# More ... > Beekeeping and the environment >  Petition to ban neonics: Please sign & spread if you want to save our bees

## Stromnessbees

Every beekeeper who is truly concerned about the survival of our bees should sign and spread this petition to our government:



> *Bee deaths caused by insecticides*
> 
>        Responsible department: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
> 
>      The ecosystem services of bees are  critical to human survival through crop pollination. The contribution by  bees to UK agriculture is approx £200million. Bee colony deaths are  being caused by neonicotinoid pesticides, the Goverment should either  heavily restrict or entirely ban the use of these chemicals in the UK.


Please follow the link to sign:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/36121

Thank you!
Doris

----------


## Neils

Nice poll. Banning neonicotinoids wont "Eliminate pesticides that are harmful to bees" though, it will just reintroduce different classes of pesticides that are, arguably, more harmful to bees and many other non-target animals (including humans)besides.

Campaign to have them banned by all means, but at least be honest about what happens if they are.

----------


## Jon

And although there have been problems with neonicotinoids mainly through toxic planter dust in the US and Canada, this has never been an issue in the UK.
Colony numbers have increased greatly in the UK in the past 3 or 4 years yet the press keep banging on about ccd.
I met an Irish guy at the Sba centenary and he was complaining about having no honey this year then he mentioned he had increased from 18 to 60 colonies by splitting, and raising queens.
This year I more than doubled my numbers from 17 to 35+, got 400lbs of honey and got 45 mated queens from 30 apideas.
Let's keep things in perspective about bee problems and this was also the wettest and coolest summer for over 100 years.
And yes, I have seed treated crops around my apiaries.

----------


## gavin

LOL!  I see that JohntheFarmer voted in Doris' silly wee poll.  You have to click the 'View Poll Results' button.  There'll be trouble somewhere near Stromness tonight ....

----------


## Jon

Small sample size (2) displayed in the poll and also a 'happy' couple.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> LOL!  I see that JohntheFarmer voted in Doris' silly wee poll.  You have to click the 'View Poll Results' button.  There'll be trouble somewhere near Stromness tonight ....


No, no great local upsets. Silly wee poll, yes.
 The point is, why should turkeys vote for Christmas? unless there's a second agenda. I personally still struggle to accept this second agenda concept.
 Do any of you really believe that an annually repeated,systemic, broad spectrum,residual neurotoxin insecticide should be quietly accepted by the beekeeping
community?
If you lot don't object, why would anybody else?

----------


## Johnthefarmer

Surely, this forum is about defending' bees et al '. not Scmuck et al?

----------


## Johnthefarmer

There are cleverer ways of reducing insect crop damage than neonics.

----------


## Jon

> If you lot don't object, why would anybody else?


Because the alternatives are worse.
I agree with you in that we should promote organic agriculture as much as possible. People could take responsibility for growing a percentage of their own food at home in the space they have available.
However..... back in the real world which for better or for worse, (almost certainly worse),  is some variant of global capitalism,  large scale agribusiness will continue and on available evidence seeds treated with neonicotinoids are much less harmful to bees than spray applications of the older families of pesticides which used to kill bee colonies in significant numbers every year.
Campaigning for a ban of neonicotinoids which will de facto lead to increased use of older more dangerous products which is not in the best interests of bees. Surely we have all made our positions clear a million times by now.

----------


## Neils

It's not a case of quietly accepting it, it remains, for me at least, considering that on current evidence they are less bad than the pesticides that will replace them if they're banned.

France is consistently held up as the example we should follow. What happened when neonicotinoids were banned? They went back to using pyrethoids et al which are absolutely, no dispute, lethal to bees and much else besides.

So we can ban a class of pesticide that since its introduction has reduced accidental poisoning of bees, when used properly, to near zero but might have some part to play in the current issues around bees and other pollinating insects, pending further research. But the trade off is not fields of OSR and other crops tended by unicorns but the increased use of indiscriminate spraying of pesticides that absolutely kill bees.

That remains, in lieu of a sensible, explained, "what happens next" plan from the campaign to have them banned , why I don't support it. Simple as that.

That asking anyone who supports the campaign to have them banned, anything about what happens next  simply gets you called names makes me wonder what the actual motive is behind it and it is hard not to think that Beekeepers are simply a mechanism to push the agenda forward. The anti pesticide/big business brigade aren't the first to try and drag beekeeping into their campaign but they have succeeded largely because no-one I know, even the most fervent, apparent "pro-pesticide" voice is actually pro pesticide. The clue is in the name and what they're designed to do versus what we like to do with those little boxes that we have littered around the cities and countryside. Beekeeping is also awash with people who want to "save the bees" so there's an eager target audience, we've a group round here firmly using bees to push their anti mobile phone mast agenda so it's not exclusive to the anti pesticide/big business crowd it's arguably far easier though to frame that campaign as ecological and "bee friendly" in the cyrrent climate.

Outside of beekeeping I'm a member of a number of other ecological and wildlife charities and organisations and its interesting that this "issue" is so far off their radar that I've never seen it so much as mentioned despite their interest in both pollinating insects and the wider environment. I wonder why that is?

----------


## Johnthefarmer

So you just accept the current status quo, despite the fact that this is one of the very few fora supporting insects' interests?

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> There are cleverer ways of reducing insect crop damage than neonics.


Ask me what.

----------


## Neils

No, that's you attributing things to me that I've never expressed again.

So go on, you're now John the dictator, you can do whatever you want. What's your five year plan (dictators love five year plans) for agriculture? You get a little wiggle room in terms of rising food prices, but an Orkney spring over rising food costs mean you lose the game.

In principle I've no objection to banning neonicotinoids, I just want a clear explanation of what happens next.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> No, that's you attributing things to me that I've never expressed again.
> 
> So go on, you're now John the dictator, you can do whatever you want. What's your five year plan (dictators love five year plans) for agriculture? You get a little wiggle room in terms of rising food prices, but an Orkney spring over rising food costs mean you lose the game.
> 
> In principle I've no objection to banning neonicotinoids, I just want a clear explanation of what happens next.


I just propose stuff like mixing up livestock and crops, rotating grazing systems, more people working on the land, less influence of mega-companies on local agriculture, no real need for Monsanto/Bayer, or others, in what farmers do,in the UK or anywhere else.
 You may call me reactionary, Luddite or whatever, but over 30 years of farming on the edge of what may be considered viable farming territory I can say that the chief element of successful farming is not believing what back-up services advise, but careful observation of what works and what doesn't.
 Not that I'm oblivious to what science teaches. The messy stuff is the science/commerce interface. That, as I'm sure you agree, is murky ground.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> . Surely we have all made our positions clear a million times by now.


 

      Rolling over ,waving your legs in the air.

----------


## Jon

Lost me there mate. I'll have some of what you are smokin'

----------


## Neils

> I just propose stuff like mixing up livestock and crops, rotating grazing systems, more people working on the land, less influence of mega-companies on local agriculture, no real need for Monsanto/Bayer, or others, in what farmers do,in the UK or anywhere else.
>  You may call me reactionary, Luddite or whatever, but over 30 years of farming on the edge of what may be considered viable farming territory I can say that the chief element of successful farming is not believing what back-up services advise, but careful observation of what works and what doesn't.
>  Not that I'm oblivious to what science teaches. The messy stuff is the science/commerce interface. That, as I'm sure you agree, is murky ground.


Ok, I can possibly get behind "some sort of stuff". But what impact will all of that have on the cost of my food?

I think the bigger problem is the political/science interface, specifically the cherry picking of "science" or elements thereof to further an agenda. And by political I'm casting a wider net than government. The neonicotinoid "debate" is one primarily of politics; Beekeepers are just a handy hook onto which it can be hung, Bees and Beekeepers, let alone the wider environment are actually irrelevant to the specifics but its a cause people can identify with so the campaign has attached itself to us like a leech.

I certainly won't disagree that the monopolisation of industry generally, not just agriculture, is not a good thing though.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> Lost me there mate. I'll have some of what you are smokin'



You choose organic for your own diet, yet say for the rest 'let them eat .......'


You owe it to your bees and your Mexicans to have higher aspirations.



p.s.     i've not smoked dope for 40 yrs. it does my head in...

----------


## Johnthefarmer

[QUOTE=Nellie;13711]Ok, I can possibly get behind "some sort of stuff". But what impact will all of that have on the cost of my food?

Better quality, less muck in the environment,more expensive maybe--

what do you want?

----------


## Neils

How much more expensive? 5%? 10% more?

What do I want?  I'd settle right now for not being abused, insulted and libelled by a campaign that is supposedly working in my interests just because I ask questions of it.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> Surely, this forum is about defending' bees et al '. not Scmuck et al?


What does Mr. McAnespie think of the petition?

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> How much more expensive? 5%? 10% more?
> 
> What do I want?  I'd settle right now for not being abused, insulted and libelled by a campaign that is supposedly working in my interests just because I ask questions of it.


          You seem very sensitive tonight, Nellie. I'm certainly not one for upsetting anybody. I hope you feel better the morn..


          In answer to your question, I get about 10% extra for my Organic lambs.

----------


## Neils

Sensitive? Just fed up with having my words twisted and being told by people who know nothing about me what I think.

So we're looking at a 10% increase in the cost of basic foods on top of the rises that are already occurring? Given that revolutions sparked by the price of food are ongoing on the door step of the EU, which is embarking on unprecedented levels of austerity cuts right now, is that something that you think is going to go down well?

Even if you ignore everything else about what is currently going on how much appetite do you think there'd be for a campaign that seeks to whack up the cost of basic foodstuffs by around 10% on the basis of not liking big business very much?

----------


## Johnthefarmer

Surely it's better to improve people's diets and preserve our fragile environment than boost the number of flat screen tv's or fast foods or other frivolous commodities that are supposed to improve our economies?

----------


## Neils

Well now you're moving into a completely different area of discussion.  This is supposed to be about banning Neonicotinoids and looking at what the implications, specifically, of going down that route is.  

If you want to start a discussion around diet, farming and the wider environmental impact of balancing those needs I'd be happy to engage in a discourse on that subject. This topic sadly has been framed solely around the aim of banning one particular class of pesticide, for it or against it, simple as that. Not my decision because I think it's far more nuanced than that but it appears I don't have any input into those rules.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

don't pout.
you are,of course, quite right that neonics are just an emblematic target to attack concerning the way agriculture is going. i don't personally claim to have enough good information to be certain of just how harmful they are, whether 'correctly' used or sloppily, despite having read a lot about them.
  Then there's the obviously posed point made of what will 'necessarily' replace them. for myself, i don't and wouldn't use any of them- certainly not as a default for each crop.if you can't grow a crop without initially lacing it with pesticide there's something wrong at the core of your planting plan.
anyway, i'm sure you are pretty fed up with these highly trodden tracks, but just suppose that due to their subtle work at low doses through generations-months- they really are as bad as some say.....
night night....

----------


## Neils

See, here's a thought, you're a farmer, an organic one at that. How many topics of interest do you think you could start on here that would engage people?  I've been maybe too subtle before and I get passive aggressive responses in return.

You're obviously passionate about what you do, and you do it for a living, why don't you engage on that front?  Most, if not all of us on here, keep bees as a sideline to what pays our wages.  So rather than berate us over the choices your industry has made maybe you should try and engage us to your way of thinking about how your industry should work. We're affected by it and in a symbiotic relationship with it. But we're not the ones spraying stuff that affects bees.

----------


## Easy beesy

I agree wholeheartedly that we would be better off nutritionally and environmentally if we grew organically, pest- herb-and every other -icide free, so why not petition for the positive, I'm sure you would garner much more support that way.

----------


## madasafish

Yes, lets go 100% organic and starve 20% of the world as yields collapse.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> Yes, lets go 100% organic and starve 20% of the world as yields collapse.


 It can be true that not using artificial fertilisers, biocides,GM crops etc., will sometimes reduce yields in the short term. Nevertheless, such commercial boosts are not sustainable.

These extra inputs yield less over time,and are becoming more expensive themselves.

 Much better to work with systems which don't degrade, and produce higher quality food with far less environmental harm.

  We bin more food than your suggested 20% defecit.

  I have produced more and better food off my 170 acre Orkney farm in the last 12 years since becoming Organic than I did using more conventional methods.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> I agree wholeheartedly that we would be better off nutritionally and environmentally if we grew organically, pest- herb-and every other -icide free, so why not petition for the positive, I'm sure you would garner much more support that way.


A simple step all livestock farmers should take would be to include a range of herbs/deeper-rooted species in their reseed mixtures.

The benefits are severalfold: minerals are raised up to become available to stock, insects thrive,leguminous plants fix free nitrogen to boost yields, early flowering herbs benefit bees etc.

This does require a slight change in mindset for both farmers and seed producers. But the idea of an increased bespoke industry of farmers growing chicory, phacelia,plantains,sweet clover,etc for seed production seems quite attractive to me.

----------


## HJBee

> I have produced more and better food off my 170 acre Orkney farm in the last 12 years since becoming Organic than I did using more conventional methods.


John, how much of that is consumed on Orkney and what if anything is exported (even if just mainland)?

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> John, how much of that is consumed on Orkeny and what if anything is exported (even if just mainland)?


95% of my lambs go straight to Tesco's Organic, Aberdeen (400/year) .  My calves are reared by an organic neighbour and mostly go the same way. Why do you ask?

 Most of the oats and barley go to the sheep but maybe 10% is for our poultry (eggs for our guesthouse), and for other organic farmers' sheep and poultry.

It's Orkney, by the way.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> Yes, lets go 100% organic and starve 20% of the world as yields collapse.


We all do that sometimes, don't we?

meant to tick box 3 but missed...

----------


## HJBee

> 95% of my lambs go straight to Tesco's Organic, Aberdeen (400/year) .  My calves are reared by an organic neighbour and mostly go the same way. Why do you ask?


I was interested, I buy organic when  available/prices allow or buy free range farm assured. I also consider transport for the carbon footprint. Do Tesco's put on their packaging which farmer they source from like Asda do?




> VIt's Orkney, by the way.


I've corrected the mis-type, since it obviously bothered you.

----------


## Johnthefarmer

> I've corrected the mis-type, since it obviously bothered you.


Quite right ,too.

----------


## chris

> Much better to work with systems which............. produce higher quality food .


John, how do you define *higher quality food* ?

----------


## chris

Just wondering, because a 2003 report by Afssa (the French food health agency) concludes that generally, there is very little significant and reproducible difference between the chemical composition of raw materials coming from conventional or organic agriculture.
“The numerous factors involved in the chemical composition and nutritional value of foodstuffs (variety/race, season, climate, stage of maturity or development, time of storage,…..) are often more important than the impact of factors strictly linked to type of agriculture ( nature of fertilizer, sanitary treatments..).”

----------


## madasafish

Organic food is no healthier..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19465692

----------

