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[Kinitari]

Edit: I feel I should add the Forbes link is an opinion piece, don't want to mislead here

Went and did some digging after seeing some stuff in an upcoming AMA with the study authors

https://www.forbes.com/sites/henrym...e-headlines-but-trashes-science/#179f3c9f3f5c

Not surprisingly, neonics have become the most popular, widely used insecticide on the planet–which has put them squarely in the cross hairs of environmental activists and the organic industry. Claiming (inaccurately) that neonics were causing a collapse in honeybee populations, threatening their imminent extinction and jeopardizing the world’s food supply, bad-faith activists have managed to get them mostly banned in Europe.

Only after the ban was in place did a few science writers in the United States start pointing out that bee populations weren’t collapsing as claimed by the activists and EU regulators. Bee populations are, in fact, increasing–in Europe, the U.S., Canada and indeed on every continent except Antarctica–and have been rising since the mid-1990s, when neonics first came on the market.

...

According to the press release for this study, the researchers found that "exposure to [neonicotinoid] treated crops reduced overwintering success of honeybee colonies…in two of the three countries.” And “[l]ower reproductive success--reflected in queen number (bumblebees) and egg production (red mason bee)--was linked with increasing levels of neonicotinoid residues in the nests of [the two] wild bee species…across all three countries.”

...

The nine red squares–about 3% of the results–indicate a negative effect on honeybee colonies for those measured endpoints (compared to bees exposed to untreated control fields). The seven dark green squares–also about 3% of the results–indicate positive, beneficial effects on honeybee colonies, compared to control.

These results are striking: Beneficial, positive effects on honeybees--from exposure to a pesticide--were observed on almost as many endpoints as negative effects. That’s unexpected–especially in a study claiming that neonics are harming honeybees. One might expect that these unanticipated positive effects–observed in both the U.K. and Germany only slightly less frequently than the negative effects seen in the U.K. and Hungary–would merit equally prominent billing and inspire deeper investigation. Instead, the CEH team chose to bury this result, at least in its press release, noting blandly: “No harmful effects on overwintering honeybees were found in Germany.”

The other obvious feature of this matrix is the broad expanses of light green squares-- 238 of them, the other 94% of the data, each denoting experimental endpoints on which neonic exposure had no effect on honeybee colonies. This is of course exactly what farmers and home gardeners want in a pesticide: something that kills pests but leaves bees and other beneficial insects unharmed.

This is something I've been reading up on since the bee scares of the last few years gained prominence, and it increasingly seems like baseless fear mongering that might end up doing more harm than good

 

[LinkSlayer64]

Wait wait, so we're increasing in bee population?