Research carried out at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique at the University of Avignon found that bees are extremely sensitive to common pesticides containing imidacloprid and fibronil While the manufacturers stubbornly maintain that both are perfectly safe the researchers showed that even at very low levels bees became intoxicated and stopped feeding. [From: "A Spring without Bees", Michael Schaker.]
The levels are 6 PPB imidacloprid for and 1ppb for fibronil. That is parts per billion, an extremely small amount!
And research from Sweden:
“Klaus Wallner confirmed in his study of Imidacloprid prepared Phacelia with a burden of 50 g/hectare, that the bee’s honey-sac average contamination was 5ppb and the pollen taken from the ‘pollen baskets’ of the bees contained 7ppb.
[From: http://www.englishhoney.co.uk/imidacloprid.html Accessed 09 May 2009, 0727]
It certainly does look like imidacloprid is a causal factor in colony collapse disorder.
Have these products been withdrawn in France? Partly. Has the UK government taken this research seriously and withdrawn all products containing these chemicals…. NO!
Agrochemical companies have a clear moral and ‘political’ responsibility to act on this yet they persist in arguing against independent findings and quote their own research which is bound to support their products.
It is time the UK government acted and acted soon before we lose our bees. The effects on food production would be dire yet nobody seems to do anything.
Update 10 May 2009
Apologies to the Co-op for not mentioning their action to protect British bees. They have temporarily banned neonicotinoid-based pesticides on own-brand fresh produce. These are Acetamiprid, Clothianidin, Dinotefuran, Fipronil, Imidacloprid, Nitenpyram, Thiacloprid and Thiamethoxam.
They have also launched their Plan Bee campaign which can be found here. Good luck and all power to them!
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