{"id":99931,"date":"2017-10-09T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=99931"},"modified":"2017-10-08T13:26:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-08T12:26:57","slug":"study-dangerous-pesticide-found-in-75-percent-of-the-worlds-honey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/10\/study-dangerous-pesticide-found-in-75-percent-of-the-worlds-honey\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Dangerous Pesticide Found in 75 Percent of the World\u2019s Honey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image Credit: Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

6 Oct 2017 – <\/em>A new study published in the journal Science<\/em>\u00a0detected at least one variety of\u00a0a harmful pesticide\u00a0in 75 percent of honey around the world. The study, \u201cA worldwide survey of neonicotinoids in honey,\u201d<\/a> examined 198 types of honey from around the world looking for traces of neonicotinoids, a pesticide suspected of harming the honey bee population. Of the 75 percent containing neonicotinoids, 30 percent contained one neonic, 45 percent contained two or more, and 10 percent had four or five.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0neonicotinoids\u00a0are a class of pesticide that has\u00a0been linked<\/a>\u00a0to declines in bee populations. Neonics were developed in 1991 and\u00a0commercial use began in the mid-1990s.<\/a>\u00a0Around 2006, commercial beekeepers began reporting what is now known as colony collapse disorder \u2014 where entire colonies of bees die off with no obvious cause. The disorder has been reported in commercial colonies all over the world.\u00a0Several studies<\/a>\u00a0have implicated neonics, which are used to kill insects harmful to crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that 45% of our samples showed multiple contaminations is worrying and indicates that bee populations throughout the world are exposed to a cocktail of neonicotinoids,\u201d the researchers wrote. \u201cThe effects of exposure to multiple pesticides, which have only recently started to be explored, are suspected to be stronger than the sum of individual effects. This worldwide description of the situation should be useful for decision-makers to reconsider the risks and benefits of using neonicotinoids and provides scientists an inventory of the most frequent combinations of neonicotinoids found in honey.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study also found that 34 percent of the honey samples contained \u201cconcentrations of neonicotinoids that are known to be detrimental\u201d to bees and pose a threat to their survival.<\/p>\n

Chris Connolly, a neurobiology expert at the University of Dundee,\u00a0told Phys.org <\/a>that the findings were \u201calarming\u201d and that the amount of neonicotinoids detected \u201care sufficient to affect bee brain function and may hinder their ability to forage on, and pollinate, our crops and our native plants.\u201d<\/p>\n

After years of back-and-forth speculation and conflicting studies from countries around the world, it seems fair to say neonicotinoids insecticides are causing dramatic weakening of honeybee hives. In June, two new studies<\/a> confirmed the danger of the class of pesticide.<\/p>\n

The first study involved researchers in Hungary, Britain, and Germany planting fields of rapeseed, which is commonly used as a cooking oil. Some of the fields were sown with seeds treated with neonicotinoids while others were planted with untreated seeds. The teams studied the bees from spring 2015 until the following spring. The study,\u00a0\u201cCountry-specific effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on honey bees and wild bees,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0was published in the journal\u00a0Science<\/em>. \u201cThese findings point to neonicotinoids causing a reduced capacity of bee species to establish new populations in the year following exposure,\u201d the researchers write.<\/p>\n

A second\u00a0study published in\u00a0Science<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>looked at Canadian corn farms and also reached this conclusion. Researchers at York University in Canada found that wild bees are not only exposed to neonics via spraying, but also through wildflowers. \u201cThis indicates that neonicotinoids, which are water soluble, spill over from fields into the surrounding environment, where they are taken up by other plants that are very attractive to bees,\u201d said Nadia Tsvetkov, lead researcher with York University.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the dangers of neonicotinoids have been known for some time.\u00a0A July 2016 study\u00a0published in the\u00a0journal\u00a0Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/em><\/a>\u00a0found that neonicotinoids do not kill drone honey bees, but instead drastically reduce the amount of live sperm produced by the male population. Researchers at Switzerland\u2019s University of Bern found that the bees who ate pollen treated with neonicotinoids produced 39 percent less live sperm than the bees who did not eat the treated pollen.<\/p>\n

In September 2015 a federal appeals court dealt a huge blow to the pesticide industry by\u00a0issuing a ruling that\u00a0<\/a>blocks the use\u00a0<\/a>of neonics<\/a>. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the U.S. EPA insufficiently tested the pesticide sulfoxaflor before approving its use in 2013. Sulfoxaflor is a type of neonicotinoid. Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder stated the EPA should have done further research once initial studies showed sulfoxaflor was highly toxic to honeybees.<\/p>\n

What will it take for the chemical companies to end the use of their dangerous product? Should the people stand by and rely on the government to protect them, the environment, and the bees?<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

Derrick Broze is an investigative journalist and liberty activist. He is the Lead Investigative Reporter for <\/em>ActivistPost.com<\/a> and the founder of the TheConsciousResistance.com<\/a>. Derrick is the author of three books: <\/em>The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality<\/a>, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 1<\/a> and<\/em> Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 2<\/a>. Derrick@activistpost.com<\/em><\/p>\n

This article may be freely reposted in part or in full with author attribution and source link<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 activistpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Oct 2017 – A new study published in the journal Science, \u201cA worldwide survey of neonicotinoids in honey,\u201d examined 198 types of honey from around the world looking for traces of neonicotinoids, a class of pesticide that has been linked to declines in bee populations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}