May 8 Open Thread: The Latest "Bee Safe" Pesticide Isn't

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 5:00am

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It's Day 128 of the Year 2019 CE (Gregorian), meaning that it's May 8, 2019 (Gregorian), or 13.0.6.8.9 by the long count
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I receive an e-mail newsletter from UC about things going on in the UC system. Recently it contained an article entitled The ‘bee safe’ pesticide that isn’t by By Mario Aguilera, UC San Diego, Thursday, April 11, 2019, which can be found here: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/bee-safe-pesticide-is-not-sa... . It concerns a multi-year study conducted by scientists at UC San Diego concerning "Silvanto", a broad spectrum insecticide developed by Bayer CropScience AG which is classified and touted as "bee safe". The study, which was published April 10 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B calls that classification into question. It is difficult to do an adequate "fair use" abstract of the article in question because it is so short, so everybody should really go read it for themselves, but I'll try to present the gist of it.

Bee Safe

The bee safe label means that this insecticide can be sprayed on fields even while they are in bloom, and even while bees are actively foraging in those fields. As a result, it has been growing in popularity world wide since it was first registered for commercial use in 2014. It is currently so registered in 30 countries, including the US, with more than twice as many other countries in the pipeline. Obviously, if it isn't really that safe, this is a major problem that needs to be addressed, and it is unlikely that so-called "self regulation" by so-called "responsible" growers is the answer.

Standard Protocols

Two weaknesses or flaws in the normal testing protocols are in play here. The first is the propensity to test chemicals, drugs, medications, foods and food additives, and pretty much everything else in isolation. In the real world, very few things actually exist in the environment in isolation. The classic example is drug interactions, which are periodically discovered and included in various advertising and other warning labels. "Do Not Take With Alcohol" -- ring a bell? As the environment is more and more saturated with more and more assorted chemicals, the number of possible two chemical interactions skyrockets, and the number of possible multi-chemical interactions goes off of the charts. Generally, only the most minimal testing for such interactions is performed regarding anything and any environment, from the soil or water or air to the stomach or bloodstream. And, it appears that the testing of Silvanto was remiss in this area, despite the fact that it does recognize a couple of problem interactions, though it only advises against mixing incompatible chemicals in the same tank, instead of prohibiting application to the same fields. The study reported on did find problems with respect to deleterious effects of chemical "cocktails" involving Silvanto.

The other problem is with respect to the populations tested. Bee toxicity testing protocols allow for the testing of impacts on only the younger "in hive" worker bees, which ignores any possible negative effects on the older "forager" bees. This would be akin to testing hormone supplements strictly on pre-adolescent humans. Any result is guaranteed to be inconclusive as to the entire population. In this case it is even crazier, because the forager bees are the ones out there where the stuff has been directly applied to the fields, who will likely have greater exposure and upon which the success of the entire hive is predicated. The study found that the effects on forager bees was much more severe than upon hive bees.

While those are the two "principal" issues with existing testing methodologies, it should be noted that the study also found differential effects of the insecticide depending upon multiple other factors, such as temperature and the like.

I'll toss in a couple of passages from the article here, but it really warrants a full reading. It is relatively short and worth the effort.

The scientists provided the first demonstration that pesticide cocktails reduce honeybee survival and increase abnormal behaviors. They showed that worst-case, field-realistic doses of Sivanto, in combination with a common fungicide, can synergistically harm bee behavior and survival, depending upon season and bee age. Bees suffered greater mortality — compared with control groups observed under normal conditions — and exhibited abnormal behavior, including poor coordination, hyperactivity and apathy.

The harmful effects of Sivanto were four-times greater with foragers than with in-hive bees, the UC San Diego study showed, threatening their foraging efficiency and survival. Both kinds of workers also were more strongly harmed in summer as compared to spring.

In a nutshell, Silvanto is clearly not bee safe and should not be so labelled. What citizen action, besides voluntary refusal by "responsible growers" to use it when bees are foraging, an perhaps citizen campaigns to pressure said growers into such behavior need to be determined. It is unlikely that any registering/licensing bodies will reverse themselves barring massive die offs, though pressure should be applied to them too. Simply recategorizing from "bee safe" to not bee safe would seemingly do much to address the forager issue, and demanding greater temporal gaps between application of fungicides and this product could perhaps remedy the cocktail effect. Of course, simply not using pesticides and generally relying upon Integrated pest Management practices is an even better solution, but one that is unlikely to be followed by many, if any, growers. I did a quickie search for Silvanto at the Pesticide Action Network sits (www.panna.org) and got no hits, so they presumably have no action plans as of the date of this writing (mid April).

Image is Miel et Abeilles (honeybees stocking) by Pierre GRAND and is public domain.

Its an open thread so have at it. The floor is yours
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I won't be around when this posts.

Tags:

Open Thread

May 8

bees

pesticides

Silvanto

environment

Vote

Comments

Submitted by Lookout on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 6:49am

Good morning el and c99

Thanks for the article. I will read it. Large scale monoculture is really problematic. In the UN report on biodiversity released this week large scale agriculture receives much of the blame...

— Turning forests, grasslands and other areas into farms, cities and other developments. The habitat loss leaves plants and animals homeless. About three-quarters of Earth’s land, two-thirds of its oceans and 85% of crucial wetlands have been severely altered or lost, making it harder for species to survive, the report said.

— Overfishing the world’s oceans. A third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.

— Permitting climate change from the burning of fossil fuels to make it too hot, wet or dry for some species to survive. Almost half of the world’s land mammals — not including bats — and nearly a quarter of the birds have already had their habitats hit hard by global warming.

— Polluting land and water. Every year, 300 to 400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents and toxic sludge are dumped into the world’s waters.

— Allowing invasive species to crowd out native plants and animals. The number of invasive alien species per country has risen 70% since 1970, with one species of bacteria threatening nearly 400 amphibian species.

https://apnews.com/aaf1091c5aae40b0a110daaf04950672

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-un...

We should enjoy what we have while we have it! So have a good day everybody.

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 8:17am

When has self-regulation succeeded? Isn't

the invariable success of self-regulation what Greenspan claimed about banksters? He even wrote a self-serving book about that to excuse himself from lobbying for repeal of Glass Steagall and the commodities futures modernization act that deregulated crap mortgage derivatives. In combination, those two measures enabled banks to crash the economy of the US and a number of European nations. Greenspan and ~~the rest of~~ Bill Clinton's economic team lobbied hard for those two POS bills. (Both still in effect, btw, as banksters that were too big to fail in 2008 get still bigger and bigger.)

In the end, deregulation passed early in 2000, just before the Clintons exited the White House with some furniture and art work that may have belonged to the American people (Mostly true or mostly false?-- you decide). And it passed only because it got bundled into an omnibus bill touted as necessary to avert a (GASP!) government shut down.

The omnibus bill even included something about violence toward women so that voting against it was potentially politically poisonous, even if the Rep or Senator were otherwise willing to risk government shut down.

Since then, we've had several government shut downs. Turned out, none of them have wreaked anything near the havoc that de-regulation wreaked. (For those who saw Hillary throw the omnibus bill in Sanders' face --but in her husband's-- during a 2016 debate, Sanders voted for the commodities futures' modernization bill in the House BEFORE it contained the provisions deadly to the economy. Those were added in the Senate, where the bill failed. However, Sanders and the U.S. Senate did vote for the omnibus "keep the government open and don't be violent against women" omnibus bill into which deregulation had been wrapped. The de-regulation for which her husband's economic team had lobbied hard. Soon after condemning Sanders--but not her husband--she said that she would give her husband a job in her administration 'cause he's just so very good with money! Yet more proof of just how big a hypocrite Hillary is. But, you knew that--and I digress.

Greenspan's excuse was that he believed that Wall Street had too much to lose from failing to regulate itself; ergo, government could count on Wall Street always to regulate itself. It's as though Greenspan and ~~the rest of~~ Bill Clinton's economic team never heard of Black Monday, only Black Friday, when shoppers get trampled at WalMart. And, LOL, WALL STREET had too much to lose! Who would have expected Greenspan to be so funny!

Surprise, surprise, surprise, Wall Street did not regulate itself. 'Cause industries don't regulate themselves. Whether it's an auto manufacturer that has to spend pennies a vehicle to prevent deaths, but goes instead with causing deaths, or Monsanto or meat packers or pesticide manufacturers or whatever. Industries don't regulate themselves. You can write that down in your journal in ink, that's how confident I am of its truth. Amazing that Greenspan and ~~the rest of~~ Clinton's economic team missed all that.

Surprise, surprise, surprise, it also turned out that Wall Street's failure to regulate itself wasn't costly to Wall Street, after all, but only to Main Street. While Bush approved TARP I and Bush and Obama approved TARP II, no one bailed out Main Street. Au contraire, mon frère, Obama's D of J settled with banksters, to the detriment of Main Street, protecting banksters from their own gross negligence and other misdeeds, while making still more residents of Main Street homeless.

You can also write in your journal in ink that government agencies are not much better at regulating industries than industries are at regulating themselves. Born with the dual, and mutually inconsistent, charge of protecting consumers as well as fostering the industries that they regulate, government agencies soon got on the side of the industries. (Gee, I can't imagine why. However, I'm sure bribes and industry jobs that paid better than government jobs, aka, "the revolving door" had absolutely nothing to do with it.)

For example, the FDA knew for decades that cigarette manufacturers were adding nicotine to their smokes in order to make them more addictive, but the FDA never disclosed that to the public or forced cigarette manufacturers to cease the practice. They just let Congress hold hearing after hearing about the tobacco industry--also later protected by a government settlement, IIRC.

And, when Monsanto created seeds that ruined organic crops as far away as Southern Mexico, the FDA sided with Monsanto, even though Monsanto had not followed EPA regulations. Obama's Solicitor General, one Elena Kagan, who now sits on the Supreme Court bench, also got on Monsanto's side when the Monsanto case was argued before the Supreme Court. And now Kagan sits on the bench of that Court. What goes around comes around? Maybe not always!

Meanwhile, Colbert wants Americans to trust everything other Americans tell them because, somehow, a late night comic knows that RUSSIA! wants the opposite.

Pay me no mind. It's only my adult ADD that has me hopping from one corrupt betrayal of most Americans by government/big business to another. Well that, and Sesame Street, which teaches us to group together similar things.

Anyway, guess what day it is? ("Always leave 'em laughing.")

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs5QJi-dX-4]

Submitted by eyo on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 7:56am

Silvanto rhymes with Brawndo

and "Brawndo! is good for you" therefore ...

The bee safe label means that this insecticide can be sprayed on fields even while they are in bloom, and even while bees are actively foraging in those fields.

Only bees forage? never mind Bathe your kids in it why not. Where's the Biden Safe label when he's actively sniffing? Brawndo! more electrolytes

I'm with Lookout, "We should enjoy what we have while we have it!" right on. Yesterday I saw a lady bug metamorphosis in action, the thing attached itself to my doorstop a few days ago. Remember the two boob breastplate thingy I whittled off a little oak burl? That's my door stop, and yesterday it gave birth to a shiny new bug. Here it is next to the spiny shell it crawled out of:

spiny shiny rhymer

--- Foreign Policy
Selected quotes from the end of a long article on oilprice this morning, chock full of huh:
Iran’s Master Plan To Beat U.S. Sanctions

It is no coincidence that the sowing of such discord between these two power blocs would be in the interests of Russia. “The essence of Russia’s foreign policy under [President Vladimir] Putin is to create chaos amongst vested interests in a country or region into which it can then project itself as an economic and political saviour,” said the Iran source. “The only thing holding Russia back from fully implementing the agreement last year that would turn Iran into a client state was fear of what the US might do to it but the prize of further destabilising the US-Europe relationship now means it is willing to risk it,” he added.

This deal involves Russia giving Iran US$50 billion every year for at least five years. In exchange for this, Iran would give Russia preference in the oil and gas sector and increase military co-operation. In addition, Iran would not be able to expel any Russian firm from any oil and gas field development, and Russia would also have complete say over exactly how much oil is produced from each field, when it is sold, to whom it is sold, and for how much it is sold.

huh
Therefore... if she weighs the same as a duck... BURN HER! lol

I downloaded and watched all the Mate vids from last night's EB comments. That was good stuff, more food for thought. Thanks a lot everyone, have great days. I am going to have one for myself. yoda no try

PEACE

Submitted by eyo on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 11:49am

Sugar Mountain

Lookout's uid often gives me this earworm, it's a good thing. Cheers!

Neil Young performs "Sugar Mountain" with Willie Nelson and Mickey Raphael at the Farm Aid concert in Louisville, Kentucky on October 1st, 1995. Farm Aid was started by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp in 1985 to keep family farmers on the land and has worked since then to make sure everyone has access to good food from family farmers. Dave Matthews joined Farm Aid's board of directors in 2001. For more information about Farm Aid, visit: http://farmaid.org/youtube Farm Aid's performances are donated by the artists in order to raise funds and raise awareness for family farmers. They've raised their voices to help — what can you do?

Edit:replace embed with a share linky 'cause it looked like a big blank gap if I'm not logged in here, I don't know why.

Neil Young - Sugar Mountain (Live at Farm Aid 1995)
https://youtu.be/XVajUY-hBVI

Know Your Farmer
peace

Submitted by randtntx on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 8:16am

If someone

hands me a chemical and tells me it's "bee safe" and fine to use on my veggies, I would hand it back and not believe them. My guard is up. The evidence is incontrovertible that we have destroyed our planet and our health with these chemicals that we use for agriculture. Biodiversity is becoming a thing of the past, which it turns out, is something of a problem for us.
E.F. Schumacher was right. Small is beautiful. We should have been listening to nature in the past. We certainly should listen now.....if for no other reason than to admit that we have been terribly wrong. I wonder, who has a right to poison the planet.

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 9:07am

So, kids are off from school today.

Because Portland Schools are on Strike. I mean, notice given and everything, they couldn't find any subs? Guess they're on strike too. I dunno, just seems that pissing off a bunch of parents across the city who will not remember why you were on strike, just that they had to adjust their schedule for you. Hope they make it count, because if they don't... they've lost about half the parents in the city, minimum.

Who knows, maybe today is the day that the media pays attention and the politicians realize the importance of making rules... Yeah... and maybe pigs will buzz a tower and be sent to Top Gun...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBZUz4C6kqk]

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by Granma on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 11:44am

The teachers are not striking

@detroitmechworks they are all protesting for the state to spend more on schools because the class sizes are huge, the buildings need repair and maintenance badly. The list of troubles created by lack of education funding is long. The kids and teachers are not even safe the situation is so bad. Parents should be out there with teachers and subs raising heck about it.

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 2:36pm

No, we really shouldn't.

@Granma Considering they won't listen to students when they express problems, I have no problem returning the favor. The school officials want to NOT Strike, they can do it on their own time. All they've done is piss me off, and are smug about it.

They are that dedicated to fixing the school, it would have been far more effective to fix the stuff themselves. Ask for donations from carpenters and parents to fix the school and make a big noise about THAT. Show the incompetence of the administration! I'd be more sympathetic and would be willing to show up and swing a hammer or sweep a broom. But then, that would involve actually doing something instead of complaining, and Portland schools prefer to complain.

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by FuturePassed on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 8:16pm

I'm not sure . . .

@detroitmechworks that the possibility of pissing you off figured hugely in their thought process.

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 11:45am

are actually expressing irritation that the school district

@detroitmechworks
didn't hire ~~subs~~ scabs to outflank the strike?

elsewhere, teacher strikes have enjoyed broad support from the parents, despite the immediate short-term negative consequences for those parents.

—

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 2:28pm

But as noted above, Not a strike!

@UntimelyRippd Apparently it's just a protest.

And I'm also going to remember that my complaints were considered petty and not worth expressing. I am certain that's going to improve my opinion after all the bullshit the school has put me through already. Nothing like a little condescension to go with my irritation.

/snark

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 4:47pm

I took your word for it that it was a strike,

@detroitmechworks
and I was taking very specific and particular issue with what appeared to be a call for strike-breaking via hiring of scabs.

Beyond that, I didn't suggest that your issues were either petty or ought not to be expressed -- I only noted that whereas you believed that the action would alienate parents, that hasn't been what we've observed during the teacher strikes elsewhere. Strikes, whether of public or private workers, always place a burden on the general populace. One of the most important elements of any strike is therefore to effectively communicate to the public the causes and objectives of the strike, so as to win their sympathy.

In the case of this particular action, you've decided you're not sympathetic. That's up to you, based on your own perceptions. However, I will say that for myself, if I were a worker anywhere, and some member of the public suggested that the solution to my workplace problems was "Work smarter, not harder! Plus, work harder! Also too, take it upon yourself to repair and maintain the physical property that you do not own! Have a bake sale! Etc." my response would not be respectful. Not even one tiny bit.

—

Submitted by magiamma on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 9:39am

Morning all...

This was the lede article in the guardian last night. Maybe something will come of it. Like justice. Right.

Sandra Bland: video released nearly four years after death shows her view of arrest

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/07/sandra-bland-video-foota...

Have a good one, everyone...

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Submitted by Lily O Lady on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 11:18am

Even if this pesticide made bees healthier (impossible!)

the fact that it is a broad spectrum pesticide means that we are still committed to our own doom by killing off anything that does not directly profit us. We are on track to exterminate one million species, thus further degrading our environment.

Edit: changed second word from “is” to “if”.

—

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Submitted by dystopian on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 11:21am

good stuff EL

Of course the pesticide playbook is the same as big tobacco or sugar, fracking is safe and climate change deniers...

I read somewhere about how the EPA definition of toxicity was changed, of course due to pesticide (Monsanto etc.) lobbying, so that neonics would not be considered toxic. So millions could be made killin' stuff and destroying the environment. It was originally, something to the effect that if the bee died within 24-48 hours it was considered toxic
to them. It was changed to be only if it killed the animal on contact or nearly instantly. They maybe gave it a few minutes.

My understanding is 20% or more of bees neonic exposed do not find their way back to their hives. So it is not instantly lethal, or toxic. It kills them slowly enough for the product to be called non-toxic. Voila! Billions of dollars poisoning the planet killing all the beneficial and absolutely neccessary insects.

Of course the chlorpyrifos and this new bee-safe shat are all using the same semantic loophole and strategy. If measured by the original pre-lobbying new pro-corporate poison standard, it would not bee safe.

—

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Submitted by ggersh on Wed, 05/08/2019 - 11:44am