An extended radio interview with Tom Theobald about three new studies that have recently been published regarding the ways that neonicotinoids harm bees. The studies include one from Purdue, and two from Europe, and all three indicate that these new pesticides are causing more harm to bees than previously thought. Tom Theobald is the Colorado bee-farmer who uncovered the duplicity of the American EPA – in licensing Clothianidin against the official judgement of their own scientific officers. Listen to the interview: http://howonearthradio.org/archives/1807
An extended radio interview with Tom Theobald about three new studies that have recently been published regarding the ways that neonicotinoids harm bees. The studies include one from Purdue, and two from Europe, and all three indicate that these new pesticides are causing more harm to bees than previously thought. Tom Theobald is the Colorado bee-farmer who uncovered the duplicity of the American EPA – in licensing Clothianidin against the official judgement of their own scientific officers. Listen to the interview: http://howonearthradio.org/archives/1807
The scientists noted that as a nicotinoid, Clothianidin was ‘highly toxic to bees by contact and oral exposure’ and that is was ‘highly mobile’ in soil and groundwater – very likely to migrate into streams, ponds and other fields, where it would be absorbed by wildflowers – and go on to kill more bees and non-target insects like butterflies and bumblebees. Despite the strong advice of their own scientists, the American EPA gave Clothianidin a conditional license in 2003 and it was planted on 88 million acres of American maize (corn, sweetcorn). Since 2004 – over a million beehives have died across America – and many science studies point the finger at Clothianidin (and Imidacloprid) , because in the vast monocultural maize prairies of America – bees rely heavily on maize pollen for the protein to feed their young.
