I know I'm coming late to the party, thewonderingyou, but no one seems to have answered a question on the table. I think dkm's point—which I'm sure as a botanist you know—was that bees don't pollinate corn. It's wind pollinated. As are many plants. Reports of our impending demise have been slightly exaggerated. It would indeed go very very hard on us if honeybees disappeared, and as a hobbyist beekeeper, organic gardener and amateur ecologist I am very concerned, but let's keep science and rationality in our service so we can effectively replace and phase out all toxic chemicals.
I think the answer to the unanswered question is that the mistake in applying clothianidin to the seeds led to its released into air, where it contaminated other plants that bees did pollinate. It's exactly the point about pesticides, even though Bayer claimed it was a one-time mistake. Maybe, but there are thousands of other mistakes and abuses just waiting to happen. Murphy's Law. Things fall apart. Such events are inevitable—with technologies like lady bugs and passive solar houses they are not nearly as big a deal as with toxic chemicals and nuke generators, so let's admit our imperfectability and make allowance for it. And let's not think that corporate anarchy—freeing markets while restricting people—is the answer to any real question we have.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity…

written in 1920, never truer than today.

it was Dickless Cheney....yes and don't forget Rummey...and his massive "take" profit on the "chicken Flu" scare,,,,and his massive profit on Searle's Aspartame,,,untested and pushed thru in our bought and paid for democracy of Government by Bribary
By the by---no BEES no humans,,,,dah

What an interesting concept. Figure out a corporate caused problem - force the corporation to stop doing it.

We ought to try that.

Einstein once said, "when the bees die mankind has at most three years to live."

Thoreau wrote in "Walden", " There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root...." the root here is ourselves, we keep looking to blame the other for our problems when the real problem is ourselves, corporate power grows when we consume their goods, I like the analogy above of the corporation being a virus...yet what organism in nature grows the more its output/waste matter is consumed? That would be a better analogy...corporations are a product of corruption they are unconstitutional and thus illegal in their current form...they are not people and should not be treated as such...they should have limited life spans not eternal god like existence...they are anti-nature, unnatural, anti-life...the legislation, laws pertaining to corporations needs to be overhauled revamped rewritten big time...corporations should not be allowed to own the media, all media should be independent, like an NGO...resource (oil, water, minerals...) corporations and military corporations should be nationalized and non-profit by law! Chemical and Pharmaceutical Corporations should be highly and severely regulated... ETC!

I have read that the US hasn't banned a chemical in 17 years as they have changed the "science" that something must be a proven carcinogen rather then just a suspected carcinogen.

Often it can take 20 years for these cancers to show up and by that time the patent is likely running out so the chemical companies will give it a little cosmetic genetic change, call it a new name, have it approved, rack in the money for another 20 years while they continue to poison, man, beast and bug.

Bee's are the world's greatest friends and we are killing them in order to squeeze a few more dollars a bushel out of our crops because we don't what to share any of natures bounty with the other species.

God, our world is tuning into a dark dystopic science fiction novel and we're the authors.

thewonderingyou May 24th, 2008 12:32 pm -- very informative comment. thanks!

Corporations, I would think, are like viruses (viri?). In order to continue to grow, they must keep their host (us consumers) alive (at the same time making it sick, but not sick enough for the host to die out, since without the host the virus will die too). SO WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO KILL US OFF?

It was Dick Cheney. For the next100 years we can say "it was Dick Cheney" and be done with it. I have a headache from reading this nausea. Why is it when a company does do something half way humane we still want to attack them? Maybe if we truly want peace we might begin by looking within?

Is the above mentioned Bayer company of Germany
in fact part of a multinational,
a subsidiary of the same Bayer (of Great Britain?) that got the huge cipro drug contract for the US market after the anthrax letter scare in fall 2001?

I'd like to know if it's the same Bayer.

(Did whoever sent out those anthrax letters invest heavily in makers of cipro, used against anthrax infections? Has anyone looked into major investments in cipro shortly before or after 9-11?)

peacekeepertwo:

I hope your questions were meant to be sarcastic.

One of the most precious foods on earth is honey simply because of its unique health promoting properties. So what are the knock-on consequences of this? How does it affect the economy? The health of people? The health of the environment?

Species eradication...what we're exceptionally good at.

Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" 46 years ago. People should have got it by now.

But at least now we know what's happening to the honeybees, and it's a pretty simple fix, providing anyone wants to fix it.

I have not seen two honeybees here all spring. There are far more bumblebees than usual and they are pollinating the flowers that are everywhere, but there are no honeybees.

There is An important Question, that no one asks, Why was this pesticide allowed to go on the Market to Begin with? why don't doesn't our government, and the EU, require more Testing before these chemicals are put on the market. Where are the Progressive politicians when we need them? We need to have More public Funding spent on testing, Drugs, Chemicals, anything that Could Cause Harm to humans.

Bayer should pay the world reparations and be completely dismantled. Its 'corporate charter' should be revoked. The spin-apologists for Bayer should be put through a criminal investigation for lying to the public and accepting money to perpetuate criminal activity.

THIS STORY HAS BEEN IGNORED BY ALL MAJOR US MEDIA--know your enemy.

Jaybones,

I love your Cognitive Collapse disorder. It's a good one.

One thing missing here is that without honeybees WE become extinct. Everything we eat has to be pollinated and the same for everything animals, birds, etc. eat. Don't know about aquatic life--maybe someone here does. Bees are by far the greatest pollinators. I've heard it said (by Einstein among others) that four years after the extinction of the honeybee, we're gone.

We sat on our deck, enjoying a cold beer last night and remarking on all the insects and birds in our yard (saw an Indigo Bunting!)Neighbors a house away spray their lawn and seem to want to use as many fossil fuels to keep said lawn golf course green and short. Same neighbors have loads of bird feeders and the only birds that stop are the darn grackles. They cut down all mid sized trees and shrubs so our feathered friends have no good perches. And yet they wonder why I have so many varieties of birds in my yard with a single finch feeder.
As long as we farm like we live, with very little plant diversity, we'll keep hearing about species collapsing.

In the states, where several industry chemicals are already strongly implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder, cigarette science still rules the day. Unlike Germany, which learned something about fascism and corporations from its earlier takeover by both, it'll probably take decades before the US government acts against the products of Dow, Monsanto, etc.

Here, we will let the bees die off for years to come before anyone in power becomes brave enough to suggest that erring on the side of caution for pollinating insects is more important than corporate profits.

I have it on good authority that this suicial attitude is attributable to many people in the US suffering from something called Cognitive Collapse Disorder, evidence for which abounds and worsens almost by the day.

You have to hand it to the Krauts on this one. At least they have the brains to follow the science, even if only temporarily suspended...

Could Germans really be superior?

Honeybees are too important. Anything that is questionable, anything that maybe harming them should be stop. GM crops could kill us all off. This is where profit become evil.

Q; How do you know a corporation is lying?

A: Their spokesperson's lips are moving.

I think there is a general principle here. Whenever I hear some corporate PR lackey saying: chemical X is safe, I have found exactly the opposite is almost always true. It's just that most people don't have the time to actually research these claims. By the time corporations go into PR mode, there is usually ample evidence to suggest problems.

Next we will be told that "cyanide is safe when used as directed." Or "Nuclear weapons are safe when used as directed." Really, these corporations will have nobody to blame but themselves when people en-masse stop believing their so-called claims to safety. It's time to move to the precautionary principle on a large scale basis, BEFORE the bees are wiped out, not to mention many other species. A corporation does not have any rights to existence, and this is a crime against life, not just people.

Besides, Bayer Life Sciences is really much better described by Bayer Death Sciences, so their very name is a telling clue to the kind of Newspeak they can be expected to practice.

Meanwhile, Bayer CropScience is busy contaminating the world's food chain with transgenic mutant organisms!

"...the USDA announced a Bayer CropScience GM trait had been found in the U.S. rice supply."

"Rice farmers in Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and California have sued Bayer CropScience, alleging its genetically modified rice has contaminated the crop..."

And how does the US Government feel about this? Well, check out the latest Farm Bill giveaways, like the tax break offered to all farmers who "choose" to plant so-called genetically modified organisms.

Monsanto gave us Agent Orange, Bayer gave us Zyklon B, now both are trusted not to f**k up the food chain at it's most fundamental level. Sounds safe to me!

dkm, thewonderingyou - the article is clear on that - they forgot to add a glue that keeps the chemical attached to the seed, so it got into their and settels on everything.

what is obvious is that the manufacuters of the chemicals are having a problem making connections- as you point out - the seed is connected to the rest of the plant(d-duh) and the chemicals will suffuse the entire plant, flower included.

So - the frogs all died 15 years ago, bees now, droughts, floods, Panama fungus is killing all he bananas, bird flu, new superbugs - are we having fun yet?

What is not mentioned in the article, as well, is the fact that now we have a face and a link to our current problem and an admittance of guilt. This is something we all have been looking for in the news. It most likely not be the only bee killer out there but its a start in the right direction. They should be tried for treason against all humanity. Just how major polluters should be tried. I'm surprised we don't just use DU for pesticide looking at the products out there. Systemics are the worst and the most powerful, i.e. in quantity, killers. Their almost only use. All the human side effects are the most unusual. Who tests this stuff on people?

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Bayer AG was formerly the ignoble IG Farben.

"Bayer became part of IG Farben, a conglomerate of German chemical industries which formed the financial core of the Nazi regime. IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B, the chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. When the Allies split IG Farben after World War II for involvement in several Nazi war crimes, Bayer reappeared as an individual business. Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release." (cf. Wikipedia)

First they exterminated jews. Now they exterminate bees.

Presence? I think I love you. I wish I could swim around in your head.

"Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is "highly toxic" to honeybees."

Clearly it does the same to humans. Over time these toxins build up to levels that harm us. Why would anyone pay for or consume something that ultimately kills them? Corporations are killers. Avoid them and live.

dkm,

You are puzzled, and that's natural. You asked, and that's commendable. These pesticides are systemic pesticides, which means they are "taken up" into the tissues of the plant to which they are applied. They are therefore present in the entire plant, having been absorbed by the roots from the soil surrounding the coated seed.

Do you have a cat or a dog? If you use Frontline to guard against fleas, you're also using a systemic pesticide that disperses throughout the skin of your pet to kill fleas that try to draw its blood. Systemic pesticides can be extremely effective, but they can also be extremely dangerous precisely because they are systemic.

Bayer's line that the failure of the seed company to correctly use a "glue-like substance" to keep the chemical from going airborne seems a little weak to me: while nicotinoids are somewhat volatile, the effect on honeybee populations of an airborne toxin doesn't (well, I'm a botanist, not a zoologist, mind you) seem like it'd be enough to wipe out even 30% of the population, much less the higher percentages reported. Nicotinoids are readily absorbed through mammalian skin, but I have no idea how transmissible they'd be amongst insects from one individual to another.

I'd be more apt to believe that it's perhaps an over-application of the systemic pesticide which then is present in sufficient quantities in the plant tissues (including pollen) that leads to fatal exposure for honeybees. A systemic pesticide is best when it travels freely and un-noticed by the host organism, so over-application may not have been readily apparent based on observations made on the crop itself.

Persistence can be a bitch. Just ask Kem Patrick about DU sometime and you'll be well educated.

God bless Germany and anyone else trying to apply an honest helping hand to the planet we are in the process of destroying. (What ever happened to America?)

I'm puzzled about how applying an insecticide to a corn seed before planting it underground is killing bees that don't come anywhere near a corn plant. While there is little doubt that the insecticide can kill bees, I do not understand how this particular application is responsible.

Is there an anti-Bayer pesticide?