By Derrick Broze Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. has announced that they will eliminate the use of a class of insecticides which have been linked to negative effects on pollinator populations, including bees and butterflies. After reviewing possible threats to honey bees, Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. has decided…
By Christina Sarich (UR) Maryland — Maryland just led the way to save bees from harmful pesticides by passing a bill to eliminate the use of neonicotinoids, a first for any state in America. This class of agricultural chemicals is especially harmful to these important pollinating insects. In…
By Claire Bernish Polish scientists seeking to help save pollinators developed a method for testing the presence of pesticides in honeybees — and what they found should be a call to action. Scientists with the National Veterinary Research Institute in Poland, who were analyzing the…
By Beyond Pesticides Aldi Süd, the German supermarket chain with stores in the U.S., has become the first major European retailer to ban pesticides toxic to bees, including the neonicotinoids imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, from fruits and vegetables produced for their stores. Aldi has requested…
By Derrick Broze On Wednesday, a researcher with the United States Department of Agriculture filed a whistleblower complaint alleging his supervisors suspended him in retaliation for his research on pesticides. The complaint follows calls for investigation of both the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency….
A group of UBC students is betting probiotics could be the key to protecting bees from death caused by harmful pesticides. “We rely heavily on bees for our food. They pollinate more than $15 billion worth of crops in the U.S. every year, but they…
By Derrick Broze On Thursday September 10th, a federal appeals court dealt a huge blow to the pesticide industry by issuing a ruling that blocks the use of a controversial pesticide believed to be causing harm to honey bees. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals…
By Alex Pietrowski For over the last decade, beekeepers and scientists have been documenting the decline of important pollinators such as honeybees. This decline poses a huge threat to the food supply, because without pollinators some crops wouldn’t exist, while others would suffer in crop…
Natural Blaze More than 70% of pollen and honey samples collected from foraging bees in Massachusetts contain at least one neonicotinoid, a class of pesticide that has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which adult bees abandon their hives during winter, according to…
By Carey Wedler As the world’s bee population continues to decline, the community of Oslo, Norway is taking action to protect its pollinators. The Oslo Garden Society is working with the city’s municipal government, businesses, environmental organizations and the public to create a “bumble bee highway”…
by Arjun Walia It’s been pretty big news for quite a few years now, the honeybee population has been dying off in very large numbers. At first the cause wasn’t so clear as it could have been for a number of reasons from environmental toxins…
By Heather Callaghan Many arrows point to the bee decline. A Harvard professor recently warned that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is only the beginning for us. The ripple effect from new classes of pesticides is just getting started. But there’s more… The problems they face…
By Heather Callaghan While chemical corporations and critics of bee activists want people to remain focused on addressing symptoms of colony collapse disorder, and fund research aimed at that goal, one Harvard PhD stands out as he presses on pesticides. Researcher and Harvard professor, Chengsheng…
By Heather Callaghan In a recent press release by the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, it was announced that a Canada-wide health surveillance study of the honeybee will take place over the next four years. According to the ABC, the study will be conducted in order to find…
Two widely used neonicotinoids—a class of insecticide—appear to significantly harm honey bee colonies over the winter, particularly during colder winters, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The study replicated a 2012 finding from the same research group that found…
By Andrea Germanos When I came out and saw my loss, I mean you literally just cry. The record cold that gripped much of the Midwest this winter added insult to injury to already struggling bee populations. While they expect to lose a small proportion…
Four pesticides commonly used on crops to kill insects and fungi also kill honeybee larvae within their hives, according to Penn State and University of Florida researchers. The team also found that N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) — an inert, or inactive, chemical commonly used as a pesticide…
by Heather Callaghan Even though the EU is initiating a 2-year ban on neonicotinoid pesticides which are heavily implicated in causing massive bee die-off, and a few organizations are suing the EPA for turning a blind eye towards pesticides – there is still a dire…
by Michael Snyder If bees keep dying off at this rate, we are going to be facing a horrific agricultural crisis very rapidly in the United States. Last winter, 31 percent of all U.S. bee colonies were wiped out. The year before that it was…
by Alex Pietrowski In what may be the single largest mass bumblebee die-off on record, some 50,000 plus bees were recently found littering the parking lot of a Target store in Wilsonville, Oregon recently after a landscaping company sprayed surrounding trees with the insecticide Safari….
