AgriDigest: Bee death study creating international buzz

LONDON — An unprecedented Ontario field study of honeybees — and its preliminary finding that bee deaths aren’t linked to a specific pesticide used to coat major crop seeds — is creating international buzz even before it’s finished.

The field study is funded with almost $1 million from Bayer, one of two major producers of a seed coating commonly used to protect crops from insect damage. It comes as several European Union countries are about to vote on banning the group of insecticides, called neonicotinoids, for fear it’s causing massive deaths of honeybee colonies.

The study that took place last summer near Waterloo suggests no such connection, said University of Guelph researcher Cynthia Scott-Dupree. Hives were placed in the middle of 10 fields of flowering canola for the insect pollinators: five fields with seeds treated with Bayer’s proprietary neonicotinoids and five with untreated seeds. Honey production was equivalent in both sets and the relatively low number of bee deaths in each was also similar. Colony weight gain and bee deaths were virtually identical. “What we are not seeing is mass bee kills that would be associated with insecticide exposure. We’re not seeing any difference between the control (untreated seeds) and the treated,” Scott-Dupree said.

Some already aren’t buying it.

“There’s going to be major pushback on this study, I’m sure,” said Dan Davidson, president of the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association and operator of Supersweet Honey near Watford.

He said the study suffers from its unanswered questions, including the long-term effect of neonicotinoids on bees. He said Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency is sifting through hundreds of reports of dead bees from last year alone and most of those bees have tested positive for the pesticide.

He also questioned the study because it was paid for by the pesticide’s maker, which stands to lose billions of dollars if its product is banned or restricted. Read full article