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Should Pesticides that are detrimental to honeybees be illegal?

Should Pesticides that are detrimental to honeybees be illegal?

  • Total voters
    21
TurtleDude said:
I use WD-40 on Yellow jacket nests=-spray liberally at night-run about 15" of cannon fuse down the hole and light it

the oil sticks to the wasps and those that don't fry are killed by the oxygen burning up in their nests

but here is a neat way to whack yellow jackets-especiallyin the fall where they become more carnivorous

one-get a bucket of water and add some liquid soap

two-get some raw hamburger and some "hardware cloth"

make a ball out of the hardware cloth with the hamburger inside it

hang it about 2 inches above the water in the bucket

yellow jackets love eating raw hamburger. They will land on the hardware cloth to eat the hamburger

they have to drop a couple inches to start flying and they will fall into the soapy water and drown. -the soap makes it harder to see the water line. I did this a few years ago and drowned several hundred of the little buggers
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Pouring boiling water on their nests works pretty well, too, and has no negative effects on the environment.
 
I honestly don't know. I don't know enough about the subject and haven't looked into the pros vs cons. Would we lose more crops due to the reduced number of bees or more crops due to the increased number of pests? I am certainly all for coming up with pesticides that don't hurt bees, though.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Pouring boiling water on their nests works pretty well, too, and has no negative effects on the environment.
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true but that doesn't tend to kill the entire underground nest like WD-40 Flame thrower technique does
 
lizzie said:
I am a beekeeper, and I DON'T support the idea of making pesticides which harm them, illegal. We've been keeping bees in this country for many years now, and they aren't the cause of bee colony declines.
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BINGO!!!! Look folks, real information from an expert and not reactionary crap made up as a way to attack big corporations that some people don't like. My brother-in-law raises bees (small time) as well and he lives in a fairly highly agricultural area, where they spray a lot. He's been picking up 3-4 new hives a year by picking up swarms that people want removed. He also has the world's best honey - blackberry honey, raised on the west side of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon with the BIG blue ribbons from the state fair to prove that his honey is the best in Oregon, which means the best in the world (lizzie, I'm sure yours almost as good).
 
sangha said:
I would vote "other"

Insecticides (I prefer that term because these chemicals kill all sort of insects, many of whom are beneficial, and not just pests) should be strictly regulated and only be licensed for use under extreme conditions and only when non-insecticidal methods of controling pests have been implemented but failed to prevent a large-scale infestation
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Those are reactionary techniques and smart farmers know that you have to get ahead of infestations, not behind them.
 
TeleKat said:
Honeybees are pretty damn important to our ecosystem. Actually, they are probably one of the most important creatures. Concessions and sacrifices need to be made to protect them.
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Quick question: What's the #1 pollinator of wild plants?? Here's a hint - It isn't bees.
 
faithful_servant said:
BINGO!!!! Look folks, real information from an expert and not reactionary crap made up as a way to attack big corporations that some people don't like. .
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Yes, much of it is just an emotional reactive response to an idea. I don't like pesticides any more than the next organic nut, but we have to deal with reality here. We have huge populations to feed, and those populations want CHEAP food. You're not going to get cheap food by growing it organically. If it worked, they'd already be doing it on a huge scale. Food for humans overrides ideology and emotional reactions.
 
faithful_servant said:
Quick question: What's the #1 pollinator of wild plants?? Here's a hint - It isn't bees.
Click to expand...

Heh! It's true that, by some measures, honeybees are not the best pollilnators. In fact, there are bees that are more efficient pollinators than honeybees.

However, there are plants that depend on honeybees for pollination. They are a critical pollinator
 
lizzie said:
Yes, much of it is just an emotional reactive response to an idea. I don't like pesticides any more than the next organic nut, but we have to deal with reality here. We have huge populations to feed, and those populations want CHEAP food. You're not going to get cheap food by growing it organically. If it worked, they'd already be doing it on a huge scale. Food for humans overrides ideology and emotional reactions.
Click to expand...

Organic farms can not be only be just as productive as farms that use chemical fertilizers and pesticides - they can be more productive

And the aount of food being produced by organic farms is increasing at a greater rate than that of "factory" farms
 
sangha said:
Heh! It's true that, by some measures, honeybees are not the best pollilnators. In fact, there are bees that are more efficient pollinators than honeybees.

However, there are plants that depend on honeybees for pollination. They are a critical pollinator
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Yes, and most of those plants provide food for the seven billion humans who inhabit this pale blue dot we all live on.
 
sangha said:
IPM is not reactionary
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Insecticides (I prefer that term because these chemicals kill all sort of insects, many of whom are beneficial, and not just pests) should be strictly regulated and only be licensed for use under extreme conditions and only when non-insecticidal methods of controling pests have been implemented but failed to prevent a large-scale infestation
Click to expand...

Situations that arise after the infestestation, not before. The damage has been done or is currently happening. Smart farmers stop the damage before it takes a toll. If they wait until the damage has hit a point where it's "extreme" or "large scale", then it's usually too late. Getting ahead and staying ahead of infestations is the only way to successfully stop them from doing great harm to the farmers crops. What you're proposing reminds of the year that we got cutworms in our petunias. Almost all of the flowers suddenly died in a matter of a couple days. My wife told me that I needed to I needed to spray them all, but at that point it was too late. Had hit the flowers with a good systemic spray 3 weeks prior, we would have saved our petunias.
 
sangha said:
Organic farms can not be only be just as productive as farms that use chemical fertilizers and pesticides - they can be more productive

And the aount of food being produced by organic farms is increasing at a greater rate than that of "factory" farms
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that's simply not true. Factory farms are designed for high output, if organic was able to out-produce them, they'd be using organic. Keep in mind that my grandfather was doing sustainable, organic farming long before anyone ever thought of the term "organic"). Ha had a medium sized farm and raised chickens (eggs), cattle and sheep. He fertilized his fields using the chicken manure and rotated his fields between the cattle and the sheep to help keep them healthy. He got better yields from his livestock than anyone anywhere even vaguely close to him as a result (this was in the '50-early 70s). I've seen how that kind of farming can be done, but I also know that if it was that simple to do, then the big factory farms would be all over it. But they aren't, since it doesn't produce the results they can get from using chemical fertilizers, pest controls, etc. It's simple economics and the cold-hearted, completely amoral corps. that run these farms are going to do what works and if organic worked as you claim, they'd be all over it...
 
sangha said:
Heh! It's true that, by some measures, honeybees are not the best pollilnators. In fact, there are bees that are more efficient pollinators than honeybees.

However, there are plants that depend on honeybees for pollination. They are a critical pollinator
Click to expand...

Do you even know what the #1 wild plant pollinator is??
 
JumpinJack said:
Absolutely. When I moved into my house 20 years ago, there were honeybees all over the place. There are none, now. I saw some native bees last year (they look like big flies and are black). I don't know if they pollinate, or if they pollinate the same things.
Click to expand...

I understand, but it's not a pesticide problem. For a couple of decades, we've been losing honeybee colonies from varroa mites, and we keep trying to come up with new and improved methods for treatment. I am an organic beekeeper- I don't put any chemical in the hives unless I am concerned that they are near-death. That hasn't happened for the past few years. What I have now, appears to be a mite-tolerant colony out in my beeyard. They have not been manipulated or re-queened for personality. They have been left to do their own breeding as per their nature. They are a hot hot hive, and will attack with little provocation. That being said, they appear to be naturally resilient and are surviving, in spite of many losses.

Pesticides are not what is causing the honeybee decline. It's been varroa mites for years now, and there's also a not-yet-well-understood colony collapse disorder which appears problematic, but we've had pesticides around for many years, and some of them were much more lethal than what is often used nowadays.
 
faithful_servant said:
Situations that arise after the infestestation, not before.
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Yes, but that doesn't mean that nothing is done before the infestation. You are buying into the BS that insecticides are the only way to control pest damage

It's not true

The damage has been done or is currently happening. Smart farmers stop the damage before it takes a toll. If they wait until the damage has hit a point where it's "extreme" or "large scale", then it's usually too late.
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Which is why I did not suggest that we do wait and do nothing until the damage is extreme. Arguing that the use of insecticides should be a our first resort is like saying we should drop nukes in response to any aggression against us. Why should we wait or limit ourselves to conventional weapons if the damage might hit a point where it's extreme or large scale?

Getting ahead and staying ahead of infestations is the only way to successfully stop them from doing great harm to the farmers crops.
Click to expand...

Gettting and staying ahread of infestations does not require the prophylactic use of insecticides. The premise of your position is based on a myth

What you're proposing reminds of the year that we got cutworms in our petunias. Almost all of the flowers suddenly died in a matter of a couple days. My wife told me that I needed to I needed to spray them all, but at that point it was too late. Had hit the flowers with a good systemic spray 3 weeks prior, we would have saved our petunias.
Click to expand...

Spraying chemical insecticides is not the only way to deal with cutworm problems.

For one thing, there's bt. Though it is an insecticide, it's biological and not chemical. If you sprinkle corn meal in the garden, they will eat it and it will kill them. You can make a mixture of molasses with 50% sawdust and 50% bran. Add some water and drop it in blobs around the garden. They get stuck in it and become prey for predators. You can also encourage cutworm predators (which is impossible if you spray an insecticide) such as toads, blackbirds, firefly larvae, lacewings, tachnid flies, trichogramma and braconid wasps. And you can grow plants which repel cutworms next to your flowers

I repeat - not using insecticides does not mean doing nothing about pests,
 
faithful_servant said:
Sorry, but that's simply not true.
Click to expand...

Actually, it is true.

Farming Systems Trial: Overview | Rodale Institute
http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...d-if-done-right-scientists-claim-9913651.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming#Productivity


Oganic farms can not only be more productive, but they are more effective. Because they don't use expensive inputs like fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, etc yet produce just as much product, their profit margin is higher. This margin is further increased by the fact that organic produce commands a higher price.

IOW, organic farms are not only as productive, they are more profitable.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110901093715.htm
http://www.organicagcentre.ca/NewspaperArticles/na_profitability_jw.asp
http://www.fao.org/3/a-ak355e.pdf

So if organic is more profitable, then why isn't Big Ag embracing it? Read on.

Factory farms are designed for high output, if organic was able to out-produce them, they'd be using organic. Keep in mind that my grandfather was doing sustainable, organic farming long before anyone ever thought of the term "organic"). Ha had a medium sized farm and raised chickens (eggs), cattle and sheep. He fertilized his fields using the chicken manure and rotated his fields between the cattle and the sheep to help keep them healthy. He got better yields from his livestock than anyone anywhere even vaguely close to him as a result (this was in the '50-early 70s). I've seen how that kind of farming can be done, but I also know that if it was that simple to do, then the big factory farms would be all over it. But they aren't, since it doesn't produce the results they can get from using chemical fertilizers, pest controls, etc. It's simple economics and the cold-hearted, completely amoral corps. that run these farms are going to do what works and if organic worked as you claim, they'd be all over it...
Click to expand...

No, big agricultural corps prefer modern agricultural practices, not because they are more productive, but because it weakens the market power of the small to medium sized farmer, makes themless dependent on skilled labor, and therefore keeps them in control of the market.

1) Modern practices require huge investments in equipment, fertilizers, water, insecticides, herbicides, etc. Small to medium sized farms must become indebted in order to have any hope of surviving (which is why so many of them are disappearing) while leaving them no hope of outcompeting the larger farms.

If you owned a large ag corp, wouldn't you want the industry to embrace practices that put you at a competitive advantage and lead to small farms either going out of business or being consolidated with large ag corps?

2) Big Ag encourages the division of labor. They make it so small to medium farms can't do anything but grow the food so they have to sell what they grow to the processors....who are often owned or closely linked to the Big Ag corps. If you're a Big Ag corp that both grows and processes tomatoes, would you have the processor pay a lower price for the produce (resulting in the farms making less money and the processor making more) or would have the processor charge more?

The latter makes the Big Ag's farms more profitable (and every other farm too) and the processor less profitable. Overall, the corp makes less money because it ends up "sharing" the total profits (of both growing and processing) with the smaller farms which it doesn't own. Big Ag corps prefer to pay the farmers less because they end with more total profits in the end. The reduction in profits from farming are more than made up by the increased profits of their processors.

As you said, the Big Ag corps are amoral and only care about profit. However, increased production is not the only way for large corps to increase their profits. Practices which reduce the share of profits that smaller farms earn also increase their profits

IOW, increased profits does not mean increased production. But you did hit the nail on the head with those remarks, even if it was unintentional. The takeaway is that the reason why Big Ag likes modern practices are economic and have nothing to do with them having an interest in feeding people.
 
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lizzie said:
I understand, but it's not a pesticide problem. For a couple of decades, we've been losing honeybee colonies from varroa mites, and we keep trying to come up with new and improved methods for treatment. I am an organic beekeeper- I don't put any chemical in the hives unless I am concerned that they are near-death. That hasn't happened for the past few years. What I have now, appears to be a mite-tolerant colony out in my beeyard. They have not been manipulated or re-queened for personality. They have been left to do their own breeding as per their nature. They are a hot hot hive, and will attack with little provocation. That being said, they appear to be naturally resilient and are surviving, in spite of many losses.

Pesticides are not what is causing the honeybee decline. It's been varroa mites for years now, and there's also a not-yet-well-understood colony collapse disorder which appears problematic, but we've had pesticides around for many years, and some of them were much more lethal than what is often used nowadays.
Click to expand...

No, it's not mites. And it's not insecticides.

It's a whole host of factors that put stress on honeybees. Those factors include both mites and insecticides but neither one can be called The Cause of the problem.
 
sangha said:
No, but we're talking about domesticated food crops, not wild plants.

But I like trivia, so why don't you tell us the answer. But first, I'll take a guess.....

The wind.
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Mosquitos. But you don't hear a big hue and cry about saving them. Honeybees, OTH, have a "cachet" about them that draws people into the discussion about saving them. If you told people that they had to stop spraying in order to protect mosquitos, they'd be screaming bloody murder. But when you tell them they need to stop spraying to in order to protect honeybees, suddenly it's a different story. Odd that the mosquito populations (which are highly present in agricultural areas as well) have shown no signs of collapsing.
 
sangha said:
No, it's not mites. And it's not insecticides.

It's a whole host of factors that put stress on honeybees. Those factors include both mites and insecticides but neither one can be called The Cause of the problem.
Click to expand...

Every beekeeper I know tells me that it's is the mites, since they are the one thing that has gotten worse in the last few years. The insecticide levels haven't gone up an in a lot of areas they've actually down (since the less insecticide the farm has to use, the less expense it has to pay out, a lot of large farms are re-looking at how much they use in order to save money).
 
sangha said:
Actually, it is true.

Farming Systems Trial: Overview | Rodale Institute
Organic farming can feed the world if done right, scientists claim - Environment - The Independent
Organic farming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Oganic farms can not only be more productive, but they are more effective. Because they don't use expensive inputs like fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, etc yet produce just as much product, their profit margin is higher. This margin is further increased by the fact that organic produce commands a higher price.

IOW, organic farms are not only as productive, they are more profitable.

Economic analysis reveals organic farming profitable long-term -- ScienceDaily
Is organic farming more profitable?
http://www.fao.org/3/a-ak355e.pdf

So if organic is more profitable, then why isn't Big Ag embracing it? Read on.



No, big agricultural corps prefer modern agricultural practices, not because they are more productive, but because it weakens the market power of the small to medium sized farmer, makes themless dependent on skilled labor, and therefore keeps them in control of the market.

1) Modern practices require huge investments in equipment, fertilizers, water, insecticides, herbicides, etc. Small to medium sized farms must become indebted in order to have any hope of surviving (which is why so many of them are disappearing) while leaving them no hope of outcompeting the larger farms.

If you owned a large ag corp, wouldn't you want the industry to embrace practices that put you at a competitive advantage and lead to small farms either going out of business or being consolidated with large ag corps?

2) Big Ag encourages the division of labor. They make it so small to medium farms can't do anything but grow the food so they have to sell what they grow to the processors....who are often owned or closely linked to the Big Ag corps. If you're a Big Ag corp that both grows and processes tomatoes, would you have the processor pay a lower price for the produce (resulting in the farms making less money and the processor making more) or would have the processor charge more?

The latter makes the Big Ag's farms more profitable (and every other farm too) and the processor less profitable. Overall, the corp makes less money because it ends up "sharing" the total profits (of both growing and processing) with the smaller farms which it doesn't own. Big Ag corps prefer to pay the farmers less because they end with more total profits in the end. The reduction in profits from farming are more than made up by the increased profits of their processors.

As you said, the Big Ag corps are amoral and only care about profit. However, increased production is not the only way for large corps to increase their profits. Practices which reduce the share of profits that smaller farms earn also increase their profits

IOW, increased profits does not mean increased production. But you did hit the nail on the head with those remarks, even if it was unintentional. The takeaway is that the reason why Big Ag likes modern practices are economic and have nothing to do with them having an interest in feeding people.
Click to expand...

Small/med. sized farms are no competition for agricorps. They wouldn't sweat them for one minute if it cost them so much as a dime.
 
RFR said:
Should Pesticides that are detrimental to honeybees be illegal?
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Only if there is cost affordable alternative should such pesticides be illegal.
 
faithful_servant said:
Mosquitos. But you don't hear a big hue and cry about saving them. Honeybees, OTH, have a "cachet" about them that draws people into the discussion about saving them. If you told people that they had to stop spraying in order to protect mosquitos, they'd be screaming bloody murder. But when you tell them they need to stop spraying to in order to protect honeybees, suddenly it's a different story. Odd that the mosquito populations (which are highly present in agricultural areas as well) have shown no signs of collapsing.
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I believe that the "cachet" about honeybees is the fact that human beings like to eat.

And I believe that you made that up about mosquitoes.

Prove me wrong if you can.
 
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