(MintPress) – Four U.S. beekeepers are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its lack of action against insecticides linked to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), responsible for the widespread decline in the nation’s bee population.
Since 2006, beekeepers in the United States and Europe have seen bee populations each year decline by one-third, according to a study conducted by the University of California – San Diego. Beekeepers filing the lawsuit claim they’ve lost more than 50 percent of their stock this year, leaving farmers without the number of bees needed to pollinate crops.
Despite pleas by beekeepers and environmentalists last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has refused to act on the matter, declining calls by the Center for Food Safety to suspend use of the insecticides until proper research can be conducted and ignoring studies published by prominent research institutions, including Harvard’s School of Public Health.
“Beekeepers and environmental groups have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that EPA needs to protect bees,” Peter Jenkins, a lawyer for the Center for Food Safety told Reuters News Service. “The agency has refused, so we’ve been compelled to sue.”
The consequences of inaction, according to beekeepers, is catastrophic. While bees are typically thought to be farmed for honey production, that’s not their only role in the agricultural process. Orchard operations use bees to pollinate crops — apples, cherries, blueberries and cranberry farms, to name a few, rely on bees’ pollination for success.
“EPA has continued to ignore the warning signs of an agricultural system in trouble,” Paul Towers of the Pesticide Action Network told Minnesota Public Radio. “The shortage of bees for this year’s almond pollination in California and the ripple effects throughout the rest of the agricultural system are a clear warning sign and deserve an urgent response.”
The beekeepers at the forefront of the lawsuit are demanding that the EPA halt the use of insecticides linked to CCD, warning that continued use could have global impacts.
Those steps have been taken in nations around the world that have seen bee populations fall to CCD, including Austria Italy, France and the United Kingdom — but not in the United States.
Creators of the pesticides include Syngenta and Bayer, which produce the same chemical distributed throughout the world, until recent bans. According to Reuters News Service, the chemicals produced by the company are used on more than 100 million acres of soy, cotton, wheat and corn. It’s also sold in home gardening products.
The science behind the decline
CCD is defined as a rapid and widespread decline in the bee population — a somewhat mysterious phenomenon, as the bodies of the bees themselves are rarely seen in one central location.
As simple as it may sound, neonicotinoids, the pesticides at the forefront of the problem, essentially makes bees “picky eaters,” according to biologists at the University of San Diego.
“In other words, the bees preferred to only feed on sweeter nectar and refused nectars of lower sweetness that they would normally feed on and that would have provided important sustenance for the colony,” Daren Eiri, author of the study, told Science Daily.
The findings are backed up by other major research institutes, including a Harvard study that recreated CCD by giving bees small doses of imidacloprid, a commonly used pesticide.
“There is no question that neonicotinoids put a huge stress on the survival of honey bees in the environment,” Chensheng Lu, lead author and associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health said.
Other theories have pointed the finger at Monsanto’s genetically modified strains of corns and soybeans, designed to withhold exuberant amount of pesticides. In 2012, Monsanto purchased biotech research company Beelogic, which was said to create pesticides that would protect the health of bees, while still killing unwanted pests.
Despite mounting evidence pointing the finger at the use of the pesticide as the cause of CCD, the EPA has issued statements claiming there is no scientific evidence to back the claims of those alleging a link between the two.
“To date, we’re aware of no data demonstrating that an EPA-registered pesticide used according to the label instructions has caused CCD. While our longstanding regulatory requirements for pesticides are designed to protect beneficial insects such as bees, since 2007 we have been looking at many different ways of possibly improving pollinator protection,” the EPA said in a statement.