States: Give Bees A Chance
Bees are dying at unprecedented rates, with real consequences for our food supply, environment and economy.
Three-quarters of all honey worldwide is now contaminated with pesticides known to harm bees, according to a study published in the journal Science earlier this year. One of the study authors summed up this finding perfectly, saying, “there’s almost no safe place for a bee to exist.”
American beekeepers report they’ve lost at least 33 percent of all honey bee colonies each of the past two years, according to an annual study from the Bee Informed Partnership and the Apiary Inspectors of America. That’s twice the amount considered sustainable. Minnesota beekeeper Steve Ellis lost more than half of his bees just in one winter. He blames his many neighbors who use millions of gallons of pesticides every year as a major cause of the bee death.
While this is certainly bad news if you’re a bee, it’s also bad news for our food supply. We rely on bees to pollinate most of the crops that provide 90 percent of the world’s food — everything from strawberries to broccoli to the alfalfa used to feed dairy cows. In the United States alone, honey bees pollinate an estimated $15 billion worth of crops every year.
Imagine no almonds, less coffee and chocolate, fewer apples and strawberries, less ice cream and milk … the list goes on. Simply put, no bees means no food.
Scientists point to pesticides as one of the main factors killing off bees in alarming numbers. In particular, a relatively-new class of bee-killing insecticides known as neonicotinoids (or neonics), is at least 5,000–10,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT, which was used to kill bees until it was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1972.
Yet right now in the U.S., we’re spraying 26 million pounds of bee-killing pesticides on our homes, gardens and public spaces every year.
“Making plants themselves toxic is a whole different thing than killing bugs with a toxin,” beekeeper Ellis said. “It’s a game-changer.”
It’s absurd that we’re spraying chemicals that are known to kill bees just as we’re in the midst of an unsustainable die-off in bee populations. We don’t even need to spray these chemicals, since we have commonsense alternatives such as altering the time of year of planting and watering, and planting more native species.
For the past several years, U.S. PIRG and other groups have asked the EPA to ban these pesticides nationwide, and the agency has failed to do so. We’re not waiting on the EPA any longer. Now, to protect bees and our food supply, we’re calling on states to act.
Maryland is leading the way, passing a bill last year that would ban the use of bee-killing pesticides. More states must follow Maryland’s example.
Our strategy is this: If enough states take action, it will send a strong signal to large chemical companies and the federal government that the public won’t stand for the use of bee-killing pesticides or any other chemical that threatens our health, directly or indirectly.
If we succeed, we can eliminate the use of more than 40 percent of insecticides used in this country. That’s a lot of bees that we can save — bees who will pollinate our food.
