 2012 it was criminally charged in Germany for concealing the fact that its genetically modified corn killed cattle, and settled a class-action lawsuit in the US for $105 million after it was discovered they had contaminated the drinking supply of some 52 million Americans in more than 2,000 water districts with its “gender-bending” herbicide Atrazine.

To how staggeringly frightful this situation is, the MNRE says, can be seen in the report issued this past March by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) wherein they warned our whole planet is in danger, and as we can, in part, read:

“As part of a study on impacts from the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, nicotine-like chemicals called neonicotinoids, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has called for a ban on their use as seed treatments and for the suspension of all applications pending an independent review of the products’ effects on birds, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife.

“It is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates raise significant environmental concerns,” said Cynthia Palmer, co-author of the report and Pesticides Program Manager for ABC, one of the nation’s leading bird conservation organizations.

ABC commissioned world renowned environmental toxicologist Dr. Pierre Mineau to conduct the research. The 100-page report, “The Impact of the Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds,” reviews 200 studies on neonicotinoids including industry research obtained through the US Freedom of Information Act. The report evaluates the toxicological risk to birds and aquatic systems and includes extensive comparisons with the older pesticides that the neonicotinoids have replaced. The assessment concludes that the neonicotinoids are lethal to birds and to the aquatic systems on which they depend.

“A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a songbird,” Palmer said. “Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola treated with the oldest neonicotinoid — called imidacloprid — can fatally poison a bird. And as little as 1/10th of a neonicotinoid-coated corn seed per day during egg-laying season is all that is needed to affect reproduction.”

The new report concludes that neonicotinoid contamination levels in both surface- and ground water in the United States and around the world are already beyond the threshold found to kill many aquatic invertebrates.”

Quickly following this damning report, the MRNE says, a large group of group of American beekeepers and environmentalists sued the Obama regime over the continued use of these neonicotinoids stating: “We are taking the EPA to court for its failure to protect bees from pesticides. Despite our best efforts to warn the agency about the problems posed by neonicotinoids, the EPA continued to ignore the clear warning signs of an agricultural system in trouble.”

And to how bad the world’s agricultural system has really become due to these genetically modified plants, pesticides and seeds, this report continues, can be seen by the EC’s proposal this past week, following their ban on neonicotinoids, in which they plan to criminalize nearly all seeds and plants not registered with the European Union, and as we can, in part, read:

“Europe is rushing towards the good ol days circa 1939, 40… A new law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to “grow, reproduce or trade” any vegetable seeds that have not been “tested, approved and accepted” by a new EU bureaucracy named the “EU Plant Variety Agency.”

It’s called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.”

This MRNE report points out that even though this EC action may appear draconian, it is nevertheless necessary in order to purge the continent from continued contamination of these genetically bred “seed monstrosities.”

Most perplexing in all of this, the MRNE says, and which led to Putin’s anger at the US, has been the Obama regimes efforts to protect pesticide-producer profits over the catastrophic damaging being done to the environment, and as the Guardian News Service detailed in their 2 May article titled “US rejects EU claim of insecticide as prime reason for bee colony collapse” and which, in part, says:

“The European Union voted this week for a two-year ban on a class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, that has been associated with the bees’ collapse. The US government report, in contrast, found multiple causes for the collapse of the honeybees.”

To the “truer” reason for the Obama regimes protection of these bio-tech giants destroying our world, the MRNE says, can be viewed in the report titled “How did Barack Obama become Monsanto’s man in Washington?” and which, in part, says:

“After his victory in the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA: At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center. As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.”

Even worse, after Russia suspended the import and use of an Monsanto genetically modified corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage this past September, the Russia Today News Service reported on the Obama regimes response:

“The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week – including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.

The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.

The provision, also decried as a “biotech rider,” should have gone through the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.”

On 26 March, Obama quietly signed this “Monsanto Protection Act” into law thus ensuring the American people have no recourse against this bio-tech giant as they fall ill by the tens of millions, and many millions will surely end up dying in what this MRNE report calls the greatest agricultural apocalypse in human history as over 90% of feral (wild) bee population in the US has already died out, and up to 80% of domestic bees have died out too.

[beeline]

http://www.pacc-news.com/5-2-12/heart_ingram5_2_12.html


Heart of the Matter – Ingram Gets His Day In Court - Three Weeks Late

Commentary By Tom Kocal | Prairie Advocate News



APRIL 27, 2012, APPLE RIVER, IL – The little town of Apple River in northeast Jo Daviess County, Illinois is the hometown of a big man - Terrence Ingram. Though not big in a physical sense, when it comes to saving the American Bald Eagle, there is hardly anyone in the United States held in higher regard than Ingram. His years of documented research and expertise regarding eagles and the work of the Eagle Nature Foundation, founded by Ingram, is in great part responsible for the bald eagle being removed from the “Threatened Species List “ in the United States.

Unfortunately, it was not his knowledge of eagles that the Illinois Department of Agriculture sought when they paid an unannounced visit to his home in March. It was his bees.

In the March 21, 2012 issue, The Prairie Advocate published a news release from Ingram that reported the theft of $5000 of his bees and bee hives on March 14. Ingram said that before they had left for their granddaughter’s wedding in Texas, the hives had been cleaned and made ready for new spring swarms.

I received a phone call from an area County Farm Bureau manager about the article, asking how I had come across the information. He knew that the equipment was not stolen, but “destroyed” by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDofA). The hives were infected with foulbrood, and Ingram was doing nothing about it.

It was not until during a hearing at the IDofA in Springfield on April 4th that Ingram found out who “the culprit” was. The hearing, held 3 weeks after the IDofA removed most of his bees and hives from his property, was to determine whether or not Ingram had American Foulbrood in his hives.

There are 2 questions that Ingram wants answered:

1) Did the IDofA, a state agency, have the right to enter Ingram’s property and confiscate a suspected “nuisance,” before Ingram had his day in court?

2) Where are his bees? The “evidence” has disappeared, and the IDofA refuses to tell Ingram where they are, before, during, and after the hearing.

“I have been keeping bees for 58 years,” Ingram said during an interview at his home and apiary. “I am not a newcomer to beekeeping, and I definitely know what I am doing. I have been teaching beginning beekeeping classes for 40 years. In fact, it was my recommendation to some of my students who wanted to keep getting together to form a club. Today, the Stateline Beekeepers Association is one of the largest in the state.”
A timeline of events

In the summer of 2011, at a beekeepers picnic in July, Ingram gave Susan Kivikko, the new local bee inspector for the IDofA, a frame of comb that the bees would have nothing to do with. Ingram wanted to know what chemicals were in it, but Kivikko informed him that the IDofA did not have the funds to test for chemicals, just funds to test for foulbrood.

Following the Illinois Bees and Apiaries Act (510 ILCS 20/1 et seq.), Ingram received an IDofA “Apiary Inspection Site Report” in November that said on Sunday, October 23, 2011; Inspector Susan Kivikko examined his apiary.

In the report, Kivikko commented that “foulbrood [was] present - Colonies weak.” She said that out of 19 colonies, 15 were examined and 15 samples of suspected foulbrood were gathered. 11 were “dead.”

Next, Ingram received a “Disease Notice” dated November 9, 2011, and a copy of the “Bee Disease Diagnosis” submitted by Kivikko to the USDA Bee research Laboratory in Maryland, received at the lab 10/27/11, and diagnosed 11/01/11. The notice stated that yes, Ingram’s apiary was infected with foulbrood, and that treatment by burning is ordered in accordance with Sec. 60.50(b) of the Bees and Apiaries Act.

Going back to the summer beekeepers picnic in July, in a phone call to Kivikko on Monday, April 30, she confirmed that yes, Ingram had asked her to look at a frame that his bees ignored, and asked her to test it for chemicals. She did have the comb tested for foulbrood, and yes, the comb did test positive. Ingram did not receive an Apiary Inspection Site Report, since he gave the frame to Kivikko at a picnic. But he did not receive a Disease Notice or Bee Disease Diagnosis from that sample.

“All combs, frames, honey and bees must be destroyed by burning . . . Hive bodies, supers, bottom boards, inner and outer covers may be salvaged by sanitizing with a scorching flame, such as a propane torch.” The notice was signed by Kivikko, and said Ingram must comply with the order by November 25, 2011.

“They gave me 10 days to destroy it,” said Ingram. “Destroy what? She had identified the hives by their numbers. That’s how beekeepers keep records, that’s the first thing we do is number the hives. Well, the end of October came, and it was still warm in early November, so I painted all of my equipment, so it would be ready for my beginning beekeeping class. How could I know what numbers they were that she was referring to? Under oath, she said she could see the numbers under the paint. She must have better eyes than me.” (Note: this reporter could not see the numbers)

The diagnosis from the USDA lab stated that “Hives #9, 11 (smear). 11 (comb), 13, 13B, 15, 15B, 18, 19, 22, 28, 29, Dead, Comb (no label), and 12 - American Foulbrood (Paenibacillus larvae). Hives #4 and 28 - No disease was found.

“Additionally, positive American foulbrood samples #9, 11 (smear), 15, 22, and 29 were cultured and checked for sensitivity to Terramycin and Tylan. The samples were found to be susceptible to both antibiotics.”

IDofA allegedly sent another Site Report to Ingram that said on Thursday, December 8, 2011, Kivikko again visited the apiary. (Ingram said he never received it, but was presented a copy at the April 4, 2012 hearing). Kivikko’s report said that the status of the “infected colonies” was unchanged. It was noted that she had taken photos during her observations.

On January 3, 2012, Ingram’s wife, Nancy, signed a return receipt request for a Certified Letter sent by the IDofA Apiary Inspection Supervisor Steven D. Chard on December 30, 2011. The letter stated that “During a routine inspection of your honeybee colonies by . . . Inspectors Susan Kivikko and Eleanor Balson on October 23, 2011, the bacterial disease ‘American Foulbrood’ was detected in a number of colonies located behind your house . . . Presence of the disease in some of your colonies was confirmed via test results from the USDA Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland that analyzed samples collected from your apiary . . . Subsequently, in accordance with the . . . Act, an official disease notice was issued to you for destroying the infected colonies. On a return trip to your apiary [Dec. 8] to verify that you had complied with the instructions specified by the disease notice, Ms. Kivikko found that the infected colonies had in fact not been destroyed.”

The letter continued with a full description of the proper procedure to “abate the nuisance” as per the above Act. According to the definitions in the Act, “Abate” means the destruction or disinfection of bees, colonies, or items of bee equipment by burning or by treatment specified by the Department.

In the letter, Ingram was “required to abate the nuisance by burning all bees, combs, frames and honey in a pit at least 18 inches deep and then covering the ashes with at least 6 inches of soil. You are to carry out this procedure within 10 days from the date of this letter [Jan. 9, 2012] and Ms. Kivikko will visit your apiary to ensure that the subject colonies have been destroyed. Evidence of the burning pit will confirm that you have complied with this notice.”

This requirement is noticeably different than the requirement stated in the Nov. 9 Disease Notice.

Chard advised in the letter that failure on the part of Ingram to follow the instructions “can result in the Department abating the nuisance and charging you for associated costs incurred or conducting an administrative hearing on this matter . . . ” Chard also confirmed that American foulbrood “is a deadly disease that can easily spread to other honeybee colonies . . .”

Two more Apiary Inspection Site Reports were produced by IDofA, stating that on Tuesday, Jan. 10 and Thursday, Jan. 19, Kivikko had revisited the apiary to check on Ingram’s compliance of previous notifications.

A hearing was set for April 4, a full 3 weeks after the events of March 14, when the IDofA confiscated the bees.

Yet, another part of the statute states, “No person shall transport a colony of bees or items of used bee equipment between counties within this State without a permit or compliance agreement which shall be issued based upon an inspection certificate from the Department. (Source: P.A. 88-138.)

“No person” - except that it’s OK for the IDofA to transport apiary equipment and bees intrastate - especially potentially contaminated equipment and bees?

Of course. They have a permit! This double standard makes no sense, especially if the disease is as contagious as they claim.
Statutes and due process

That 3-week delay is the most disturbing aspect of these incidents, Ingram said.

“The State Department of Agriculture came in and inspected our hives 4 times, 3 times when we were not home, and without due process. I have never received or found a Search Warrant. I own four businesses. I am here all the time. Yet they took our bees and hives when we were not home. What did they do, sit up on the hill and watch until we left? We had not yet had our day in court to prove that our hives did not have foulbrood!”

Steve Chard, IDofA Apiary Division Supervisor, was asked why the hearing took place 3 weeks after the abatement on March 14. Chard stated that he was more than happy to answer any questions, but had to wait until the determination of the hearing was made, which should be by the middle of next week. Chard said Ingram would receive a copy as well. Because the determination of the legal proceeding had not been made, the IDofA attorneys instructed him not to comment at this time.

“The only time I was here during any of these inspections was when it was 3 degrees out,” the January 19 visit. “What she (Kivikko) was doing in the yard, I don’t know. When she saw me coming down, she very quickly came up and met me before I could get down there and see what they were doing. I have no idea what they were planning to do, or what they did.”

Ingram said he knew that the inspectors could not tell what they were seeing and had warned the Department that if any of them came back it would be considered a criminal trespass. “But they came back when I was not home, stole my hives and ruined 15 years of research.”

When asked about the March 14 incident, Jo Daviess County Sheriff Kevin Turner said he was informed by the Asst. State’s Attorney by email that yes, the IDofA has the right to “abate the nuisance,” as stated above.

Sheriff Turner said that he had been contacted by Supervisor Chard before the events of March 14 took place. He confirmed that a Sheriff’s Deputy was at the scene with the representative from IDofA for observation only, but that there was not a search warrant issued.

Sheriff Turner was asked to comment on the fact that if there was a nuisance, and as Ingram said, the IDofA did confiscate and not destroy his hives, where is the evidence? The evidence is gone. Is that proper procedure?

Turner stated that, “We do not destroy evidence,” but did not want to comment about the procedure, or any other observations about the incident.

In October, “She (Kivikko) cut out a section of comb and sent it to a lab in Maryland, that detected foulbrood,” Ingram said. Ingram explained that she had cut out samples, up to 6x8 inches, from the very center of the brood frames, ruining every comb she sampled.

All of the live hives had a full super of honey placed on them before they left for their granddaughter’s wedding. The two hives that were left did not have the supers of honey on them. They were removed along with the other equipment. Ingram said he checked the hives recently, and neither one has a queen.

A honey super is a part of a commercial beehive that is used to collect honey. When the honeycomb is full, the bees will cap the comb with beeswax. Beekeepers take the full honey supers and extract the honey. Honey supers are removed in the fall when the honey is extracted and before the hive is winterized.

“Could the queens have been up in the supers when they were removed? Or did this inspector kill the queens, either on purpose or unknowingly, when she inspected the hives in October? I will never know.”

At the April 4 hearing, Ingram said he felt he was able to show the court that the inspector could not tell the difference between “chilled brood” and foulbrood. He also proved to the court that the inspectors did not know the symptoms of foulbrood. The Ingrams used to manage over 250 colonies of honeybees, breeding their own queens for traits which they deemed necessary for successful survival, and charge they were all killed by Round-Up. “When Round-Up kills the adult bees there are not enough bees left in the hive to keep the young bees (brood) warm, and the young bees die from the cold (chilled brood).

“I tried to prove that just because foulbrood can be detected once the hive has been disturbed, doesn’t mean the hive has foulbrood. Inside a honeybee hive is one of the cleanest places you can find. Anything that is a problem, if the bees can’t remove it, they cover it with propolis, which is an antiseptic.”

Propolis is a resinous mixture that honey bees collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive. But propolis also prevents diseases and parasites from entering the hive, inhibits bacterial growth, and prevents putrefaction within the hive. Bees usually carry waste out of and away from the hive.

“If a mouse finds its way into the hive and dies, bees wouldn’t be able to carry it out,” Ingram said. “They would cover it up in propolis. It would be a big, brown lump, making it odorless and harmless to the hive. Same as with any disease. They cover it up.

“When you go into the comb and cut it up, disturb it like the investigators did, then send it to a lab, it exposes foulbrood to the world. In the beehive, it’s covered up. The bees aren’t affected by it. But you can find it by sending it in to a lab.”

Ingram admits he has had foulbrood - 30 years ago. He has killed two hives that had foulbrood in the 58 years that he’s been a beekeeper. He caught a swarm that was infected, and killed them within 3 weeks.

“When I was breeding my own bees, before they were killed by Round Up, I had foulbrood in one hive. I left it there all summer, just to see if the other hives would pick it up. They never did. That’s when I knew that it’s not as bad as people let on. Bees can take care of it. I had an inspector come in and examine for it, and he said the yard was clean, and I knew it wasn’t.

“Doctors don’t treat patients until they see the symptoms, right? When does a beekeeper have to watch his hives for foulbrood? When he gets symptoms. There is no way that any beekeepers are going to be able to spend $60 to send a sample to a lab in Maryland, to find out he has foulbrood. The sample may have foulbrood, but it doesn’t say that the rest of the hive, or his other 5, 15, or hundred hives have it. He can’t go and destroy his hives because one sample has detected it.

“That’s the determination that the hearing officer has to make - am I breaking the inspection law, if they can detect it. Because they sure can’t identify it.”

For the past 15 years, Ingram said he has been conducting research on the effects of Round-Up on honeybees. He feels he had accumulated the necessary data to document the fact that Round-Up was not only the cause of his bees dying, but also possibly the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

“CCD is a calamity that is affecting honeybee colonies across the nation. In fact, I had one queen, which had survived three summers of spraying and three winters. I was planning to raise daughters from that queen to see if she may have had some genetic resistance to Round-Up. But she and her hive were taken during the theft. I don’t even know where the bees and my equipment are. They ruined 15 years of my research.

“When I asked when the best time was to inspect for foulbrood, the inspector said any time. I told her, ‘Lady you better not look in my hives when it’s 3 degrees! You do not disturb the bees at that time. That would be like inspecting for a child’s disease. Do you look for it when they are adults? She was looking for the brood when the brood was not there. She could not tell us that. The inspector did not understand that by the end of October my bees had quit brood rearing and were already getting into their winter cluster. They were moving slowly to conserve energy. She testified to the court that the bees were sick and lethargic, as if they were sick from foulbrood. She didn’t seem to know that foulbrood only affects the young bees, because there was no brood there. Adult honeybees are not affected by foulbrood.”

A photo taken during the Jan. 19 inspection, submitted by Kivikko, showed bees at the entrance of one of the hives that were deemed healthy, in the dead of winter. Ingram told the court that the inspectors did not understand honeybees, especially when they could not even tell a live bee from a dead bee.

Ingram told the court that, “From the Chief Apiary Inspector down to the individual inspectors, there is no longer a requirement that the person needs to know anything about honeybees, let alone anything about their diseases. These people just got political appointments to their positions. Years ago inspectors had to pass a test to be qualified for the position and document that they knew honeybees and their diseases, but not today.

“At least [Kivikko] did know that foulbrood only affects honeybees and that if there should be any of the virus in honey it would not affect people.”

Although Inspector Kivikko is relatively new to the IDofA inspection team, she said she has over 12 years of experience in the apiary field.

“I had been called by many area beekeepers because of my experience,” Kivikko stated. “That’s why I was called in by the IDofA to do the job. I’m good at it.”

When Ingram asked the Chief Apiary Inspector if he had ordered the theft, Chard answered, “yes,” before the IDofA attorney could object. This was the first time that Ingram knew, for certain, who had taken his bees.

Unfortunately, rumors have been circulated, suggesting no one buy honey produced by the Ingrams. Apple Creek Apiaries markets close to 4 tons of honey a year. Ingram said they have to buy extracted honey that they sell from beekeepers in Wisconsin and Iowa who are not yet affected by Round-Up.

“We have not produced one gallon of extracted honey since 1995 when our 250 hives were killed. I have replaced some of them each year only to have most of them killed before winter. I can produce comb honey, but it takes all of the extracted honey for the bees to get past the late summer use of Round-Up and have anything left for their winter feed. Last year, I had 20 hives during the height of the summer, but only went into the winter with 4 live hives, three of them headed by queens I had raised. But all the queens are gone now.”
Questions unanswered

Ingram believes that a comprehensive letter he wrote to Gov. Pat Quinn on January 7, and another to Rep. Jim Sacia Feb. 9, raised the ire of the IDofA.

“I wrote Gov. Quinn that the order to destroy my bees was the result of an unknown inspection, conducted by our local neophyte bee inspector, without my knowledge, and without my presence. When checking the date on which this order claims the inspection was done against our own daily log, I was either at home, or at the office 1/2 mile away, but she never had the courtesy to let me know that she was in the area.”

The statute gives the Department the right of entry “to inspect or cause to be inspected from time to time any bees, colonies, items of bee equipment or apiary. For the purpose of inspection, the Director is authorized during reasonable business hours to enter into or upon any property used for the purpose of beekeeping. (Source: P.A. 88-138.)

For most businesses, a Sunday is not “during reasonable business hours.”

“I asked Rep. Sacia to take the teeth out of the current law, preventing untrained inspectors from doing sneak inspections without the beekeeper present, killing their bees and burning their equipment, or forcing organic beekeepers out of business, telling them that they have to use chemicals to keep bees in Illinois. Are the chemical companies really running our food supply?”

On February 14, Rep. Sacia sent a letter to Marc Miller, Director of the Dept. of Natural Resources, saying that Ingram “asks some pointed, thought provoking questions and I’m hoping that your professionals can respond to Terry and me regarding his points.”

Exactly one month later, on March 14, an elected official and one of his constituents, a citizen of Illinois, got their response directly from the Illinois Department of Agriculture in the form of their “abate the nuisance” policy. Is that how a State Representative is treated by an unelected government agency? Just who is running this state?

“Is Illinois becoming a police state, where citizens do not have rights?” Ingram asked in desperation. “Knowing that Monsanto and the Dept. of Ag are in bed together, one has to wonder if Monsanto was behind the theft to ruin my research that may prove Round-Up was, and is, killing honeybees. Beekeepers across the state are being threatened that the same thing may be done to their hives and livelihood. I was not treated properly, I don’t want to see this happen to anyone else in this state, and I want this type of illegal action to end.”

What is most disturbing to the Ingrams is that the State Department of Agriculture came in and inspected their hives when they were not home and without due process, took their bees and hives. At the time of the theft the Ingram’s had not yet had their day in court to prove that their hives did not have foulbrood. Ingram knew that the inspectors could not tell what they were seeing and had warned the Department that if any of them came back it would be considered a criminal trespass. Yet they came back when he was not home, stole his hives and ruined his 15 years of research.

“What was the value of that 3-year-old queen?” Ingram asked. “It could have been that she would have a resistant trait that we could expand into the whole bee culture to help them survive this Round-Up thing. How can you place a dollar value on that potential?”

Considering the fact that Ingram’s queens, bees, and hives were taken off his property on March 14, rather than being “abated,” as was the “requirement” stated in the notices from the IDofA, the dollar value of such a queen cannot be disregarded as a major motivation for such an act.

Ingram said that during the hearing he asked “both the inspector and her boss to name one person in the state that is doing research on Round-Up and honeybees. They couldn’t name one. Of course, they didn’t know if I was doing it either . . . I sent him a copy of my results 2 years ago. Under oath, he can say no, he didn’t know about it. It burns me, it really burns me.”

There are other unanswered pertinent questions as well. Is the Illinois Dept. of Agriculture, and the legislation that empower it, unconstitutional?

Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution gives the federal government the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Does that mean a state agency has the legal right to regulate the conduct of individual businesses, with no due process? Has recent loose interpretation of the Commerce Clause given them the ability to shut down businesses they don’t like?

Why does the IDofA forcibly “recommend” the use of antibiotics prophylactically over the concerns of Ingram and other organic beekeepers who know that the drugs create resistance to the antibiotics? Ingram knows that most insects and plants take care of themselves. Most become naturally resistant to the affects of many unnatural environmental influences over the eons. They survived.

In the letter to the governor, Ingram said he was “afraid that someone may come in when I am not home and burn these hives just because they say the letter of the law gives them that power and they have that right. I feel that my rights and potential livelihood may be taken away.”

The fears expressed by Ingram to Gov. Quinn on Jan. 7 have, unfortunately, come to pass.

The next, and most troubling, unanswered question is this: Who’s next?

[justdrew]

monsanto needs to be wiped from the face of the earth.

I thought they changed their name?

[seemslikeadream]

Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought
By Todd Woody @greenwombat July 24, 2013

Outlawing a type of insecticides is not a panacea. AP Photo/Ben Margot

As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought.

Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.

Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples.

“There’s growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz.

Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions have not applied to fungicides.

Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.

In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But vanEngelsdorp, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, says the new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting bee health.

“The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex than we have led to be believe,” he says. “It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product.”

The study found another complication in efforts to save the bees: US honey bees, which are descendants of European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen, however, was also contaminated with pesticides even though those plants were not the target of spraying.

“It’s not clear whether the pesticides are drifting over to those plants but we need take a new look at agricultural spraying practices,” says vanEngelsdorp.