# More ... > Beekeeping and the environment >  Termites/ bees

## Johnthefarmer

This is getting silly.  Childish even.  Originally posted at the top of the forum, and moved here.  John, if Doris is hijacking your account could you please have words with her?  

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Termites are closely related to bees and like bees they live in highly organised colonies which rely on grooming behaviour to keep out infections and parasites.

    In the 1990s Bayer developed a method of killing termite colonies with low levels of Imidacloprid that stop this grooming behaviour, they called this 'Premise Plus Nature' (TM)

    Did it not occur to them that the same would happen to colonies of bees which collect nectar and pollen contaminated with these neurotoxins?

    Did they fail to test it on bees, or did they test it and ignore the results?

    Here an article about their termite killing strategy from 1997:


    Premise Plus Nature Equals Value Added Termite Control

    | March 1, 1997 |

    Countless weapons have been created over the years in attempts to win the war against termites. Some kill on contact, others repel termites, but all share the goal of structural protection. Throughout the search to find the perfect weapon even nature has been unsuccessful, until now.

    Premise® Insecticide, introduced by Bayer Corporation in 1996, works synergistically with nature to provide value-added termite control. Premise Plus Nature,TM the term the manufacturer uses to describe the product's unique mode of action, affects termites by making them susceptible to infection, disease and death by naturally occurring organisms.

    HOW IT WORKS.

    With Premise there are two modes of action at work. At moderate to high exposure levels, Premise causes termites to stop feeding, stop grooming, become disoriented and die. Premise Plus Nature takes over at lower exposure levels. Unlike contact mortality and repellent barrier termiticides, this unique mode of action puts Premise in a category all its own.

    Like germs that cause illness and disease in humans, microorganisms, especially fungi naturally present in the soil, cause disease in termites. Fungal spores attach themselves to the termite cuticle, germinate, penetrate and eventually cause death. But thanks to Mother Nature, termites have found ways to survive in this hostile soil environment.

    The termites' habit of grooming themselves and other termites in the colony is a principle part of their defense systems. This instinctive habit enables termites to virtually eliminate the threat of the fungi; termites remove the spores before they can germinate and cause disease.

    Premise Plus Nature disrupts this natural defense process. After exposure to Premise, termites no longer groom themselves or take care of each other. Premise interferes with their methods of combating fungi and, in the end, they will succumb to disease and death.
    "Grooming offers termites a shield to protect themselves. But when grooming stops and the shield is down, infection takes over," said David Price, a biologist at Bayer Corporation's Vero Beach, Fla., laboratory. "With Premise, termites don't get the chance to fight back."

    SEEING IS BELIEVING.

    Visitors to the Bayer booth at the National Pest Control Association's convention and trade show in San Diego in October had the opportunity to witness Premise Plus Nature in action. Live demonstrations showed the one-day, two-day and five-day effects Premise has on termites.

    "With the demonstrations you can see how Premise Plus Nature works," said Price. "You can see that the exposed ter-mites no longer feed or groom. You can even watch the termites die."

    Research has been conducted at the University of Florida to examine the synergy between Premise and nature, specifically the termite's natural defense system. In one specific study, glass cover slips were sprayed with fungal spores and placed in the feeding and tunneling areas of laboratory termite colonies. In the control colony where Premise was not applied, the spores were removed by termite activity in a few hours. This scenario mimics what happens with termites in the soil on a day-to-day basis; termites destroy fungi by grooming themselves and each other which keeps their soil environment clean.

    In the environment where Premise was present, the fungi began developing in just one day. The termites did not re-move the spores. In an outside environment, these spores would proceed to attach themselves to the termites, germinate and cause death.

    Research illustrates how Premise interferes with feeding, grooming and colony maintenance in such a way that termites can't protect themselves from pathogenic fungi.

    "Premise Plus Nature means value-added termite control," said Dr. Mike Ruizzo, pest control research product manager for Bayer Corporation. "Premise allows nature to take over and destroy the termites."

http://www.pctonline.com/Article.aspx?article_id=39807
    Question 1.
    If this is the patented method of irradicating termites; by low- level introduction of neonics into their colonies and thereby reducing their resistance to all their natural challenges, how could the same thing not happen to their close cousins - bees?

    Question 2.
    As for scientific evidence, should we believe Suchail et al. who confirmed Bayer's claims of the remarkable toxicity of Imidacloprid; or Schmuck et al. who found no deleterious effects of chronic low-level poisoning by neonics on bee colonies ?(Schmuck is Bayer's in-house scientist.)

    Question 3.
    Why has nobody on this forum, so far, commented on how a pesticide, lethal to termites, has little or no effect on bees?

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## Johnthefarmer

What is childish about the my post?

Please reply to the bee/ termite question.

If somebody distributed a goat poison, I'd worry about my sheep!

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## Neils

1 & 3 Don't know enough about termites to say much about them. That something that has an effect on termites might act differently on bees isn't much of a surprise. Chloroform knocks us out, it kills our "close cousins" dogs. If you want to lump all insects together, lets do the same with mammals shall we?

2) If you want to link to some of it I'll read it.  Not my job to tell you what to believe though, read it and make your own mind up.

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## Johnthefarmer

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...620201113/full 
versus
Anything by R Schmuck et al.

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## Stromnessbees

> This is getting silly.  Childish even.  Originally posted at the top of the forum, and moved here.  John, if Doris is hijacking your account could you please have words with her?


Gavin, I don't lie and I don't hijack accounts. 

That's 2 rather severe accusations within just a few hours!  :Mad: 

John will always make up his own mind, and I would never post under somebody else's name.

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## Neils

I presume this is the paper you refer to by Richard Schmuck:  Via Bulletin of Insectology

Seems simple enough to me, it's a published paper and subject to peer review. If you don't believe it, refute it. Am I going to take a Bayer funded paper, conducted by Bayer funded scientists that concludes that Bayer products are entirely safe for bees at face value? Perhaps not. Some of its broad conclusions though, having watched a few documentaries linked recently, are quite compelling. 

Listening to a guy who treats (or at least did when the documentary was made 12 odd  years ago) for varroa with brandy, for example, claim that pesticides killed his bees makes me wonder whether he's pointing the finger in the right direction. I can't find any studies on the efficacy of home made brandy as a varroa treatment so it's hard to judge but whether you want to posit that it's entirely down to pesticides or a "perfect storm" of conditions including pesticide exposure I think you have to question whether a lack of effective varroa treatment (in that particular case) might have more to do with him losing his bees given that we know absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt that, left untreated, varroa kills bees.

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## Johnthefarmer

In many ways,  my real concern is not whether any given chemical kills termites or bees, dogs or humans. It is the increasing practice of default application of systemic, residual broad-               spectrum biocides as an attempt to mitigate the weaknesses of monoculture, non-rotational,massive scale agriculture.
     Agriculture is sufficiently important to require care, skill, manpower etc not blanket chemical fixes.

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## Johnthefarmer

brandy?
         trivialisation is cheap ,unworthy but maybe it's very jokey?

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## Neils

I'm not the one who put brandy into my beehives as a varroa treatment.  When I have some time I'll dig up the link and the section within it. It was over distilled so maybe it acts like Oxalic Acid, I honestly don't know they didn't expand that much.

On your previous point we're in agreement at least. Agriculture, it seems to me, has gone the way of every other industry, much of it is "corporate", lowest common denominator and trying to feed a beast of its own making in many respects. Watching the recent campaigns by Hugh, Jamie et al about pigs and chickens and more recently fish was quite interesting, especially as I was making the same points about fish a decade ago.

In some respects I _do_ think the systemic pesticides are an improvement over the previous, pretty indiscriminate, pesticide applications and believe it or not that they end up in nectar and pollen is absolutely a concern which is why I pay as much attention to it as I do, and not just because I keep bees. Does that mean I think they're great and Bayer are a lovely company? No. But in the short term, what's the solution? In the Medium term? in the Long term?  I honestly don't know, I have an allotment and that's the limit of my agricultural experience, when that invariably goes balls up, I go to Co-Op and stock up on all the stuff my allotment failed at.

For the record I use Organic certified slug pellets on my allotment and horse manure.

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## Johnthefarmer

I still think my question about termites/bees is relevant and hasn't really been addressed.
It was that Bayer originally promoted Imidacloprid (Premise+ Nature) as being far more effective at destroying termite colonies when the termites ingested sublethal doses (1 -4 ppb.), than when they were killed outright by higher levels. The cause of colony deaths was their natural parasites.Any post mortem on such a colony would conclude that it was overwhelmed by parasites. The time delay and subsequent further dilution of imd in ,often, a next generation would further obscure the primary cause.
This effect, they claimed themselves, was due to the disabling of normal behaviours such as grooming.
Bayer admit they did not do trials to check that bees would not suffer the same fate ( or,at least they did not publish any such papers).
My question is still, if these products, which are effective over a very wide range of insects, destroy termite colonies at sublethal doses ,as advertised, how is it, and by what selective mechanism, that they don't do the same thing to the other insects ?

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## Bumble

> My question is still, if these products, which are effective over a very wide range of insects, destroy termite colonies at sublethal doses ,as advertised, how is it, and by what selective mechanism, that they don't do the same thing to the other insects ?


Is there a more appropriate place elsewhere on the internet that might be better suited for questions like this? Do we have termites in this country?

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## Johnthefarmer

> Is there a more appropriate place elsewhere on the internet that might be better suited for questions like this? Do we have termites in this country?


No, we have bees and lots of other insects in this country which are being affected by chemicals promoted as being lethal to colonies at doses which are not lethal on ingestion.
Surely, this is a matter suitable for the SBAI to discuss?

As for the matter of exactly how closely termites are genetically related to bees, I would take a taxonomic punt that bees are closer to termites than aphids, the primary targets of neonics,  are, certainly regarding their social arrangements.

 If you annually treat a crop with systemic, residual chemicals which debilitate defensive behaviours of insects what do you expect?

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## Bumble

If we don't have termites in this country then we are unlikely to come into contact, or interact, with pesticides developed to control termites.

Breaking the silence on a forum thread isn't compulsory, and it's impossible to force others give you information they can't provide. I was simply suggesting that a UK-based beekeeping forum might not be the best place to ask your question. It's up to you.

I don't have anything else to offer, but would have thought that maybe "specialists" on perhaps an environmental forum, or an arthropod-related forum, in the country where these products are used are more likely to offer the informed response you seem to want.

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## gavin

I'm not sure if this really helps John, but each year I see my bees throw themselves at oilseed rape with a degree of enthusiasm.  They come back coated in pollen, sometimes dripping with the stuff, just as they do from willow for example. Some clean (groom) themselves outside a little before they go in.  All the foragers emerging, still excited to get on with another trip, have cleaned up.  They groom themselves well inside the hive (presumably they are grooming themselves rather than waiting for other to do it - in fact others can't really do it for them properly).  When they emerge you can see that trace of pollen on their faces as the pollen gets stuck down hard between the eyes and they seem to struggle to remove it after visiting Brassicas of all types.  I saw that before neonics were used and I see the same thing now.

So I don't see how their behaviour can be altered in a way that affects the ability to groom.  The bees mentioned above are those exposed directly to oilseed rape.  Some or all will be fuelling with nectar from the crop, either directly or from refuelling bees in the hive and will be burning it up at a high rate.

I know, when I read that stuff on termites years ago I thought that this may indicate a problem.  Having closely watched my bees on oilseed rape now for many years it is clear that it was just scare-mongering.  You should spend time watching bees working oilseed rape from conventional agriculture.  They build fine, they store nectar and honey, they do their waggle dances without any hunching or winking or indicating any confusion at all, they groom fine.  How all that then translates to imagined high levels of colony loss in winter defeats me.  They can't show no effects when exposed to the largest amount, and show dramatic effects months later from barely-contaminated stores and several worker generations down the line.  Just doesn't make sense.

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## Stromnessbees

> If we don't have termites in this country then we are unlikely to come into contact, or interact, with pesticides developed to control termites.


It has been made perfectly clear that we are talking about Imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide used on many crops in the UK and bees are often foraging on systemically treated plants. 

The termite killer is called_ Premise_, but its active ingredient is Imidacloprid.

_Premise Plus Nature_ is the trademark for Imidacloprid's mode of action in sublethal doses, where it shows no acute toxicity but leads to the delayed collapse of the (termite) colony. 

This also counters Gavin's statements, as beekeepers simply won't notice the presence of the poison while the bees are on OSR, but the (bee) colony can still suffer and die from the suppression of the grooming behaviour weeks and months later.

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## Jon

> beekeepers simply won't notice


They won't notice it because it doesn't happen!

Why would you get a delayed effect months later yet no effect when they are foraging on the crop and being exposed to higher levels. This is abject nonsense.

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## The Drone Ranger

> They won't notice it because it doesn't happen!
> 
> Why would you get a delayed effect months later yet no effect when they are foraging on the crop and being exposed to higher levels. This is abject nonsense.


Sometimes the studies people draw their information from are carried out in countries where the beekeeping season is very long or continuous.

That wouldn't reflect beekeeping in Scotland where the season is sometimes very short indeed.

Let's say for arguments sake there was chemical which bees were exposed to and it shortened their life by 30% that just means the field bees might die after 4 or 5 weeks instead of 6. That's not life threatening to the hive

On the other hand if something stored in the honey was dangerous to the bees that would be serious but I save them from that by nicking all the honey and giveing them sugar syrup  :Smile: 

No I don't think there are residues in honey otherwise human health authorities would step in.

So that leaves pollen and as a couple of people pointed out already that would show by damaging the brood during the brood rearing season

Nobody likes to think their bees are at risk from chemicals etc and as far as I can tell from my own experience living and keeping bees in agricultural farm area there is nothing deadly in the environment which is being routinely used

I don't mind if someone is reading all the research and predicting the demise of the bees I like to hear the arguments from all sides I'm not worried at the moment and I wont be losing any sleep  :Smile:

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## Jon

> I don't mind if someone is reading all the research and predicting the demise of the bees..


Me neither, and the people reading all the research are those who are _not_ predicting the demise of the bee!

The doom merchants are the anti pesticide campaigners and we have already been informed that insisting on evidence is a devious strategy to promote pesticide use.

Found 10 queens with eggs/brood today, 6 of them about 300 yards from a 5 acre field of oil seed rape.
Amazing they found their way back to the apideas.

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## gavin

> This also counters Gavin's statements, as beekeepers simply won't notice the presence of the poison while the bees are on OSR, but the (bee) colony can still suffer and die from the suppression of the grooming behaviour weeks and months later.


It does no such thing.  Gavin wrote at length to basically point out to the pair of you that you can actually see the grooming taking place when exposure to imidacloprid is maximal.  Bees groom normally when they're exposed to the levels of imidacloprid found on oilseed rape.  You can't postulate that bee deaths are delayed because the lack of grooming encourages pathogens unless there is also a magic effect that means grooming suppression only takes place after the imidacloprid is mostly gone.  And now we're most definitely into the realms of fantasy.

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## gavin

> No I don't think there are residues in honey otherwise human health authorities would step in.


If you ask the local commercial beekeepers that question they tell you that they have to get their rape honey analysed for their supermarket contracts and they find nothing at the normal limits of detection for these tests which is 1 ppb for imidacloprid I think.

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## Johnthefarmer

My quick reply to all this is that the concept of annually-repeated, systemic,highly-residual,broad-spectrum insecticides only sounds good to an ignorant farmer. How it can appeal to a thoughtful ,
intelligent bunch of beekeepers?

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## Neils

Because it currently appears to be slightly less worse than annually repeated, indiscriminate, highly residual, broad spectrum, multi-application insecticides that are also very toxic to other non target species as well as insects and most definitely including bees.  Do we need to put that colony poisoning chart up again?

It's not a case of it 'appealing', but you know that already because we've been saying it for years.

[edit]Lets try it simple:

Would I prefer to have my hand smashed with a hammer or my head cut off?
I take getting my hand smashed.

Does either choice appeal to me?
No.

Why am I choosing to get my hand smashed?
Because it's the least worst option of the two on the table.

Chris did some digging in another thread, what happened in 'Brave' France when they banned Neonics? They went back to using Pyrethoids and other classes of insecticide, all lethal to bees and much else besides.

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## Johnthefarmer

[QUOTE=Nellie;12032]Because it currently appears to be slightly less worse than annually repeated, indiscriminate, highly residual, broad spectrum, multi-application insecticides that are also very toxic to other non target species as well as insects and most definitely including bees.  Do we need to put that colony poisoning chart up again?

It's not a case of it 'appealing', but you know that already because we've been saying it for years.




 Please try to think outside of what multinationals offer us . Farmers don't have to kill off everything on their land except their cashcrop. I have produced good yields of food for many years from my land without resorting to any such measures. Lambs,tatties,eggs,calves,etc.I am not living in cloud cuckoo land or relying on unicorn manure.
Edit....Sorry about your hand.

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## Neils

You're preaching to the choir here.

I live in Bristol, sandal wearing, organic buying capital of the UK, also somewhat ironically one of the biggest markets for 4x4s too.

Thymol, Organic Slug pellets (not got any to hand to list what's in them) and Sugar are the limit of what goes on my allotment and in my beehives, not necessarily in combination on both. But I can always go to the co-op when the onions fail.

Do I think that banning neonicotinoids here will turn every farmer into a JohntheFarmer getting decent yields from Organic measures or are they going to go the way of the French?

Because what it ultimately boils down to is: Can you produce a bag of potatoes that costs the same as a bag of potatoes from the local Greengrocer let alone what the supermarkets sell them for using your methods?  If you can, fine, but why then is the campaign only against Neonicotinoids and not about legislating that every farm must be organic instead? If you can get the same yields at the same price why do farmers even bother using the stuff?

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## Johnthefarmer

> You're preaching to the choir here.
> 
> I live in Bristol, sandal wearing, organic buying capital of the UK, also somewhat ironically one of the biggest markets for 4x4s too.
> 
> Thymol, Organic Slug pellets (not got any to hand to list what's in them) and Sugar are the limit of what goes on my allotment and in my beehives, not necessarily in combination on both. But I can always go to the co-op when the onions fail.
> 
> Do I think that banning neonicotinoids here will turn every farmer into a JohntheFarmer getting decent yields from Organic measures or are they going to go the way of the French?
> 
> Because what it ultimately boils down to is: Can you produce a bag of potatoes that costs the same as a bag of potatoes from the local Greengrocer let alone what the supermarkets sell them for using your methods?  If you can, fine, but why then is the campaign only against Neonicotinoids and not about legislating that every farm must be organic instead? If you can get the same yields at the same price why do farmers even bother using the stuff?


Let me try it simple:
                           If a farmer kills off most or all of the 'bugs' on his land he's working in a sterile environment and relying on external inputs. These soil communities have evolved over millenia.To dispense with them and substitiute chemical remedies is a nonsense.
   I was taught agricultural science in the 60s/70s, as were many of the current advisors and company reps. We were taught high input,full control,maximisation techniques..without looking at the environmental and planetary costs. It's taken me some time to find a better way.
   You may think I'm naive in my approach to things,   I can't believe that you, Jon, Gavin, Callum etc. are paid-for Bayer shills........
No, I don't really think you are paid-for, but your mindsets sometimes fit the bill....
P.S. All my lambs, for the last 8 years,  have gone fat to Tesco's.

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## prakel

> Let me try it simple:
> 
> 
> ....   I was taught agricultural science in the 60s/70s, as were many of the current advisors and company reps. *We were taught* high input,full control,maximisation techniques..without looking at the environmental and planetary costs. It's *taken me* some time to find a better way.


I think that you've finally scratched the surface re what could be seen as being wrong with a lot of todays agriculture. Out of interest where else are you pushing this debate? -Outside of the beekeeping community that is..... I'm sure that your peers from the 60s/70s are probably the ones you should really be converting if you want these issues wound up in your working life but could it be that a lot of those (now) advisors and company reps won't listen to you?

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## gavin

I don't accept John's them and us approach.  These days a lot of farming is moving to somewhere in the middle and that is a good thing.

Dogmatic rejection of any kind of chemical tool is just that - dogmatic.  Be smarter and minimise their use.  However when people start making up or exaggerating the issues that come from using farm chemicals I have a real problem with that.

We have some very big problems to solve.  If we're going to let unfounded dogma rule big decisions then as a species we're in big trouble.  We *have* to be more sensible.  So, we now have a class of pesticides that are better than previous ones in terms of toxicity to mammals.  Overuse them and you poison ecosystems.  Use them sensibly in a properly regulated way and they will come with little collateral damage.  Ban them because some noisy folk don't like them and the companies that market them, and because there *have* been mistakes made, then I'm afraid it looks like mob rule to me.  Science, evidence, impartial decision-making for the greater benefit.  That's what matters.  Gut-feeling stuff with an agenda, highly selective use of science to make a point, sorry, wrong way.

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## chris

> Gut-feeling stuff with an agenda, highly selective use of science to make a point, sorry, wrong way.


To quote Pierre Besse, “ without founding or forming a homogeneous movement, even less so a unified political structure, they [the various founders of  the organic movements] represent, each in his own way, a permanent current of intellectual resistance to the dominant way of thinking” 

What is not said, is that this intellectual resistance is most often the fruit of an extreme right wing engagement, known and proclaimed by these pioneers of organic production.

Ironic to hear certain of their intellectual descendants bringing up Bayer’s past involvement with fascist Germany as an argument against their present activities.

Best not to talk politics, I think.

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## Jon

> I can't believe that you, Jon, Gavin, Callum etc. are paid-for Bayer shills........
> No, I don't really think you are paid-for, but your mindsets sometimes fit the bill....
> P.S. All my lambs, for the last 8 years, have gone fat to Tesco's.


John you are naive off the scale, trying to extrapolate your experience on Orkney which has marginal farming conditions on to the rest of the planet.
And that shill nonsense _was_ offensive and is still offensive. Grow up and accept that people who disagree with you have a right to do so.  If you want to convince people of the merit in your argument, try and develop a better thought out and more convincing position. Doris and your self may see life as an anti corporate anti multinational 'war' to quote her on beekeeping forum, but the rest of us are looking for the best way forward based on that dreaded concept 'evidence' which is also part of your fantasy football shill strategy list.
I imagine there are no maize or wheat fields in Orkney and the range of crops grown there must be quite limited.
If it is like marginal conditions in Ireland I imagine there are a lot of rugged sheep and rugged cattle hunkering down against stone walls in windswept fields.
Are you in a position to advise on pest control of other crops, tropical agriculture, stuff like that.
Have you ever tried to grow a field of courgette without control of whitefly?
I have grown my vegetables and fruit totally chemical free all my life. It is simple on a small scale.
I use less chemicals than you do in your farming as I only use the fungicide bordeaux mix sprayed once or twice on my spuds
The challenge is to do farming on a large scale and produce enough food to feed people.

And returning to the fact that pesticides tend to produce a sterile environment and reduce the complexity of the soil, that is clearly not good for the environment, but singling out neonicotinoid pesticides is daft. They are not worse than some of their predecessors. I would agree with the others who want to work towards pesticide reduction and elimination of the more dangerous pesticides. NB. sometimes know as a real world position as opposed to a quasi religious theoretical position.

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## Stromnessbees

> I would agree with the others who want to work towards pesticide reduction and *elimination of the more dangerous pesticides*. NB. sometimes know as a real world position as opposed to a quasi religious theoretical position.


Neonicotinoids are by far the more dangerous pesticides. 

They are a thousand times more toxic than DDT.
And they have a half life of nearly 20 years in the soil (Imidacloprid).
When used in seed dressings they are not used as needed but as prophylaxis, the result is that nothing can live on that field, you create a deadzone. 

Due to the longevity of the toxin this field remains dead for a long time, propably until the next treated seeds are planted, thereby continuing the problem.

There's also the effect of accumulation, if treated seeds are planted before the previous toxins have disappeared - remember that half life of nearly 20 years - you get an accumulation of toxin in the soil which can be picked up by whatever plants are on the field. This can be a crop that's attractive to bees, and they get contaminated despite no obvious treatment being applied that year.


If pesticides have to be used they should be as short-lived as possible, so that they can be directed at a target species at a time of real challenge to the crop without doing extended damage.

Preventative crop treatment with neonics is akin to people taking antibiotics on a daily basis, which would destroy the gut flora and create resistance in the organisms they are meant to kill - a very bad approach indeed!

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## Neils

Musing to myself, I guess we can add the Canadian government to the list of Bayer Subsidiaries:

http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/pubs/fatememo/imid.pdf

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## Jon

> And they have a half life of nearly 20 years in the soil (Imidacloprid).


Err,...no they don't.
That pesky evidence is missing again.

http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/upl...s-Society1.pdf

Page 13.
The half life of Imidacloprid in soil is 40-997 days. (National Pesticide Information Center 2010)

Environmental Fate of Imidacloprid, Juanita Bacey, Environmental Monitoring & Pest Management Branch, Department of Pesticide Regulation, 830 K Street, Sacramento, Ca 95814

http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/pubs/fatememo/imid.pdf
Page 3



> Soil photolysis half-life 38.9 days
> Field dissipation half-life 26.5 to 229


Page 5



> Soil: The high water solubility and low Koc, indicate a low tendency to be adsorbed to
> soil particles. Field studies show that imidacloprid can persist in soil, with a half-life
> ranging from 27 to 229 days (Miles Inc., 1993). Half-life in soil varies depending on
> soil type, use of organic fertilizers, and presence or absence of ground cover. Scholz et
> al. (1992) found that imidacloprid degraded more rapidly under vegetation, t1/2 48 days,
> versus 190 days without vegetation. Degradation on soil via photolysis has a t1/2 of 39
> days. In the absence of light, the longest half-life of imidacloprid was 229 days in field
> studies and 997 days in laboratory studies (Miles Inc., 1993). This persistence in soil,
> without the presence of light, makes imidacloprid suitable for seed treatment and
> ...


Where does your claim of 20 years come from.
Maybe from a planet with a shorter year.

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## Stromnessbees

> Err,...no they don't.
> That pesky evidence is missing again.
> 
> http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/upl...s-Society1.pdf
> 
> Page 13.
> The half life of Imidacloprid in soil is 40-997 days. (National Pesticide Information Center 2010)
> 
> Where does your claim of 20 years come from.
> Maybe from a planet with a shorter year.


The data for soil half life will vary greatly depending on conditions, of course. 

But let's hear it from the horse's mouth:

Bayer are so confident of the effectiveness of its              Premise product, that they provide a written guarantee to termite              controllers in the USA who fully treat the soil areas at the base              of a structure as per the Premise label requirements.

 Part of the Bayer terms and conditions of such a guarantee states              in effect if Premise fails to stop termites  *at any time within               seven years of initial treatment*, Bayer will reimburse up to 100%               of product and labor costs involved in retreatment to a maximum              of  $1000 for residential accounts and $5000 for commercial accounts.               Bayer will also guarantee to pay the termite controller's damage              claim  insurance deductible up to $500 per structure. 
 
http://www.termite.com/premise.html

If Bayer themselves guarantee that Imidacloprid is effective for 7 years in soil, then all your lab derived figures are worthless. 

Surely Bayer wouldn't guarantee it if they wouldn't be sure that it lasts at least that long. And it doesn't even mention type of soil, moisture or temperature, so this has to be a minimum duration whatever the conditions. In some inactive soils you can easily get half lives of twenty years and more then.

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## Stromnessbees

> NB. sometimes know as a real world position as opposed to a quasi religious theoretical position.


Btw, Jon, your arrogance is just staggering:

You are talking here about a farmer who has got some fourty years of expertise in producing food, 15 years of this is orgainic food production. 

How dare you call his position _quasi religious_ and _theoretical_?

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## Jon

So are you talking 20 years or 7 years?
You need to provide a reference for the 7 years as the longest half life in lab studies has been found to be 997 days.




> How dare you call his position quasi religious and theoretical?


So you have termites and maize on Orkney?
Over generalising from little information is a dangerous game.
I believe Orkney is varroa free and neonicotinoid free as well.

EDIT
Just clicked on your link above which is a web page from a termite control company.
The 7 years is not the half life of Imidacloprid. It is a claim for the effectiveness of the product after the soil around a property is injected which is subject to an annual inspection by the pest control company.

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## Johnthefarmer

> So are you talking 20 years or 7 years?
> You need to provide a reference for the 7 years as the longest half life in lab studies has been found to be 997 days.
> 
> 
> So you have termites and maize on Orkney?
> Over generalising from little information is a dangerous game.
> I believe Orkney is varroa free and neonicotinoid free as well.
> 
> EDIT
> ...


Any insecticide with a prolonged residual effect, be it 6 months ,3 years or 19 years halflife, if it is used annually on the same ground ,will inevitably build up concentration. Does this not bother you?
  Yes, you're right we don't have varroa here, or OSR anymore, but that doesn't mean we can't express our concerns for those that do.

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## Jon

I would not worry about the application of a product around the foundations of a house to control termites as shown in the illustration above as it is a spot application with little wider impact on the environment. I worry far more about airborne spraying and products which are dangerous for agricultural workers or fish and mammals.
No kidding John, we need to establish what are the least worst options with regard to pesticides as some are worse than others.
If your mind is already 100% made up about neonicotinoids then you are a campaigner rather than an independent seeker of the truth.
I have no problem with campaigners but I stop taking them seriously when they ignore evidence, or inconvenient facts.
It is important to establish what are facts and what is nonsense such as a 20 year half life for imidacloprid in soil. More typical would be a period of months.
Posting misinformation helps noone. Wikipidia and youtube are not reliable sources of information.

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