when we think about food we take a look now at the vital role bees play in
getting some of your favorite dishes to the table and the way commercial
beekeepers in the us- are struggling to keep their babies healthy Allison Aubrey
of national public radio has our report
story is part of the news hours ongoing collaboration with NPR
it's harvest time at Adi honey farms and Bruce South Dakota at ease the third
generation to manage the 80,000 hives the addy have scattered across five
Midwestern states he says be keeping these days is much harder than it's ever
been in 2010 barbies were just destroyed in a couple of weeks most of our babies
died Brett says things really haven't improved much I'd like to see about
twice the three times as many bees most the house right now it'll be a real
challenge to keep him alive through the winter the addys are not alone according
to a preliminary survey from the US Department of Agriculture commercial
beekeepers lost 42 percent of their colonies last year
these are a critical part of Agriculture addy trucks is be out to pollinate
California's almond groves every year and it's not just Salman's bees
pollinate everything from apples cherries to squash to figure out what's
plaguing the bees the Obama administration assembled a task force
last year scientists at the EPA USDA and researchers across the country have been
studying the problem are finding there are multiple issues bees have fewer
wildflowers to forage on due to loss of habitat there's also viruses that passed
passed on to bees climate change is thought to play a role to another issue
is pesticide some studies suggest that a class of pesticides known as near
nicotine noise or near next four short are harming the bees these pesticides
are coated onto the field of about eighty percent of the corn that's grown
in United States and about half the soybeans to get a sense of that scale
imagine a corn farm like this taking up the entire state of California that's
how much of this pretreated seen as being planted this is what currencies
look like after they've been treated it has to find us put under the current
performance ever planted that's right
Christian Krupke is an entomologist at Purdue University who studies these his
research shows that neonicotinoids can harm bees what is any indicator and
communicate annoyed as the the name would suggest it's based on nicotine
they're less toxic to mammals which is a big feature in their wide adoption but
they're more toxic to honey bees and other insects UNIX are a relatively new
class of pesticide they've been around since the early nineteen nineties
they're easier for farmers to use than the traditional method of spraying crops
and according to researchers at Penn State University their youth has
increased more than eleven fold and 2003 companies that sell them are making
billions of dollars virtually all of these large acreage plants are being
treated so the level of use is way out of step with the level of the threat in
most fields and where we've worked we just haven't been able to find levels of
pests that would that would justify the level of Use
he published a study that linked bedecked with the pesticide Laden dust
that flies up during the planting of the pretreated corn seeds we collected some
of those bees and analyze them and found unique to noise on them and in them so
there is an intersection between planting these crops and killing
foraging honeybees Bayer CropScience is one of the leading manufacturers of
neonicotinoids bears chief scientist David Fisher acknowledges these findings
but he says bear has a seed the Perkins that reduces the dust he says that
outside these acute exposures nicotine waves are not harmful to bees we've done
those studies in those studies basically show if you spray the product it's not
safe for the bees if you apply the product to the soil or as a C treatment
the level of residues that gets up into the plant is a safe range Christian
Krupke is not convinced we find these pesticides in the water drink water
plants use water we find that wild flowers that grow and near these areas
also have some of these pesticides in them
you add up over the course of the season and yes we do find concerning levels
he says those levels do not kill the bees but may leave them more vulnerable
mayor's chief scientist says the major threat to beat the might of punctures
the honey bees body and feeds on its blood it's known as the varroa mite and
a recent report issued by President Obama's task force also points to the
might as one issue 50 percent of the problem is varroa mites and the viruses
and diseases those viruses cause but some beekeepers suspect the increased
use of the neonicotinoid is making their bees more vulnerable to the night for
fifteen years we manage that brought my kept our losses under five to eight
percent now we're losing fifty percent of the babies every year
Bayer CropScience started a program called care pesticide manufacturers
including bear and Syngenta have launched campaigns of their own to boost
be health center in destroying a lot of things through for be help both
companies are planting million the flowers and the us- to increase be for
it and in 2014 Bayer CropScience opens this $2,000,000 blue care center in
North Carolina with a conduct workshops and tours environmentalists say these
initiatives are a diversion from the real problem
pesticides these companies manufacture something Fisher rejects barriers
actually been in the business of providing products to beekeepers for
more than 20 years it's not something that we just started doing
beekeepers in Europe came out in force that can years ago in support of the
European Union's partial ban on the use of some of these neon X and here in the
us- the environmental protection agency says it will speed up with safety review
and likely not allow new uses of the pesticides
environmental groups are locked in several court battles challenging the
EPA over the registration of these pesticides manufacturers maintain that
near Knicks are vital for increasing crop production and then spring they're
extremely valuable they increase crop yields often by 20% versus the other cup
competitors so they contribute billions of dollars to the economy United States
that would be true if these products these new units were indispensable to
these crops to agriculture but they're not some of our own working corn in the
work of others in the United States has showed that is very difficult to
consistently show you'll benefit
Lucas Creswell from close to 2,000 acres of corn soybeans wheat and rye in
Pennsylvania's Susquehanna Valley he had stopped using treated because he found
it was not only killing the bad pests but the past he needed to ward off the
slugs that we're eating as soybean crops the soil and our fields are viewed
ecology of different critters and and insects and they're all there we need
good and bad it takes a balance of them all and that's what we've seen well now
keeps pests at bay and is filled by planting crops that encourage beneficial
insects the treated seeds cost more so this method ends up being cheaper forum
is it soon enough to say whether you're getting the same meal corn grown on that
hill is earlier this year President Obama's task force called for a
re-evaluation of the pesticides and consistent with the president's
requirements
the EPA has expedited its review I'm Allison Aubrey of NPR news for the PBS
Newshour and Bruce South Dakota