NEONICOTINOIDS BANNED IN SPOKANE

In June 2014, the Spokane City Council voted 5-2 in favor of banning city purchase and use of Neonicotinoids. The ban only applies to city property and not private use. Council president Ben Stuckart sponsored the ordinance as part of a series of environmental steps the city is taking. Stuckart state, "Bees are so important, we should be leading the way to protect them."

The measure does not affect the parks department. However, the parks director told the council they do not use Nionicotinoids.

Mike Fagan and Mike Allen were the two council members that voted no. Fagan said, "There is no settled science right now" that shows chemicals are contributing to the disappearance of bees. Allen echoed his concerns. However, Councilwoman Amber Waldref said, "I am convinced they do have an impact on pollinators in our community."

ODA SUSPENDS LICENSE OF A BUSINESS IMPLICATED IN BEE

From NPMA

The company allegedly sprayed 17 linden trees in bloom last week. ODA asserts that the company should have known the pesticide had come under new restrictions after being linked to a high profile bee kill last year. As a condition to regaining their license, the company agreed to cover the sprayed trees with shade cloth to prevent more bees from being poisoned, getting personnel recertified to handle pesticides, and developing a plan to prevent future problems. This episode should serve as a reminder to PMPs throughout the country that they and their technicians need to be extremely cautious when making applications near bees or bee friendly habitat. PMPs should be especially aware of the new pollinator protection language on many neonicotinoid product labels. The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) last week suspended the pesticide license of a pesticide applicator company responsible for spraying an neonicotinoid insecticide blamed for killing 1,000 bees at a Eugene apartment complex.

CUTTING THROUGH THE BUZZ: POLLINATOR NUMBERS ARE UP - COMMENTARY

A recent article was published in the Roll Call Newsletter. It was written by Reps. Tom Rooney, (R-Fla.) and David Valadao, (R-Calif.), who are members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture. Here is the article in its entirety. If you wish to see the original, CLICK HERE

For some time now, the media has been issuing dire warnings of the coming "beepocalypse."

"Time" magazine ran a cover story titled, "A World Without Bees." A headline in the "London Telegraph" proclaimed "Honey bees in US facing extinction." CBS warned of the drastic threat to our food supply if these essential pollinators are lost. Yet reports of bees’ catastrophic demise are greatly exaggerated. Activists with an anti-pesticide agenda have noticed the issue and are using it to call for a ban on neonicotiniod insecticides — "neonics" for short — which they claim are responsible for bee health problems. The most factual science does not support these allegations. Neither do the facts on the ground. Such a ban would damage entire sectors of U.S. agriculture and do more harm than good for bees. Despite this fact, legislation was recently introduced in Congress to prohibit this critical crop protection technology. Members of Congress should consider the facts rather than the headlines. We are far from facing a world without bees. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of honeybee hives has remained more or less constant for the past 14 years, slightly increasing from 2.63 million colonies in 2000 to 2.64 million colonies in 2013.

Across the globe, there’s more good news. Surveys by the United Nations show Europe’s colonies have increased slightly since 2001. Canada’s government reports the largest numbers since the 1980s. Worldwide, the managed bee population has risen dramatically, from about 40 million in the early 1960s to more than 60 million today.

While the overall picture is much more optimistic than what is portrayed in the media, some beekeepers have experienced problems maintaining the health of their hives.

Higher-than-normal losses of bees over the winter in some years have resulted in economic setbacks for some beekeepers, though the USDA found last year’s loss rate much lower. In reporting on these numbers, many journalists fail to recognize that worker bees only live for six weeks in the summer and hive strength can quickly regenerate to compensate for losses.

The USDA cites many factors afflicting bees, but the primary one is the epidemic spread of the varroa mite and the crippling diseases it vectors into the bee. Additional problems include lack of forage and the stresses of the transcontinental pollination business. As for pesticides, the USDA places them near the bottom of the list. In fact, the USDA is concerned about the miticides beekeepers themselves use to control varroa.

It’s clear from real world experience and extensive field studies that neonics are not a significant factor. Bees thrive in the millions of acres of neonic-treated canola grown in Western Canada and the pesticides are used extensively in Australia, a continent that has some of the healthiest bees in the world.

But while bees aren’t harmed by these popular pesticides, farmers — and consumers — would be if they were banned. Neonics are all that is saving the U.S. citrus industry from destruction by "citrus greening" disease. Without them, rice and cotton farming would become economically unviable throughout much of the U.S. Leafhoppers would devastate vineyards in California and the Pacific Northwest. Neonics are one of the most critical pesticides used in modern agriculture and safely utilized in the production of numerous crops, from corn and soy to vegetables of all kinds.

We must understand why activist organizations have decided to target neonics for elimination. They won the day in Europe, where the EU overrode the doubts of its own scientists and pushed through a political ban. As a matter of fact, the EU just conducted a survey to find out how bad the losses really are and were clearly taken aback by the findings. Seventy-five percent of the bee population experienced overwinter losses of 15 percent or less — a rate considered completely normal in the United States. High overwinter losses occurred among 5 percent of the bee population in the very cold north.

Summertime losses were insignificant. The biggest danger to bees in the EU are the older classes of pesticides, especially the pyrethroids now used as a result of the neonic ban.

The activists want us to ban first and ask questions later. We should not legislate based on sensationalist and fallacious press accounts. The facts clearly don’t support the calls for a ban.