We have heard a great deal of news over the years about the shrinking bee population. Two new studies released in late March add to the solid body of scientific evidence showing that common pesticides are directly harming bees.
The insecticides in the latest study, neonicotinoids and coumaphos, scramble the circuits of bees’ brains. This leaves them unable to learn, smell or remember — all critical abilities for foraging honey bees.
Unfortunately, political pressure from large well-funded chemical companies keeps these products on the market.
Our government took action when bald eagles were becoming extinct because of pesticide ingredients and bees play an even more important role in our daily lives.
EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) officials have hinted that they may speed their review of bee-harming pesticides, but for now, the agency remains on course to conclude its review of neonicotinoids in 2018.
For the EPA to study this for five more years could put our bee populations at complete risk of a collapse!
Nature’s hard-working bees don’t vote but you do and it is important to let your senators and congressmen and women know you are concerned about the continued lack of action by the EPA. Bees are essential for pollinating our crops and it is important for California agriculture that the EPA does something immediately, not stall for five more years of harmful spraying from insecticide products containing these ingredients. That is “not remotely good enough,” noted the New York Times in an editorial earlier this month.
Paul M Harman, Auburn