Reuters  |   March 22, 2013 resize text

U.S. environmental regulators are failing to protect honey bees and their role in pollinating important food crops, and should immediately suspend use of some toxic insecticides tied to the widespread deaths of the bees, a lawsuit filed on Thursday charges.

"It is a catastrophe in progress," said migratory bee keeper Steve Ellis who maintains 2,000 bee hives for pollinating crops from Minnesota to California. "We have an ongoing problem that is worsening."

Orchard operators use bees to pollinate a variety of important U.S. crops, including almonds, cranberries, blueberries, avocados, apples, cherries, pears, and more. But over the last several years both the number of bees and the vitality of the bees has been in marked decline in the United States. Many studies have linked the prevalence of some new insecticides with the loss of the bees.

Several bee keepers and environmental groups unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last year to restrict the insecticides, saying the toxic impact on honey bees could threaten the future of beekeeping worldwide.

On Thursday, four professional beekeepers and five environmental and consumer groups said they would try to get a court to order the EPA to take action. The groups filed their lawsuit against the EPA in the Northern District Court of California, demanding that the regulatory agency suspend the use of pesticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam.

The pesticides, which are part of a class of systemic insecticides known as neonicotinoids, are absorbed by plants and transported throughout a plant's vascular tissue, making the plant potentially toxic to insects, the groups said.

Clothianidin and thiamethoxam first came into heavy use in the mid-2000s, at the same time beekeepers started observing widespread cases of colony loses, leaving beekeepers unable to recoup their losses, they said.

"Beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that EPA needs to protect bees. The agency has refused, so we've been compelled to sue," said Peter Jenkins, a lawyer for the Center for Food Safety who is representing the coalition of plaintiffs.

The groups said they have obtained records that show several "legal violations" by EPA officials connected to the approvals for clothianidin and thiamethoxam products.

The case also challenges the EPA's use of "conditional registrations," which expedite the approval process for chemical companies seeking to bring new products to market. Since 2000, over two-thirds of pesticide products, including clothianidin and thiamethoxam, have been brought to market as conditional registrations, the groups said.

The EPA said in a statement that it is trying to get a better understanding of the risks to honey bees and is working aggressively to protect bees from pesticide risks through a number of programs. It also is accelerating review of the neonicotinoid pesticides because of the bee concerns, it said.

The plaintiffs also include beekeeper Ellis of Old Mill Honey Co; Jim Doan of Doan Family Farms; Tom Theobald of Niwot Honey Farm; and Bill Rhodes of Bill Rhodes Honey. The plaintiffs also include the groups Beyond Pesticides, the Center for Food Safety, the Pesticide Action Network North America, the Sierra Club and the Center for Environmental Health.

Syngenta and Bayer, are leading global producers of neonicotinoids, and say the harmful effects on bees are unproven. But in Europe, the European Commission recently proposed a ban of neonicotinoids on many crops after the EU's European Food Safety Authority said neonicotinoids posed an acute risk to honey bee health.

In the United States, such neonicotinoids are routinely used on more than 100 million acres of corn, wheat, soy and cotton and are in some home gardening products.

The plaintiff coalition said many beekeepers are reporting losses of over 50 percent this year and said the shortages have left many California almond growers without enough bees to effectively pollinate their trees.

Along with bees, birds, bats, butterflies, beetles, and other small mammals are involved in pollinating plants used for food and some species have seen a 90 percent decline in their populations over the last decade, according to the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, a collaboration of more than 120 organizations in the United States, Canada and Mexico who promote the role that pollinators play in food systems.

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Comments (5) Leave a comment 

land of milk and honey  |  March, 24, 2013 at 07:01 PM

Are you intending to be buying bee research companies also to prove your claim below?

Syngenta and Bayer, are leading global producers of neonicotinoids, and say the harmful effects on bees are unproven.

Iowa  |  March, 25, 2013 at 09:45 AM

Years ago before these chemicals were around they were colonies dying off and they traced it to a mite that infected the bees. At that time there was no treatment. The bee people thought all the bees were going to die off and the world would end. Some day they will be right, the world will end.

Canada  |  March, 25, 2013 at 04:43 PM

It's Official - Cell Phones are Killing Bees
Scientists may have found the cause of the world’s sudden dwindling population of bees – and cell phones may be to blame. Research conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland has shown that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also may lead to their death. Over 83 experiments have yielded the same results. With virtually most of the population of the United States (and the rest of the world) owning cell phones, the impact has been greatly noticeable.
Led by researcher Daniel Favre, the alarming study found that bees reacted significantly to cell phones that were placed near or in hives in call-making mode. The bees sensed the signals transmitted when the phones rang, and emitted heavy buzzing noise during the calls. The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically. The study found that the bees’ buzzing noise increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call – aka when signals are being transmitted, but remained normal when not in use.
The signals cause the bees to become lost and disoriented. The impact has already been felt the world over, as the population of bees in the U.S. and the U.K. has decreased by almost half in the last thirty years – which coincides with the popularization and acceptance of cell phones as a personal device. Studies as far back as 2008 have found that bees are repelled by cell phone signals.
Bees are an integral and necessary part of our agricultural and ecological systems, producing honey, and more importantly pollinating our crops. As it is unlikely that the world will learn to forgo the convenience of cell phones, it is unclear how much they will contribute to the decline of bees, and their impact on the environment.

wyoming  |  March, 25, 2013 at 05:21 PM

Strange how colony collapse disorder seems most prevalent in areas where Poncho and the like are widely used. Maybe there is or isn't a correlation, but the timing of the disorder matches the release of this class of insecticides. I don't think Bayer's new bee research center will be of much use identifying the issue unless they can prove cellphone signals, neutrinos, Gulf War Syndrome or something else is the cause.

Arkansas  |  March, 26, 2013 at 09:33 AM

The University of Arkansas Ag division has been funded by the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board to conduct in field studies on the prevalence of these insecticide compounds in soil,soybean flowers, wild flowers around the field perimeter, and honey bee pollen. This project is being conducted by our state's chief entomologist and is in its 2nd year of funding. Last year's data did not support the claims made by the plaintiffs. We look forward to this year's data. This funding has NO connection to any corporation, and is deemed very important to all of us farmers.