Hating on Bayer

-Posted by Isaac

So here's the stuff that seemed to work:

This was put into the planter boxes in order to better "stick" the pesticide onto the corn seed when planting. Put out by Bayer, it is an honest effort to decrease the "already low chance" of a bee kill. And, of course, it's another product to sell.
Let's applaud them for that.

Now some problems.
After my little bee kill I started really looking into the seed treatment issue. I studied the history. I learned about the specific chemicals. I made calls to beekeepers. I talked to the experts at Crop Production Services. I learned a lot of disturbing things... more than I really want to summarize in a blog post. I found that the Bayer Corporation is the biggest player in this arena. The Neonicotinoid arena. They actually invented the stuff.
During all this investigation the latest issue of Bee Culture Magazine came out. I start flipping through, lo and behold, guess who's promoting the virtues of the honeybee:

Although I was skeptical, it was good to see Bayer joining another big player, Monsanto, with some involvement in the bee industry. (Involvement that didn't entail the wonderful production of coumaphos and fluvalinate, two of the most bee harmful mite treatments.  -"Committed to Bee Health for 25 Years!")
I read the article.
I thought, wait a minute!... read it again.    
In this article Kim Flottum outlined the many projects Bayer was undertaking to promote bee health.
Why is Bayer doing this?  Hmmm. Because they care? It is an expense after all. $2.4 million for the building alone. I started to really wonder... read the article again!
Not a mention of even one project involving neonics!
This is absurd! Why is the (informed) public mad? - Neonics! What are beekeepers screaming about? - Neonics! What has been banned in Europe due to pollinator kills? - Neonics!
What's going on Bayer?

It fact, you go to the Bayer website, it's hard to find much at all on the subject. A few denials. A few goose chases. Many redirections to, according to them, the real cause of bee troubles-- varroa and nosema. What a laugh!
Bayer has a hugh PR campaign with beekeeping. But it's LIP SERVICE! (As you might have guessed from the #1 maker and seller of neonic insecticides.)
How much did that Bayer Bee Care Center cost again?  $2.4 million
How much did Bayer make last year in neonic pesticide sales? $3.5 billion

Reading the PR and looking into a few of the Bayer products, I did come across several mentions of the  neonicotinoid ability to target "non agricultural" insects. As in... this systemic insecticide kills nematodes but not honeybees.
Wow.
Now that's some extraordinary science.
If you're simply befuddled about how this is accomplished, let me, a former science teacher, try and clear things up:
See, a honeybee comes flying along and...
HONEYBEE: "la la la la... Hi ho, hi ho... la la la la... Oh yummy! Soybean nectar! This will certainly make some mild, bland summer honey for Master Isaac.....   la la la la... Ew, yuk! Corn pollen. Gross! Well... maybe just a little...
NEONIC: "Stop right there, little bug! Agriculture or non agriculture? Papers?
HONEYBEE: "Um... what?"
NEONIC: "You heard me. I'm gonna need to see some ID. Pronto"
HONEYBEE: "Um, ok, let me see here... um... I must've left it back at the hive. Sorry. I'm just so busy, you know... ha ha... busy as a bee.. get it?"
NEONIC: "Must kill."
HONEYBEE: "Hey! Whoa! Lay off, man! We're cool..."
NEONIC: "Must kill babies."

You get the picture.
It's a systemic insecticide! It kills insects! No questions asked.

Here's a five minute review on neonics.

Where is corn planted? Everywhere mid-west. Soybeans? Everywhere mid-west. When did neonic chemicals become used widespread? About 2005. When did colony collapse happen widespread? About 2006. This is not a coincidence! Commercial beekeepers have been pointing at and screaming about neonics for years.
In Europe they did something about it. Here, we're still trying to "pin point" the reasons for pollinator decline.
I mentioned Jim Doan in a previous blog. If you have the time (45 minutes), listen to this very disturbing interview.

On second thought... don't... it will ruin your day.

I got so steamed up I actually called the man himself. (He's not so famous that little ol' me can't talk to him...) We had a good conversation. One thing that stuck: He repeatedly said,  "You have to get your bees out! Leave!" (Montana, here we come!)
"Listen, you cannot survive as a beekeeper when the entire landscape is poison. Simple as that. Corn pollen is poison."
He mentioned encapsulated pollen:

 "Are you seeing more of that these days? What do you think is underneath of that wax? Corn pollen. Poison."

Side note for our customers:  (We collect our pollen that we sell for consumption in the fall, not mid-summer when corn is in pollen)

I didn't feel great about our talk. I felt sunk.
"Commercial guys are actually pulling frames of pollen out."
This is just wrong. Pollen... the very thing bees desperately need to make more bees and survive the winter.

Here's something from the Bayer "fact sheet". You'll be reassured to know that: NEONICOTINOIDS NOT LINKED TO BEE HEALTH ISSUES

If fact, Bayer points to the continued bee problems in Europe as proof that restriction on the neonics was the wrong thing to do.

Ok, clothianidin on corn seed has a half life of around 1100 days! It was used in Europe before being outlawed. I can't imagine why bees (or beekeepers) would still be having problems. 

Another skit:

BEEKEEPER: "Got brain damage."

BAYER CROPSCIENCE: "Sir, your claims and wild allegations of this "head trauma" are completely unfounded. The alleged 'beat down' you speak of happened a full three years ago. And besides, I only took two or three swings."

BEEKEEPER: "Still got brain damage."

BAYER CROPSCIENCE: "You look fine to me.  The doctors on our payroll say you're just fine, and even those other doctors, those independent ones, say you've still got full function of at least 30% of your brain."

BEEKEEPER: "Um..."

BAYER CROPSCIENCE: "Everyone knows that baseball bats are for baseballs. See, it says right here on the label, 'Hard on Balls, Easy on Skulls' We all know THE LABEL IS THE LAW."

BEEKEEPER: "Um..."

BAYER CROPSCIENCE: "In your interest, and because We Care, we have generously donated toward your unfounded claims. Haven't you heard about the new Beekeeper Mental Health and Insane Asylums we've been building? Sure! It comes from .001% of the revenue from our sale of Beat Down Bats... I mean (cough cough) Baseball Bats.

BEEKEEPER: "Um... ok"

Alright, I'm tired of this. All this hating. It's June. It's lovely out. I've learned too much. The rant has run its course and I'm done.

Next I'll fill you in on what we've been doing in the meantime.

C'on, Dad,

Dont Hate,

Pollinate!

The Results

-Posted by Isaac

Well, the results are in. Not only from our little corn planting experiment, but the USDA winter loss report made the press this week. First, a little on that...  23.2%

Wow. Now I really feel like a crappy beekeeper. We lost 65% of ours. Jim lost 67% of his. I've talked to two commercial beekeepers in northern Ohio, each with close to 1000 hives. 75% and 79% loss. (And these guys are generational. As in, they know what they're doing.)

Where is this 23.2% coming from? (Well, it says where it's coming from, right on the above website. 7,200 self reporting beekeepers. It's just really hard for me to believe. Especially after the worst winter in recent memory.)

 The bee magazines are reporting higher:

Only two regions were lower then 23.2%... these regions were not in the corn belt.

I don't know. It leaves some of us scratching our heads. And many of us thinking these figures are either skewed somehow or completely bogus. 

Oh well, enough of that.

The corn planting:

You can barely make out the planter in the background

The results were favorable. No dead bees. Well, just a few. But nothing like we saw before. To catch you up, what we tried here was a different seed surfactant. This was a waxy substance, not graphite, not talc, put in the planter boxes to try and control the planter dust problem. Sorry I didn't get a picture... it's in a tractor pulling a planter at the moment. The product is produced by Bayer CropScience. And so is the seed treatment, a systemic insecticide. The thinking is that the dust behind the planter is carrying a little of the seed treatment in the wind. This causes a real problem for bees... as we saw a few weeks ago.

I was working a yard not far away when Adam called.

The big sprayer in the adjacent field gave me some company. And more than a few worries.

Adam had been planting corn for an hour or so when I got there.

Very few bees seemed adversely affected.

A day later:

Still nowhere close to the death we saw before.

Hooray! It worked!

Well... not so fast. There are many different variables to contend with, and this was just one small trial, an extremely small data set. (Don'tcha just love science, Rachel Scior?)

But I am happy that we didn't see piles of bees and I'll willingly praise Bayer for something in the right direction.

This all happened after I got mad enough to fire off a snotty little email to Bee Culture Magazine. What provoked me was an article about the "great" things Bayer is doing for bee health.

                              

It's all lip service! I did some research. I made some calls. The result... I got really angry. I'll share this with you in the next post. (Why stop the rant when I'm on such a roll?)

Thank you to so many who have shared your thoughts and feelings on this chemical issue. You feel marginalized. You feel ignored. And mostly you feel like the environment is becoming spoiled at the hands a few companies. With the government's blessing! I think I'm joining your camp.

Adam found this article in a farm magazine:

He was not ready to rejoice that our little experiment turned out favorably.

As I said... many variables:

And the real issue:

Although the initial bee kill is striking and grabs the attention, this is not the real worry. The problem is what is coming into the hive? What is out there, year after year, pervasive and insidious.

And back to the little complaint I started out with:

23.2%  ???

Mark Twain may help us ferret this one out.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

Where are the Good Guys?

-Posted by Isaac

One more rant and I'll lay off.

Unless our little experiment with the corn planting turns out to be ugly. Then you can be sure I'll be back at it.

This present experiment continues to be ugly:

Bees keep piling up. Foragers and nurse bees alike.

I'm almost ready to call this a true bee kill.

The researchers have gone home. The reporters have gotten their story. The EPA has been notified.

I continue taking samples:

Hey Barbara Bloetscher! Reed Johnson! Robert Miller! Want more?

But will anything become of it? I'm very skeptical.
And here lies the rant...
It's so painfully obvious that something is wrong here. It was obvious in 2012 with Jim's bee kill and beekeepers nationwide during the last decade.
Something is wrong!
Why are the wheels turning so slow?
Why does it take months to run a test on a few bee samples?

A small beekeeper in podunk Williamsport Ohio garners some attention for just a moment... and then gets ignored.
Big beekeepers, Jim Doan, Dave Hackenberg, scream about neonics... and get ignored.
Jim North had the spotlight:

and got ignored...
Maybe "ignored" is the wrong word. There are people working on this, I know. Very smart people.
But the money is on the wrong side. The good guys don't have the money.

It's hard to read the above article, but one maddening thing that caught my eye was the spokesman for Bayer CropScience.  His explanation for the 2012 dead bees was the early spring: "...bees are coming out earlier and there is not enough available food for them."
Are you kidding?  Not enough food?
There were flowers everywhere! The bees were making honey!
What a load of crap! And that statement actually stood. It got published... and believed! I had a friend who works for the ODA repeat much the same thing when I confronted him with the issue.

What we needed was a good guy. Someone to step in and say, "Um, Mr. Bayer CropScience you should shut up now because you sound like an idiot."
"Bees don't starve in big dead piles in front of the hive."
"Bees don't starve when it's 70 degrees out and the honeysuckle is in bloom."
Where was our good guy? Someone to point the finger, unleash the hounds, make the laws, change the chemicals...
Muffled and choked, that's where. Bayer has the money.

And speaking of honeysuckle. It's blooming!

Bees just love this stuff.

And as I said in that blog post that got all the attention, this plant lines the fields. It's a great thing but could turn deadly... if millions of flowers happen to be catching dust from a corn planter.

 We just have to hope that the bloom and the planting don't coincide. Cross your fingers.

Should it really have to come to that?

Lessons Learned / More Experiments

-Posted by Isaac

If my lazy wife would ever do a blog post, you could take a break ("Honey! The baby is crying again!"). As it is, here I am again still picking up the pieces from the corn planting discovery. I have learned some lessons:

-If you're going to spout off about something, it's best to stick to one issue. Namely, the most concerning one. For me, it's the bees. Sorry I sidetracked.

-When spouting off, get your facts straight. Be 100% sure, as my brother said.

-No more sneaky pictures without permission. That was low of me and I still can't shake a rotten feeling of breached trust.

-On a blog like this, it's fine to have opinions (especially if they're always right, like mine), but I'll be toning it down in certain areas. My mental health takes a beating when people are mad at me. I'll never go into politics. Or back to teaching.

That post touched a nerve with many people. And a few of the right people. It culminated in a little publicity on WBNS-10TV
Another lesson: I need a haircut.

So my cousin Adam is on board for another bee / corn planting experiment. I have another bee yard that sits right on a field due to be planted as soon as it dries up. Probably next week. I put cardboard beneath the entrances today. The bees seem healthy and plenty of pollen was coming into the hives as I watched.

This time a new flowable seed surfactant will be used in the planter boxes... instead of talc or graphite. They ordered it special for me.  I am truly grateful. And interested to see if anything changes.

A side experiment will be going on also. In the background you can see how covered this field is with the yellow wild mustard. It will have to be burned down with (I think) 2-4D.  I'll find out for sure.

I have in the past claimed that 2-4D has no adverse effects on bees. This is based on my observations over years of spraying on the golf course and having bees in close vicinity. Many beekeepers say I'm wrong.
We'll see what we see.
My hypothesis: we won't see dead bees with the initial 2-4D burn down, but after the corn gets planted, we'll see much of what we saw before... definite pesticide kill. I hope I'm wrong, but think this new product is just lip service to quiet the screams of pollinator protection advocates.

So we're set up and ready. I'm grateful and happy to have the farmers helping in this. Regardless of what happens, I'll fill you in on the results.
"It's about science, Mason!"

More Chemical Fallout

-Posted by Isaac

I'm still fired up about this. Bear with me, things will simmer down and be back to normal soon.

So this morning I checked these nine hives here at home.
Many more dead bees out front:

This is still nowhere close to what I would consider a true bee kill, but I did find one rather distressing thing-- a queen! Out in the pile in front of one of the better hives.

My mood turned sour from the get-go.

Late in the afternoon, Buzz Taylor pulled in the drive.
Bee Kill!
Years ago I helped Buzz get started in bees and he's still going strong.

But this kind of thing can make even the strong quiver with apprehension.

The corn was planted yesterday.

So for just a moment I was thinking maybe I was a little harsh on the EPA in that last post. You know, they're intelligent people, government employees all doing the best they can for the public good. So what if the wheels turn a little slower here in the US? We'll get it right eventually. They're staying busy... right?

Well now... that explains some things.

My mother, with her wry sense of humor, dropped off some reading material.
Very interesting.

...The employee caught viewing ponograghy is still on the payroll, earning about $120,000 a year...

Be careful, Mom. You never know what's going to end up on this blog.