DISASTER PRECURSORS: The Latest Incidents Of Strange Animal Behavior And Warnings From the Nature - Mass Bees Die-Offs In Portland Area, Oregon And Mass Die-Off Of Fish And Crabs "Panics Fishermen" In Paradip, India; Dad & Son In ICU After Wasp Attack In Altamonte Springs, Florida, United States; 20 Dogs Die From Arizona Heat; Alien Trap-Jaw Ants Spread Along Gulf Coast! [PHOTOS+VIDEOS]

June 24, 2014 - EARTH - The following constitutes the latest reports of unusual and symbolic animal behavior, mass die-offs, beaching and stranding of mammals, and the appearance of rare creatures.

Mass Bees Die-Offs Reported In Portland Area, Oregon

Department of Agriculture inspector Isaac Stapleton examines the honeybee hives of Jon Beaty in Estacada after
they have recently suffered mass bee die off. (Photo: Thomas Patterson / Statesman Journal)

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is investigating at least three Portland-area mass bee die-offs that appear to be linked to pesticides.

Beekeepers in several locations have reported entire colonies dying suddenly.

Estacada beekeeper Jon Beaty checked his hives Wednesday night.

"I noticed that there were hundreds of bees lying on the ground in front of the hives dead, which was shocking to me," Beaty said.

Sandy beekeeper Dena Rash Guzman noticed tens of thousands of dead bees in and around two of her eight hives Wednesday.

"I live in the middle of nowhere on a 60-acre sustainable farm," she said. "We've had beehives here for four years and never have had this happen."

Guzman called expert Matt Reed, owner of Portland's Bee Thinking beekeeper supply store, who came out to take a look.

"When a honeybee colony dies en masse like that, usually it is pesticides," Reed said. "A lot of them were dropping off the combs as I inspected them."

Reed said he's seen a rash of similar reports on Portland-area beekeeping Facebook forums this week.

Beaty and Guzman suspect aerial spraying of nearby nurseries and Christmas tree farms.

An ODA pesticide investigator took samples at the hives Friday morning, ODA spokesman Bruce Pokarney said.

(Photo: Thomas Patterson / Statesman Journal)

(Photo: Thomas Patterson / Statesman Journal)

Eugene pesticide operator has license suspended

The state has suspended a Eugene pesticide operator's licensefollowing an incident this week that left about 1,000 bees dead.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture found that an employee of Glass Tree Care and Spray Service sprayed the neonicotinoid pesticide imidacloprid on 17 flowering linden trees at an apartment complex Tuesday.

Neonicotinoids can harm bees if used improperly.

It's the same situation that caused a highly publicized die-off of 50,000 bumblebees at a Wilsonville Target a year ago.

That incident led to the formation of a legislative task force on pollinator health that will begin meeting this month.

It also led Oregon to require that neonicotinoid pesticides imidacloprid and dinotefuran sold in the state be labeled with instructions prohibiting use on linden trees and other tilia species.

Glass Tree Care was using a product with an old label on it, ODA said. But older labels state the pesticides cannot be used when the trees are in bloom.


WATCH: Mass bee die-offs reported in Portland area.

By law, pesticide applicators must follow label instructions.

Most of the pollinators impacted were bumblebees, ODA spokesman Bruce Pokarney said. Some honeybees also were found dead and dying.

As a condition of license reinstatement, Glass Tree Care and Spray Service must have the applicator retake and pass examinations required for a commercial pesticide applicator; the company must cooperate with ODA, to the department's satisfaction, in preventing or mitigating further harm from incident; and the company must provide to ODA a written plan describing how it will set in place policies or protocols to prevent recurrences of incidents involving pesticide applications to plants in bloom.

ODA is considering additional enforcement action, Pokarney said.

"We've given information to all of our pesticide licensees. We've made a great effort to talk about pollinator protection," Pokarney said. "They should have known better." - Statesman Journal. 

Mass Die-Off Of Fish And Crabs "Panics Fishermen" In Paradip, India

A group of people fishing at Puri Canal in Bhubaneswar on Friday.  (Express photo)

Large scale death of marine species including fish and crabs for the last couple of days on Santra Creek here has spread panic among local fishermen. Scientists of State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) have rushed to the spot to collect water samples to ascertain the cause of the mass death of marine species.

The fishermen alleged that discharge of chemical effluents from the proposed Paradip refinery project of IOCL is the main cause of the fish death.

Though the refinery project is yet to be commissioned, IOCL authorities have pressed several contractual agencies for the project’s construction work. The agencies have been discharging chemical effluents into Santra creek and Kadua river leading to the mass death, alleged the fishermen.

Farmers in Paradip area also complained that prawn and other marine species have perished in nearly 11 gheris causing loss to the tune of `4 crore. Prawn farmer Susant Pradhan said marine fishes in a three-acre gheri have died due to release of chemical effluents from the refinery project. The loss is estimated to be around `35 lakh, he added.

Fishermen Madhu Parida, Lalu Patra, Gobind Samal and others said they had cultivated prawn and marine fish by availing loans from private financiers. After the death of the marine species, it is an uphill task to repay the loans, they rued.

On the other hand, a senior officer of the IOCL refuted the allegation of the death of marine fish due to discharge of chemical waste from the refinery project. The project has not yet been commissioned and so there is no question of chemical waste being discharged into Santra creek. Moreover, IOCL collected water samples for testing and found the allegation baseless from the report, he added.

Senior scientist of SPCB Prasant Kar, who visited the spot, said, “Our team has collected water samples which would be tested at the central laboratory in Bhubaneswar. The cause of the death of marine fishes is yet to be ascertained as we are awaiting the laboratory report. Fishes and crabs in around 10 prawn gheris on Santra creek have perished,” he added. - New Indian Express. 

Dad, Son In ICU After Wasp In Altamonte Springs, Florida, United States

Neighbors, beekeeper help pair survive

A father and son from Altamonte Springs are both in intensive care units at two separate hospitals after being attacked by a massive swarm of wasps.

David Alvarez and his 7-year-old son, Jordan, were on a walk with their dog last Wednesday evening in a wooded area along the Little Wekiva River near Mahogany Lane when one of them, or the dog, stepped on a yellow jacket nest, disturbing thousands of the wasps.

The pests relentlessly attacked Alvarez and his son.

“Just to see them like that and so swollen and so many marks on them, it's just horrible,” said Jennifer Jones, the man's wife and boy's mother.

Jones has been going back and forth between Florida Hospital Altamonte and Orlando, visiting her husband and son, who are struggling to recover from the attack. She said her husband's grandmother lives in the neighborhood they were in and that he's gone for walks in the same area for the past 30 years.

When the yellow jackets attacked, Jones said her son led his dad, who is allergic to them, out of the wooded area and onto the road, where they flagged down help.

“I was driving down the street and I saw a man and a boy stumbling out of the woods and stumbled across the road covered in bees,” said Brien Schou.

Schou said he rolled down his window to see what they needed and wasps immediately flew into his vehicle. Schou called 911 while other neighbors ran out to help.

“I know he wanted to quit because he said, 'I just wanted to give up because it hurt so bad, but I had to keep going because I seen daddy laying there on the ground.' I just can't believe how strong he is,” said Jones of her 7-year-old son.

To Jones' amazement, a beekeeper who lives nearby also heard people screaming for help. Jim Kunze jumped in his truck and drove around the block, where he found the two suffering.

“It was pretty bad. It was chicken pox times five, at least,” said Kunze.

Kunze threw on his bee outfit, put Jordan in his truck to get some air conditioning and immediately went to work, pulling off and killing the yellow jackets that were still attacking Alvarez.


WATCH: Father, son in ICU after being attacked by wasps in Altamonte Springs.

Kunze said he believes the family's dog was walking ahead of the father and son and may have stepped on the nest.

“They've got guards at their entrance, and once the first one stings, it puts out a pheromone, it alerts the rest and the rest go to that point,” said Kunze.

Alvarez has developed pneumonia and a blood clot. He is still unconscious and heavily sedated. His son was taken out of ICU but was re-admitted Monday due to some difficulty breathing.

“They will be lucky to survive this. They were attacked that viciously,” said Kunze.

Jones said her husband was alert enough to give her phone number to paramedics, who called her to tell her what happened. She said when she got there,  a yellow jacket was crawling out of her son's ear.

The family's dog was also stung and started to have liver failure. She was taken to a veterinarian and seems to be recovering well.

Jones said she's thankful for the first responders and the beekeeper who helped her family.

With kids out of school for summer and playing outside, Jones said she just wants other parents to be aware of what happened to her family.

“It's so nerve-racking because it's kind of by a school and it is summer time and kids go and explore and the main thing is, I don't want this to happen to another kid,” said Jones.

Friends of the family have started a GoFundMe account to raise money for their medical bills. Click here for more information. - Click Orlando.

20 Dogs Die In Arizona Heat

Heat. There's been plenty of it to go around in Arizona these first days of summer -- literally and politically -- after the air conditioning went out at a dog kennel.  Sheriff's deputies found 20 dead dogs piled up in a shed on Friday at Green Acres Dog Boarding Facility in Gilbert. The public shock over their deaths led a U.S. senator to issue a public statement on Monday.  As fate would have it, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake's son, Austin, was minding the kennel, when the dogs died.  Green Acres is owned and operated by two of Flake's relatives, Jesse and Maleisa Hughes, the Maricopa County Sheriff's office said.  The couple was out of town, leaving Austin Flake to dogsit, when a dog apparently chewed through the electric wiring connected to the air conditioning, said Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  He called it an accident, but at the same time cast doubt on the kennel owners' account of how the dogs died.

Kennel owners: It was an accident  
"It was a tragic accident," Hughes told CNN. "We are heartbroken, and we're devastated." She doesn't believe anyone could have predicted or stopped what happened.  The air conditioning unit kicked out in the middle of the night, Hughes said.  Austin Flake and his wife slept at the east end of the house, while the temperature climbed to seething heights in the kennel on the west end, Maleisa Hughes said.  The dogs sleep there at night in a large, cooled room, she said.  The two sides of the house have separate air conditioning units, so the Flakes couldn't feel the suffocating heat.  During the day in Gilbert, the mercury has blasted up to over 100 degrees F, easily making it hard to find relief, perhaps even after temperatures dip back down to under 80 at night.  By the time the Flakes discovered the dogs at 5:30 a.m., the temperature was over 100 degrees, Hughes said.  The gnawed wire was still sputtering off sparks.  "It could have burned down our whole house," Hughes said. "My whole house could have burned down and all my children could have died, and then it would have been a tragedy."  One of the dogs that perished was her own.  The Flakes turned a hose and ice on the overheated dogs to try to save them, the sheriff's office said. "But failed to call for emergency assistance before the dogs died."

Sheriff: Story "seems unreasonable"  
Sheriff Arpaio said that his office is investigating and that parts of Hughes' story seems suspicious. "It seems unreasonable that dogs could be healthy at 11 p.m. at night and dead by 5:30 a.m. the next morning as the owners suggest," he said.  A veterinarian he conferred with has corroborated his doubts, Arpaio said.  Deputies arrived to find some of the dogs' owners at Green Acres. A couple cried and hugged, as deputies used a wheel barrow to cart off dogs' carcasses wrapped in cloth.  Pet owners told Arpaio that the Hughes misled them about the number of dogs kept at the kennel.  The Hughes have not been arrested or charged, CNN affiliate KPNX reported. - CNN.

Alien Trap-Jaw Ants Spread Along Gulf Coast

This species of trap-jaw ant, Odontomachus relictus, is only found in Florida. It is a cousin of O. haematodus,
a South American species that has recently taken hold along the Gulf Coast.Magdalena Sorger

An aggressive type of trap-jaw ant with a mighty bite is gaining ground in the U.S. southeast, new research finds.

The species, Odontomachus haematodus, is native to South America, but it seems to have spread recently along the Gulf Coast without attracting much attention until now. 

"The fact that some of these species are spreading is interesting, in part because these giant ants have managed to expand their territory without anyone noticing," Magdalena Sorger, a doctoral student at North Carolina State University, said in a statement. "We know very little about these ants, including how they interact with native ant species in the areas they're invading." [See Amazing Photos of the World's Ants] 

O. haematodus may have been hiding in the United States unnoticed for more than five decades. The earliest example of the species in the country comes from insect specimens kept in the Smithsonian National Collection: O. haematodus samples were picked up in Alabama in 1956. 

Often mistaken for its North American cousins, O. haematodus, when in small groups, likely blended in across the Southeast over the next several decades, but now the population is too big to ignore. Today, the species is common along the Gulf Coast, from the New Orleans area of Louisiana east to Pensacola, Florida, Sorger and colleagues wrote in their study published in the journal Zootaxa. 

The ants have a shiny body ranging from yellow to black in color, and they have taken root in a variety of habitats. Their nests have been found in rotting logs in forests as well as in building foundations in urban areas, the researchers wrote. 

Trap-jaw ants of the genus Odontomachus are remarkable for their strong set of mandibles. The creatures' spring-loaded jaws open 180 degrees and quickly snap shut to grab prey or propel the ant into the air to escape predators. (The insects had previously been called "leaping ants.") In 2006, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, clocked the jaw-snapping speed of Odontomachus bauri and found this species closes its mandibles at 78 to 145 mph. 

While native trap-jaw ants found in the United States do not usually sting humans unless handled, O. haematodus are more aggressive. In defense of their turf, ants of this species will immediately sting intruders who so much as place a hand in the leaf litter near their nests. According to anecdotal reports, the insect sting is painful but doesn't last long, Sorger and colleagues wrote. 

The team hopes their research paper will help scientists identify which species of trap-jaw ants they encounter in the future. - FOX News. 

MASS BEES DIE-OFF: Global Food Crisis - MILLIONS Of Bees Have Died Off Since May In Bio Bio, Chile?!

August 12, 2013 - CHILE - Since May, when they killed millions of bees, beekeepers and Liucura Quillón Alto, located near the river Itata in the Bio Bio region, seeking solutions to continue with their work. But SAG, state agency headed by Anibal Ariztía nationwide, does not respond to the emergency that extends to other communities in the region. 

Some beekeepers lost all their bees, and others, who were no drawers, only contemplate the flaming centrifugal honey extraction purchased by themselves or in some cases, supported by INDAP. Not being evaluated so far the influence of the disappearance of these millions of bees in pollination required for fruit crops in the region. Until last year, the official version was that in Chile SAG had no incidents that show that the country also lived global collapse syndrome of bees. While government policy Sebastián Piñera continues with the slogan "Chile Food Power", the reality is otherwise contaminated food, high prices of fruits and vegetables for Chileans, and threats to the seed farmer, whose announced privatization further obscures this critical scenario. 

As demonstrated in this incident, the small crop farming only negative externalities agro-export model, intensive use of agrochemicals. Instead, multinationals like Monsanto, Pioneer and Bayer, producing hybrid and transgenic seeds, but also pesticides, redoubled their lobbying for new privileges through the draft Plant Breeders Act pending in Congress that guarantees delivery unpublished your business, including the prohibition of exchange and store of seed and the right to own the seed patents, to bring to justice those who use their seed producers, accusing them of "piracy". 

Possible Causes 
Beekeepers related mortality of these millions of bees with toxic insecticide application recently banned in Europe, which remain legal in Chile: Poncho (trade name of the active ingredient clothianidin), Gaucho (Imidacloprid) produced by Bayer and Syngenta, and other pesticides used in grape and cherry crops. Another cause of the plague, as beekeepers, pesticides spraying is carried out in the plantations sector, 80% of which are from Celco and remaining Hosain Senator Sabbath. A third case mentioned is that foods like fructose and pads vitaminizadoras, supplied officially recommended bees and are made with genetically modified corn that poisons bees. 

Transgenics in the Bio Bio 
By ignorance, beekeepers do not include the issue of GM crops, but in the region of Bio Bio, in Yungay, Los Angeles and other communities in the 2012-2013 season were grown transgenic 3019.23 hectares of experimental and / or certification export. Of these 2,222 acres are certified transgenic rapeseed, transgenic corn are 431 and there are 125 acres of transgenic soybeans (seed Certification 2012-2013 www.sag.cl ).According to scientists researching the subject, bees have a "fatal attraction" that leads them to travel greater distances than the usual to make it to the corn flower in search of pollen, transgenic here. The Bio Bio region ranks third in production of transgenic seeds export, with the regions of Maule and O'Higgins those in the first and second place in the ranking associated with a high use of agrochemicals such as glyphosate (Roundup) and other pesticides 

Maria Elena Rozas, coordinator of Pesticide Action Network RAP-Chile, commented: "The Agriculture and Livestock should have a ban and / or immediate suspension of the use of imidacloprid, clothianidin, fipronil Thiametoxam and responsible for the death large number of families of bees, pollinating insects and birds, and banned in Europe. The inaction on this issue seriously endangering continue these beneficial insects and biodiversity. The authority has powers to apply the precautionary principle, and emulate what was done in April this year by the EFSA European health authority in that regard. Among the reasons for the European ban are the risks posed by these pesticides in pollen and nectar crops attractive to bees. " 

Millions Lost 
Nearly a thousand crates of bees, which in the post-harvest holding about one hundred thousand individuals per drawer miscarry from the first week of May 2013, according to Juan Carlos Abarzúa, one of the beekeepers affected, current president of Quillón Beekeeping Committee. A box of bees has a value of between 55 and 60 thousand dollars, so that the direct losses reach sixty million pesos, excluding future losses (profits) for the low production of honey. At the time of producing many offspring are born and total population per drawer should reach skirting the 180-200000 bees. 

Given the ecological disaster, they told beekeepers four Prodesal officials of local, dependent on each other, in the municipalities of Quillón and Bulnes. The SAG in its report says that the plague is caused by the varroa a mite. Juan Carlos Abarzúa, of the town of Santa Clara in Liucura Alto, refutes: "No samples were taken that will ensure that. We have the proper and authorized treatments themselves. This is not to recognize that large forest piecework sprayed without warning nor warning. We also know of a fly that was introduced to him to eat pine moth. But we wonder, this fly has to mutate and what will you eat? This fly was supposed to die in winter!At the same time, wild rabbits are dying, the country people thought to die from starvation after this fly them itchy eyes and go blind, bumping into trees. For SAG, rabbits die from a fever "continues incredulous Juan Carlos Abarzúa. 

SAG Inaction 
In the meeting with agricultural officials beekeepers expressed concern about use of neonicotinoids in grapes to attack two insects, thrips and mealybugs, and the use of carbaryl in cherry. They complained of lack of control by the SAG. At this convening, INDAP arrived with Biomiel consultant, represented by Marcelo Rodriguez, whose approach was considered distracting for those affected. The consultants only referred to the responsibility of the beekeepers in the care of bees, incorporating the figure of the "beekeeper absent" and attributing the millions of dead bees to inattention. 

The damage was patchy. "Many left with zero drawer drawers I was 25 and I had total loss. Just this year had made a significant investment: a centrifuge for extracting honey. Another beekeeper did too, but with funds acquired a centrifuge Indap worth over 2.5 million dollars, "says Juan Carlos Abarzúa, adding that beekeeping requires much attention as investments to succeed is very high. 

Abarzúa continues: "The July 5 meeting was conducted with representatives beekeepers affected Indap, and Mr. Pedro Burgos, SAG official Bulnes city and municipal officials in charge of the respective Prodesal. We asked them for health analysis they were doing and had no answer. Neither explained why SAG continues to authorize the use of insecticides that are harmful to bees, as we are informed that clothianidin and tiametoxan are neonicotinoids that kill bees and were banned in other countries for that, but they did not give us answers our concern. " 

In the meeting held in July emanated not proposed solutions, and a month later only concerned beekeepers were summoned to form a Beekeeping Committee, whose characteristics do not know. Juan Carlos Abarzúa also criticized the role of the consultant Biomiel and added: "It hurts the indolence on the part of the authorities with regard to sustainability in our country and the planet. Without bees there is no future. We do not ask for replacement of bees, but clarity about what is going to adopt appropriate measures. No sampling sani secretariats to give a technical or scientific answer. " 

The latest incidents of death of bees globally occurred in early July this year in Elmwood, in the Canadian province of Ontario, where 37 million bees found dead. In turn, the British Beekeepers' Association said in a recent report that the past year saw the largest loss of bees in its history, while in Gerona, Catalonia, beekeepers have also lost millions of bees. David Schuit, who runs a bee farm in Elmwood, states were responsible for a loss of 600 hives insecticides family of 'neonicotinoids', manufactured by the multinational Bayer. - Rebelion. [Translated] 

Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought

Via qz.com, 24 July 2013 - As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought.

Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.

Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples.

“There’s growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz.

Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions have not applied to fungicides.

Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.

In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But vanEngelsdorp, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, says the new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting bee health.

“The pesticide issue in itself is much more complex than we have led to be believe,” he says. “It’s a lot more complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product.”

The study found another complication in efforts to save the bees: US honey bees, which are descendants of European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen, however, was also contaminated with pesticides even though those plants were not the target of spraying.

“It’s not clear whether the pesticides are drifting over to those plants but we need take a new look at agricultural spraying practices,” says vanEngelsdorp.

Bees dying by the millions

Via thepost.on.ca, 19 June 2013 - ELMWOOD - Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also.

Local grower Nathan Carey from the Neustadt, and National Farmers Union Local 344 member, says he noticed this spring the lack of bees and bumblebees on his farm. He believes that there is a strong connection between the insecticide use and the death of pollinators.

“I feel like we all have something at stake with this issue,” he said. He is organizing a public workshop and panel discussion about this problem at his farm June 22 at 10 a.m. He hopes that all interested parties can get together and talk about the reason bees, the prime pollinators of so any different plant species, are dying.

At the farm of Gary Kenny, south west of Hanover, eight of the 10 hives he kept for a beekeeper out of Kincardine, died this spring just after corn was planted in neighbouring fields.

What seems to be deadly to bees is that the neonicotinoid pesticides are coating corn seed and with the use of new air seeders, are blowing the pesticide dust into the air when planted. The death of millions of pollinators was looked at by American Purdue University. They found that, “Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms, analysis of dead bees revealed traces of thiamethoxam/clothianidin in each case. Seed treatments of field crops (primarily corn) are the only major source of these compounds.

Local investigations near Guelph, led to the same conclusion. A Pest Management Regulatory Agency investigation confirmed that corn seeds treated with clothianidin or thiamethoxam “contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities” last spring.

“The air seeders are the problem,” said Ontario Federation of Agriculture director Paul Wettlaufer, who farms near Neustadt. This was after this reporter called John Gillespie, OFA Bruce County president, who told me to call Wettlaufer. Unfortunately, Wettlaufer said it was, “not a local OFA issue,” and that it was an issue for the Grain Farmers of Ontario and representative, Hennry Vanakum should be notified. Vanakum could not be rached for comment.

Yet Guelph University entomologist Peter Kevan, disagreed with the EU ban.

“There’s very little evidence to say that neonicotinoids, in a very general sense, in a broad scale sense, have been a major component in the demise of honeybees or any other pollinators, anywhere in the world,” said Kevan.

But research is showing that honeybee disorders and high colony losses have become a global phenomena. An international team of scientists led by Holland’s Utrecht University concluded that, ”Large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinator services at risk.” This research and others rsulted in the Eurpean Union ban.

The United Church is also concerned about the death of so many pollinators and has prepared a “Take Action” paper it’s sending out to all its members. The church is basing its action on local research. The Take Action paper states among other things, “Scientific information gathered suggests that the planting of corn seeds treated with neonicotinoids contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities that occurred in corn growing regions of Ontario and Quebec in Spring 2012.”

Meanwhile Schuit is replacing his queen bees every few months now instead of years, as they are dying so frequently. “OMAFRA tells me to have faith. Well, I think it’s criminal what is happening, and it’s hard to have faith if it doesn’t look like they are going to do anything anyway,” Schuit says.