Owing to their systemic activity, low vertebrate toxicity, and long persistence, neonicotinoids initially showed promise to increase the efficacy and safety of pest management. A growing body of evidence, however, suggests that current use patterns, which are poorly documented, may actually be creating more risks than benefits. Risks to many terrestrial, aquatic, and detrital organisms and ecosystems have been documented. Considering these risks, advocacy groups have frequently promoted outright bans on all neonicotinoids in all circumstances, and this stance seems easy to justify
Source: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/37/22609
Neonicotinoids
Neonicotinoids (sometimes shortened to neonics /ˈniːoʊnɪks/) are a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically similar to nicotine. In the 1980s Shell and in the 1990s Bayer started work on their development. The neonicotinoid family includes acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, nitenpyram, nithiazine, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam. Imidacloprid is the most widely used insecticide in the world. Compared to organophosphate and carbamate insecticides, neonicotinoids cause less toxicity in birds and mammals than insects. Some breakdown products are also toxic to insects.[
Neonicotinoid use has been linked in a range of studies to adverse ecological effects, including honey-bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) and loss of birds due to a reduction in insect populations. Some scientific findings regarding the harm caused to bees by neonics have been conflicting and controversial, partly due to the sheer number of biologcal factors that complicate tying CCD with neonicotinoid use, including varroa mite infestation and Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV). This is partly because bees exposed to normal levels of neonicotinoids do not immediately die. Some sources have proposed that neonicotinoids reduce a bee colony’s ability to survive the winter. Most academic and governmental bodies agree that neonicotinoids have had a negative influence on bee populations.
In 2013, the European Union and a few neighbouring countries restricted the use of certain neonicotinoids; in 2018, the EU banned the three main neonicotinoids (clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam) for all outdoor uses. Several states in the United States have also restricted usage of neonicotinoids out of concern for pollinators and bees.
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Articles
Neonicotinoid pesticides can stay in the US market, EPA says
The US Environmental Protection Agency wants to allow five neonicotinoid pesticides to remain in the US marketplace, despite their neurotoxic risks to people and wildlife, including bees and other pollinators. In a proposed interim decision released on Jan. 30, the agency says that it will implement new measures to reduce risks to pollinators and protect public health.
The five pesticides are acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam. The EPA proposes to require use of additional personal protective equipment for farmworkers who handle the pesticides. The agency is also suggesting restrictions on applying the pesticides to blooming crops to protect bees and other pollinators. The EPA advises homeowners not to use neonicotinoids and proposes to ban the use of imidacloprid on residential lawns and turf.
In 2018, the European Commission banned the outdoor use of three of the pesticides—clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam—because of their potential to harm bees. Growers can only use the chemicals in permanent greenhouses. France went a step further and also banned acetamiprid and another neonicotinoid, thiacloprid. Earlier this year, the European Commission chose not to renew authorization of thiacloprid.
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EPA’s chart that links to each neonic registration review docket
https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/schedule-review-neonicotinoid-pesticides
Opinion: Neonicotinoids pose undocumented threats to food webs
How Neonicotinoids Can Kill Bees
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Bayer/Monsanto’s Dicamba herbicide
Pesticides Are Harming Bees in Literally Every Possible Way
The weed killer dicamba is emerging as a big culprit in the mass die-off of bees
While soybean farmers watched the drift-prone weed killer dicamba ravage millions of acres of crops over the last two years, Arkansas beekeeper Richard Coy noticed a parallel disaster unfolding among the weeds near those fields.
When Coy spotted the withering weeds, he realized why hives that produced 100 pounds of honey three summers ago now were managing barely half that: Dicamba probably had destroyed his bees’ food.
In October, the Environmental Protection Agency extended its approval of the weed killer for use on genetically modified soybeans and cotton, mostly in the South and Midwest, for two more years. At the time, the EPA said: “We expect there will be no adverse impacts to bees or other pollinators.”
But scientists warned the EPA years ago that dicamba would drift off fields and kill weeds that are vital to honeybees. The consequences of the EPA’s decisions now are rippling through the food system.
Dicamba already has destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of non-genetically modified soybeans and specialty crops, such as tomatoes and wine grapes. And now it appears to be a major factor in large financial losses for beekeepers. Hive losses don’t affect just the nation’s honey supply: Honeybees pollinate more than $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts, and vegetables a year, largely in California, according to the Department of Agriculture.
“It seems like everybody’s been affected,” said Bret Adee, whose family runs the nation’s largest beekeeping outfit, in South Dakota. He thinks 2018 might be “the smallest crop in the history of the United States for honey production.”
From 2016 to 2017, US honey production dropped 9 percent. Official statistics for 2018 have not been released.
Beekeepers long have struggled to protect their hives from parasites, viruses, insecticides, and other colony-destroying threats. All these factors, as well as climate change, have been linked to colony collapse disorder, which emerged more than a decade ago and destroyed 30 percent to 90 percent of some beekeepers’ hives. Now with dicamba, beekeepers must contend with a scourge that can wipe out the food and habitat bees need to thrive.
Nine years ago, agricultural ecologist David Mortensen had told EPA officials that allowing dicamba use on genetically modified crops would pose serious risks to wild plants and the pollinators they sustain. In 2011, the EPA’s own scientists cited Mortensen’s work to conclude that increased use of dicamba could affect pollinators.
But the agency registered dicamba in 2016 despite the warnings, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Food & Environment Reporting Network reported in November. Last fall, the agency extended approval through 2020.
EPA officials declined to comment, citing the government shutdown.
‘Pretty Damning’ Evidence
No one factor can explain what’s driving hive losses. But the evidence is “pretty damning” that dicamba affects both pollinator forage and the bees themselves, according to Mortensen, chairman of University of New Hampshire’s Department of Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Systems.
Dicamba damaged nearly 5 million acres of soybeans in the Midwest over the past two years, and “you know that all the field edges anywhere near the damaged crops were hammered by the herbicide,” he said, “which would mean the broadleaf plants the bees go to were hammered.” Dicamba has little effect on grasses, including corn and wheat, but even tiny doses can injure soybeans, wildflowers, and other broadleaf plants.
Dicamba was a hot topic at the annual American Honey Producers Association meeting earlier this month, said Darren Cox, a Utah beekeeper who stepped down as head of the association last year. “We’re very concerned about dicamba and the impacts it’s having on the honey industry and the health of bees,” he added.
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Additional: Is this controversial weedkiller helping or hurting our food supply?
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Studies and data have found that pollinators such as honey bees, native bees, butterflies and birds, are in decline. Scientists have identified several factors that are contributing to bee decline, including pesticides, parasites, improper nutrition, stress, and habitat loss. The neonicotinoid (neonics) chemical class has been singled out as a major suspect due to its widespread use as a seed coating, high toxicity to bees, systemic nature (the chemical moves through the plant’s vascular system and is expressed in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets), and persistence.
https://www.beyondpesticides.org/
How do pesticides affect pollinators?
Pesticides, alone and in combination with other factors, have had a devastating effect on honeybees and wild pollinators. Pesticides commonly found in lawn and garden products and used in agriculture are known to be hazardous to bees –some killing bees outright and others with subtle effects that reduce a bee’s ability to thrive.
Approximately 90 percent of all flowering plants require pollinators to survive. In agriculture, nearly a third of pollination is accomplished by honeybees. Cucumbers, almonds, carrots, melons, apricots, cherries, pears, apples, prunes, plums, cantaloupe, onions, avocados, kiwi,
https://www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/pollinators/pollinators.pdf
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Toxic impact of pesticides on bees has doubled, study shows [1.04.2021]
Analysis contradicts claims that the environmental impact of pesticides is falling, say scientists
The toxic impact of pesticides on bees and other pollinators has doubled in a decade, new research shows, despite a fall in the amount of pesticide used.
Modern pesticides have much lower toxicity to people, wild mammals and birds and are applied in lower amounts, but they are even more toxic to invertebrates. The study shows the higher toxicity outweighs the lower volumes, leading to a more deadly overall impact on pollinators and waterborne insects such as dragonflies and mayflies.
The scientists said their work contradicts claims that declines in the amount of pesticides used is reducing their environmental impact. The research also shows that the toxic impact of pesticides used on genetically modified crops remains the same as conventional crops, despite claims that GM crops would reduce the need for pesticides.
The research is based on the use and toxicity of 380 pesticides applied in the US from 1992 to 2016. The scientists said the same trend of lower volumes but greater toxic impact is likely for many regions in the world, but open-access data on pesticide use is not available in the EU, Latin America, China or Russia.
Pesticides are one factor cited by scientists for the plunging populations of some insects. Insects play vital roles in the ecosystems that sustain humanity, in particular by pollinating three-quarters of crops.
“Compounds that are particularly toxic to vertebrates have been replaced by compounds with less vertebrate toxicity and that is indeed a success,” said Prof Ralf Schulz, of the University Koblenz and Landau in Germany, who led the research. “But at the same time, pesticides became more specific, and therefore, unfortunately, also more toxic to ‘non-target organisms’, like pollinators and aquatic invertebrates.”
Schulz said: “GM crops were introduced using the argument that they would reduce the dependency of agriculture on chemical pesticides. This is obviously not true if you look at toxicity levels.”
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European Commission: Pesticides and Bees
The EU has one of the strictest regulatory systems in the world concerning the approval of pesticides. All pesticides on the market have been subject to a thorough assessment to ensure a high level of protection of both human and animal health and the environment.
Insecticides are, by their nature, toxic to bees. However, their use should still be possible if exposure does not occur or is minimised to levels which do not generate harmful effects.
In 2012, new scientific findings indicated that some insecticides showed high risks for bees, namely:
- Neonicotinoids
- Fipronil – this pesticide was reviewed by EFSA and has also been subject to restrictions
Regulation on Plant Protection Products
Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 provides clear criteria for the approval of active substances including criteria in relation to honey bees.
It requires a fact-based approach and appropriate risk assessment of any active substance. They can be approved only if their use:
- will result in a negligible exposure of honeybees, or
- has no unacceptable acute or chronic effects on colony survival and development.
In this framework, the Commission laid down new “data requirements” for pesticide dossiers. The dossiers for active substances and plant protection products have to comply with the minimum data requirements set under Commission Regulation (EU) 283/2013 and Commission Regulation (EU) 284/2013. The new data requirements further strengthen the authorisation process for plant protection products and request for instance several new requirements as regards bees.
Risk Assessment of Plant Protection Products on bees
On Commission request, EFSA has developed a guidance document on the risk assessment of plant protection products on bees and provided an opinion on the science behind the development of a risk assessment of Plant Protection Products on bees (Apis mellifera, Bombus spp and solitary bees).
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NPR Podast: Honeybees Need Your Help, Honey
Maddie Sofia here. Today, a non-coronavirus episode for you about honeybees from a guy who knows all about them – Sammy Ramsey, aka Dr. Buggs.
So first of all, can I just ask you how you got that nickname?
SAMMY RAMSEY: So I actually got that title, Dr. Buggs, while working at the Supreme Court of the United States.
SOFIA: (Laughter).
RAMSEY: I worked at the Supreme Court in the (laughter) – I know, I know. I was the only intern entomology major, and the deputy clerk of the court referred to me as Buggs. And then when I told him that I was going for my doctorate, he’s like, oh, Dr. Buggs.
SOFIA: So honestly, the Supreme Court folks just did not know how to handle you’re an entomologist, and all they could do was just yell bugs.
RAMSEY: (Laughter) They really did not know what to do with that.
SOFIA: And of course, the nickname stuck, which is perfect for Sammy, a honeybee researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Also, props to the Supreme Court for taking an entomology intern, the best science. Yeah, I said it. OK. So honeybees play an important role in our ecosystem and for our economy. But the bees themselves, as you might have heard, are not doing so hot.
RAMSEY: We lost about 40% of our honeybee colonies last year, which was deeply concerning. And unfortunately, it’s continued a trend over the past decade or so of us losing close to 30% of our bees every year.
SOFIA: And that could have huge consequences for all of us. So today on the show, what’s killing the bees? Sammy Ramsey tells us what’s driving these die-offs, including a wild critter straight out of a horror movie. And he tells us what we can do to help the bees.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SOFIA: So, Sammy, your friends, the honeybees – they’re not doing well. Can you give us a quick snapshot of why that matters?
RAMSEY: Honeybees are dramatically important to the environment in a number of different ways. We could survive without them. We would just be really, really bummed out because we would lose things like coffee, avocados, lemons, limes, oranges. So many different fruits and vegetables are pollinated by honeybees. And while they wouldn’t disappear entirely, the huge amounts that we produce them in would simply be unsustainable, and they would become incredibly expensive, prohibitively so. Honeybees are worth more than $18 billion to the U.S. economy every single year primarily because of their pollination services.
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