Bees pollinate one-third of the food that Americans eat. Bees now suffer from swollen tissues, discolored organs, opportunistic infections and die in large numbers. Hives disappear in what is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
CCD is thought to be caused by multiple factors, but the critical agent appears to be the neonicotinoid pesticides. In an acute episode in June fifty thousand (50,000) bumblebees, our native bee, died in a Target parking lot in Wilsonville, Oregon, following the application of the neonicotinoid, dinotefuran, to flowering linden trees.
To protect their bees the European Union has recently approved a ban on the neonicotinoids. The appropriate US body should ban the use of neonicotinoids on seeds, soil, leaves, flowers, and bark to protect Americans’ food supply.