Glyphosate is no bee killer
November 3, 2015
From: Genetic Literacy Project
Honey bees have had a rough decade or so. Starting in 2006, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) started to empty hives of these precious pollinators. While CCD appeared to have ebbed by 2012, honey bee losses, mostly linked to different factors, remained high enough to be of concern to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And earlier this summer the White House announced that Interagency Pollinator Health Task Force would begin digging into the problem further.
As far as what caused CCD, nobody knows, although most scientists are convinced it was not neonicotinoids, as many advocacy groups have claimed. It’s not the first time managed honey bee hives have been decimated by unexplained factors. Indeed, most experts agree that the cause was likely multifactoral, citing a combination of stressors that include pests and pathogens, disease, nutrition, genetics, environmental exposures and commercial bee hive management practices.
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