Editor’s Note: The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Auhority (APVMA) has “completed a broad overview of issues relating to honeybee health in Australia, with a particular focus on the use of neonicotinoid (‘neonics’) insecticides.”
After extensive review including consultation with other leading regulatory authorities including the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the Australian government concluded that use of neonicotinoids is not harming honeybees. To the contrary, use of neonicotinoids has reduced agricultural risks. The complete APVMA report, “Overview Report – Neonicotinoids and the Health of Honeybees in Australia” is attached here.
Below is a key excerpt from the Executive Summary:
Honeybees share diseases with wild bumblebees while pesticides’ danger remains unknown.
Two diseases of honeybees are spreading to wild bumblebees, Royal Holloway University of London researchers have found.
Wild insects infected with deformed wing virus (DWV) and the single-cell parasite Nosema ceranae were present across England, Scotland and Wales, they found. The decline of the UK’s bumblebees over recent decades has been attributed to habitat loss, but this latest finding suggests an additional factor.
Professor Mark Brown from Royal Holloway, University of London said: “These pathogens are capable of infecting adult bumblebees and they seem to have quite significant impacts.”
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau says he’s not prepared to push for an immediate ban of a controversial class of pesticides being blamed for mass bee deaths in Ontario and Quebec.
“Ultimately, we’re a party of evidence-based policy,” Trudeau said Wednesday during a question and answer session at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture meeting in Ottawa.
“We will be looking at ways to move forward that is going to support farmers based around science and research and not necessarily implement a ban on neonics despite the very clear will (of party members), which I take as a will to make sure we’re being smart about bee populations,” he said.
By: Rhonda Brooks, Farm Journal Seeds & Production Editor
Farmers, beekeepers and industry look for opportunities to provide help for hurting pollinators.
Complex problems are rarely, if ever, solved by simple answers, and the alarming loss of honeybees in North America during the past few years is no exception to the rule.
One of the encouraging signs, however, is that a consortium of stakeholders, including farmers, beekeepers and the crop protection industry, is addressing the problem and looking for ways, collectively, to solve it.
