Stepping off the front porch into the bright spring day, the sun warms your face. You hear the delightful song of birds in the nearby oak tree. Children shriek as they cruise by on bicycles they’ll no doubt leave in the middle of the driveway. Looking down the street, you see perfectly manicured lawns, not a weed in sight. Closing your eyes, something else seems to be missing: the familiar buzz of bees, hard at work. If you have no bees you have no almonds, no blueberries, no first sip of coffee in the morning…
Image credit: Cory Barnes / Flickr
Pollinators—most notably insects like bees and butterflies—have always played an important part in human ventures into agriculture. For years, we tried to replicate the wild process of growing food that nature had long-ago perfected, and pollinators made it possible to harvest some of the most nutritious and delicious fruits, nuts and vegetables.
The average person sitting down to dinner today probably doesn’t realize the important role pollinators played in preparing that meal. Pollinators contribute more than $24 billion to the United States economy, of which honeybees account for more than $15 billion.[1] When you factor in native wild pollinators, the number grows even higher. Some scientists say you can thank pollinators for one out of every three bites of food you eat.[2]
Over the past few decades, there has been a significant loss of pollinators, particularly bees, from the environment. The number of managed honeybee colonies in the United States has declined steadily over the past 60 years, from 6 million colonies (beehives) in 1947 to 4 million in 1970, 3 million in 1990, and just 2.5 million today.[3]
Since 2006, commercial beekeepers in the United States have seen honeybee colony loss rates increase to an average of 30-40% each winter, more than twice the rate of historical losses.[4]
Scientists know that bees are dying from a variety of factors: pesticides, parasites and pathogens, habitat loss, global warming and so forth.[5] The causes are complex, but we know that humanity is the perpetrator of the two most prominent causes: pesticides and habitat loss. Commercial agriculture has shifted from a biological exercise to a chemical one, where pesticides and monoculture practices dominate the landscape.
The thing we can most control right now are pesticides. And the No. 1 target on the list of bee-killing pesticides: neonicotinoids, a type of insecticide that’s chemically related to nicotine.
Neonicotinoids, or neonics, act on insect nervous systems. They accumulate in individual bees and within entire colonies, including the honey that bees feed to infant larvae. Bees that do not die outright experience sub-lethal systemic effects, development defects, weakness, and loss of orientation. The die-off leaves fewer bees and weaker bees, which must work harder to produce honey in depleted wild habitats.[6] These conditions create the nightmare formula for bee colony collapse.
One example: After a nearby farm planted corn seeds coated with neonics in 2013, farmer Dave Schuit lost 37 million of his bees. “Once the corn was planted, our bees died by the millions,” said Schuit.[7]
Some of the viral agents that are impacting honeybee colonies are also now reported to be adversely affecting native pollinators, such as bumblebees, and the pollination services they provide.[8]
With the facts laid out, it quickly becomes clear that we need to save the bees, and other pollinators, before it’s too late. But like any other story, this one has a bad guy. In fact, it has a few.
Massive agrichemical companies like Bayer, Syngenta, Dow, DuPont and Monsanto are pushing the use of the toxic pesticides threatening the very bees that pollinate most of our food.[9] In order to preserve crops—mostly those that don’t require animal pollination like corn—from pests, they’re destroying the pollinators that make our favorite crops grow. They advocate no change in pesticide policy; after all, selling poisons to the world’s farmers is very profitable.
At the urging of millions of Americans, President Obama recently established a special task force to save the bees. And we’re finally starting to see action, with the preservation of some bee habitats and initial limits placed on the use of harmful pesticides.
The European Union has already placed a moratorium on bee-killing neonics.[10] The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has committed to phasing them out on all of the public lands they manage.[11] And Maryland[12], Minnesota[13] and Oregon[14] have all agreed to take some form of action against neonics.
Some companies are taking action as well. Retailers with large garden centers, like Home Depot, Lowe’s and BJ’s Wholesale Club, have taken steps to limit the sale of plants treated with neonics, label the plants, or both.[15]
It’s a start, but we need to do much more to save our precious pollinators and our food supply. Right now, we’re letting big agrichemical companies use more of the chemicals that are known to kill bees just as we’re in the midst of an unsustainable die-off in bee populations. That has to change. Now.
Image: Qypchak / Wikimedia Creative Commons
We need the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the toxic pesticides that are rapidly poisoning bees, before time runs out. But the EPA is dragging its feet. So we’ve swung into action, and we’re calling on the EPA to take the lead to restore bee populations to health. We know that if we build enough public support, the EPA will stop the use of bee-killing pesticides.
We’re going to keep the pressure on, but we need to keep the momentum building. We need help to take this campaign to the next level. And with so much at stake, we can’t afford to wait.
That’s where you come in. The EPA needs to hear from you. We need to show them that there is public support for limiting pesticide use. It won’t be an easy fight. Big agrichemical companies have tremendous financial and political power—and they’ll continue to push for expanded use of pesticides and fight hard against any attempts to roll back use.
We’ve joined a coalition of beekeepers, environmental groups and more than 100 businesses calling on the EPA to stop the use of bee-killing pesticides. And we’re organizing our members across the country to demand action to save the bees.
The buzz is building, but we can’t accomplish it without you.
~
You step off the front porch into the warm sunlight, watching children race down the street on their older siblings' old bicycles. A bee cruises across the yard and lands on the Helianthus flower you planted earlier in the year. Smiling, you take a sip of coffee. The bee flies off, accepting its essential duty.