Good British bee news, but …

This video from the USA says about itself:

EPA Finally Discovers What’s Killing The Bees

10 January 2016

The EPA has concluded what is causing the phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder in bees. To no ones real surprise it was a chemical pesticide that has caused the mass die-off of this important species. Ana Kasparian, Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show), Jayar Jackson, and Becca Frucht hosts of The Young Turks discuss.

“Bees are dying in record numbers—and now the government admits that an extremely common pesticide is at least partially to blame. For more than a decade, the Environmental Protection Agency has been under pressure from environmentalists and beekeepers to reconsider its approval of a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, based on a mounting body of research suggesting they harm bees and other pollinators at tiny doses. In a report released Wednesday, the EPA basically conceded the case. The report card was so dire that the EPA “could potentially take action” to “restrict or limit the use” of the chemical by the end of this year. Marketed by European chemical giants Syngenta and Bayer, neonics are the most widely used insecticides both in the United States and globally. In 2009, the agency commenced a long, slow process of reassessing them—not as a class, but rather one by one (there are five altogether). Meanwhile, tens of millions of acres of farmland are treated with neonics each year, and the health of US honeybee hives continues to be dismal.”

Read more here.

By Felicity Collier in Britain:

Bee fans welcome government pesticide ban

Friday 10th November 2017

ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners welcomed the government’s announcement yesterday that it will ban a certain type of pesticide to save bees but warned it against “repeating past mistakes” by the use of other harmful chemicals.

Neonicotinoids, which present a risk to honey bees, have been banned for use on crops such as the bright yellow oilseed rape plant by the European Union since 2013.

The EU Commission has since proposed restricting the use of three neonicotinoids to plants in greenhouses, which would extend the ban to crops such as sugar beet and some cereals.

In a reversal of the previous position held by his department, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said new evidence indicated that the risk to bees and other insects from the chemicals was “greater than previously understood.”

Britain will now support a total EU-wide ban on bee-harming pesticides in the countryside, a position it will maintain after leaving the bloc.

Mr Gove claimed he wanted to see a “green Brexit” in which environmental standards were improved, but the decision appears to have been taken on purely economical grounds as he described bees as a “key part in our £100 billion food industry.”

However, they are also a key part of wildlife food chains and environmental campaigners fear that farmers may use other harmful chemicals instead.

Professor Dave Goulson, of the University of Sussex, said: “If the pesticide industry simply replace neonicotinoids with some new generation of pesticides, we will not have made progress but will simply be repeating mistakes we have made over and over again for 70 years.”

Friends of the Earth chief executive Craig Bennett welcomed the decision, but said: “We now need to move away from chemical-intensive farming and instead boost support for less damaging ways of tackling persistent weeds and pests.”

Tories adopt Labour’s policy to back total ban on bee-harming pesticides: here.