The Story of the Birds and the Bees: The Neonic Catastrophe That Never Was
July 16, 2015
From: The Huffington Post | Green
Like the fictional parents in the edgy comedy show South Park who blame Canada for all of their woes, environmentals often coalesce around an issue and then come up with a simple but sometimes simplistic narrative to anchor their advocacy.
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A joint report by the Agriculture Department and the EPA issued two years ago concluded that pesticides while a minor contributor were way down the list of likely causes. They cited as the primary drivers: colony management, viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition, genetics and habitat loss. By far the biggest culprit–the report called it “the single most detrimental pest of honeybees”–was identified as the parasitic mite varroa destructor–which along with Nosema parasite are considered the leading threats to bee health.
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