{"id":182952,"date":"2015-04-28T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/28\/great-now-bees-are-going-to-have-nic-fits\/"},"modified":"2015-04-28T20:30:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T01:30:00","slug":"great-now-bees-are-going-to-have-nic-fits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/04\/28\/great-now-bees-are-going-to-have-nic-fits\/","title":{"rendered":"Great.  Now Bees are Going to Have Nic Fits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that part of the problem with the&nbsp; neonicotinoid pesticides,&nbsp; and bees is that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-32399907\">bees react in the same way to the pesticides as a smoker does to nicotine<\/a>, and preferentially select contaminated nectar.&nbsp; (Research articles is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rsc.org\/chemistryworld\/2015\/04\/bees-prefer-contaminated-nectar-neonicotinoid-pesticides\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/vaop\/ncurrent\/full\/nature14414.html\">here<\/a>) <\/p>\n<p>This has the effect of increasing their exposure to these pesticides, which have been tied to colony collapse disorder:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Bees prefer food containing neonicotinoid pesticides, research suggests.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">They may &#8220;get a buzz&#8221; from the nicotine-like chemicals in the same way smokers crave cigarettes, according to scientists at Newcastle University.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The experiments raise the question of whether bees can be exposed to harmful doses of pesticides because they are attracted to the chemicals.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Another study found neonicotinoids had a negative effect on bees in the wild.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Crop Protection Association, which represents pesticide producers, questioned the findings of the studies, published in the journal, Nature.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\">Scientific controversy<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Bees are in decline in Europe and North America due to a number of factors, including pesticides, habitat loss and diseases.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">In 2013, the EU imposed a two-year ban on using three neonicotinoid pesticides on flowering crops amid concern about their effects on bees.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Neonicotinoids contain synthetic chemicals similar to nicotine, which as a plant toxin is damaging to insects.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Neuroscientists at Newcastle University tested whether honeybees and bumblebees preferred food containing neonicotinoids over untreated food in the laboratory.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">They were surprised to find that sugar solution containing two of three neonicotinoid pesticides appeared to be attractive to bees and &#8220;may act like a drug&#8221; targeting the brain.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This sh%$ is getting very real.<\/p>\n<p>We need to stop pandering to the Ag chemical companies of the world, and review these chemicals with a lot more rigor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that part of the problem with the&nbsp; neonicotinoid pesticides,&nbsp; and bees is that bees react in the same way to the pesticides as a smoker does to nicotine, and preferentially select contaminated nectar.&nbsp; (Research articles is here and here) This has the effect of increasing their exposure to these pesticides, which have been &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1029,1079,985,1069,1025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-environment","category-regulation","category-science","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}