Global TV: Silence of the Bees: It has to stop, it just has to stop.
September 17, 2014
TORONTO – Davis Bryans is a fourth-generation beekeeper at Munro Honey in Alviston, Ontario. It’s a lifestyle he loves. It may be a long day – 12 to 14 hours in the summer – but he’s outside, learning about the natural world around him and watching as life flourishes season by season.
But what he’s noticed lately is that life is declining around him. In particular, that of insects.
For the past six years or so, Bryans has noticed a steep decline in his bee crop.
“We’re out the environment and we’re really noticing other pollinators that aren’t there,” Bryans said. “Like the leaf-cutter bee, the bumble bee, the butterflies…they’re just not there.”
And it’s not just his crop, others are also in decline. The culprit responsible, Bryans believes – along with other beekeepers around the world – are neonicotinoids, known as neonics or NNIs. In fact, in 2013, the European Union put a temporary ban on NNIs.
The first time Bryans started to notice something was wrong was around 2007. His crop was declining, but cropping practices had remained the same.
He and other beekeepers in the same area were perplexed.
Bryans tried replacing the queens. But that didn’t stop the bees from dying, sometimes a twitching mess in front of the hive, sometimes just laying dead in a pile.
Finally, in 2012, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), a branch of Health Canada, sent investigators to the region from both the Ontario Ministry of Environment and theMinistry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).
