Please help save the bees

Marigold

Marigold

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As you will all know, bees are at risk from toxic neonicotinoid crop sprays. At present these are temporarily banned in the U.K, and Parliament is due to vote soon on whether to extend this ban, but spraying could be re-introduced if some big business interests have their way. Please could you consider signing this petition to Michael Gove, to protest against the reintroduction of these sprays?
Here is a copy of the 360 Degrees email, with the link to the online petition.Please sign and share. Thank you.


Dear friend,

Have a look at this:
http://bit.ly/2eBuFS0

'Our bees are in danger. Huge corporations want to spread toxic pesticides across UK fields that can be deadly to our bees. Right now some of these pesticides are temporarily banned in the UK, but if we want to stand up for our buzzing friends we need to get more of these chemicals banned - permanently.

Environment minister Michael Gove has a chance to save bees for good. There's a vote coming up to extend the current ban, protecting bees from even more pesticides. And Michael Gove has the final say on where the UK stands on banning these pesticides. So that's where we come in - let's make sure he votes to protect our bees.

Please will you sign the petition calling on Michael Gove to protect Britain’s bees?

http://bit.ly/2eBuFS0
 
Our lovely hive of black bees was wiped out by Asian Hornets- took them just two days to kill them all and eat the hive. €150 and an hour later and all was sorted. So if you remove the pesticides you may introduce the predators? Be careful, they are very dangerous to people and they would love the English climate. Too much messing about with the environment, even if it exists with pesticides, brings about drastic changes and that needs to be considered.

I won't be signing the petition without further study.
 
Have to agree with Chris on this one. There's nothing good about pesticides** but there are also a lot of them out there as alternatives and there is a suggestion that in the ban on neonicotonoids the use of other pesticides have grown. Is it true that during the ban there has been no rise in the bee population? I haven't got a clue. I just hope Michael Gove is better informed than I am and doesn't make a political decision to win votes based on a popular 'buzz' rather than the best way to protect the irreplaceable bees.
At least signing the petition is a way of registering general concern although if the gov isn't already genuinely concerned about the loss of our pollinators then there's no hope!
** That is arguable although the benefits have only been with us for 100 years or so and boom can so easily turn to bust - money is made up stuff, a bust environment will be a bit more real!
 
Neonicotinoids are particularly harmful to all pollinating insects, including honeybees and bumblebees, on which we depend for successful pollination of many of our food plants. There are many threats to bees and other pollinators, and it is true that populations of both types of bees have declined sharply in recent years, for various reasons such as predation from other species, modern farming methods leading to loss of habitat for nesting bumblebees (whose long tongues can pollinate flowers which honeybees can't reach) and disease in populations already weakened by lack of diversity in food sources due to commercial farming methods. However, neonicotinoid sprays on crops will kill all the bees and other pollinators in the area, which is a very short-sighted thing to do, as we depend on bees for pollination of many of our food crops. There is absolutely no doubt that these sprays are lethal to bees and are a major factor in upsetting the balance of nature which is leading to dangerous decline in bee populations. My daughter is a beekeeper, and her local beekeeping association is very concerned that spraying may resume by the back door, if this hard-won temporary ban is allowed to lapse without a big fuss being made about it.
I just cannot understand how, so far, there have been only three responses to my initial post, and that two of these have been somewhat negative about the need for this ban on spraying. By all means do your research - and then sign the petition!
 
Me too - although I do worry about this apparently democratic modern way of swaying decision makers with a flash poll (almost as much as the loss of pollinators). The first 2 pages of Google results (mostly blog posts) informed me of what Google thought I wanted to hear.
 
Marigold said:
I just cannot understand how, so far, there have been only three responses to my initial post, and that two of these have been somewhat negative about the need for this ban on spraying. By all means do your research - and then sign the petition!
Click to expand...

There was a study commissioned by the EU, carried out by the Joint Research Centre, to see what the effect of the four year ban had been. After initially attempting to suppress the results it came out in the press in April this year. The study found that during the period of the ban, the incidence of spraying with older pesticides had increased up to four fold. Neonicotinoids are delivered in the form of seed coatings so the replacement is actually more prone to drift to where it shouldn't be. Crucially the study found no reported change in the number of pollinators being reported. The fact that crop yields fell during this period was also noted, but for me that is a side issue, my worry is that we will be replacing one set of nasties for another without having the proof that doing so is beneficial. Pyrethroids are also harmful to bees. This is a constant thread with neonicotinoids, we know that they are toxic to bees (as are many pesticides), but there is no hard evidence that their use has led to a reduction in bee numbers. Indeed since their introduction the number of bee colonies worldwide has risen according to the UN. I did my research and came up with these links below (JRC report included), I have not been able to find a single conclusive study that proves neonics cause a reduction in bee numbers. Any reductions reported are within what would be expected annual variability. The problem is that everyone is coming at this issue with an agenda and you can't tell who is being paid by or lobbied by who. I'm not suggesting that neonics shouldn't be banned but I'm afraid there just isn't enough out there for me to reach a solid conclusion.

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Neonic.JRC_.pdf

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/02/06/gold-standard-assessing-neonicotinoids-field-bee-hive-studies-find-pesticides-not-major-source-of-health-issues/
 
We're probably going to have to replace our flat roof at the back before too long. A green one with wildflowers would be nice outside the bathroom window.
 
I remembered when I tried saving the bees and end up getting my cucumbers infected with - probably downy mildews. I gave up but not completely, so I'm still in search of bee-friendly ways to combat plant diseases. I can't imagine a world without enough bees.
 
Good news today.
Even Michael Gove sometimes listens to the experts and gets it right!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/09/uk-will-back-total-ban-on-bee-harming-pesticides-michael-gove-reveals
 
Marigold said:
Good news today.
Even Michael Gove sometimes listens to the experts and gets it right!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/09/uk-will-back-total-ban-on-bee-harming-pesticides-michael-gove-reveals
Click to expand...

HOORAY :-)08 :-)08 :-)08 :-)08 :-)08 :-)08
 
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