The Flow Hive - A Great Innovation for Bees

I have a great affection for bees. They are marvelous little creatures.  They work tirelessly to serve the collective interests of the hive. Bees that reside in commercial hives are the source of nearly all the honey we humans consume. 

Unlike wild colonies, bees in commercial service are constantly stressed by keepers who regularly open their hives to harvest honey and beeswax, and also to check on the health of the hives.  It's been that way since humans entered into a working relationship with domesticated bees.

A group of beekeepers from the Australia appears to have developed an innovation that will transform commercial and hobby beekeeping.

In traditional beekeeping, the harvest of honey and beeswax requires opening the hives, removing the honeycombed panels, scraping away the wax and draining the honey into containers.  It's very stressful on the bees and hard work for the beekeepers.

The innovation that could change all that is called Flow Hive. It uses combed panels that are designed to automatically channel the flow of honey in a way that allows it to be harvested simply by opening a tap.  The hive doesn't have to be opened. The bees are not disturbed. 

The people behind Flow Hive are just now ramping up to manufacture their remarkable innovation.

Check out the Flow Hive website.  http://www.honeyflow.com/

The Cedar Hills Green Co-op

My wife and I live in a suburb of Portland, Oregon called Cedar Hills. The Homeowner's Association of Cedar Hills [CHHOA] has about 2100 homes and is one of the oldest associations in the United States.  Our home is only seven minutes by car from downtown Portland, and a few minutes from the post office, library, groceries, public transport, and pretty much everything else we need in our daily lives. We like being part of this community. 

One of the things that has disturbed us since we relocated to this area on the west side of metro Portland is the dearth of song birds.  We just don't see them. This is a beautiful area with lots of trees and ground cover, abundant water supplies, and by all appearances everything birds would need to thrive.  So, why are they not here?

We do see crows fairly often. They like to roost in the big oak tree across the street. Crows are an opportunistic species that do well in many situations. They also can account for some of the absence of other species of birds, as they are territorial and can be aggressive in pushing out competitors.

The lack of song birds in our neighborhood is hardly just a problem of 'mobbing' by crows. Domestic cats are also part of the problem.  There are 85 million house cats in America. Cats alone are accountable for the loss of up to six billion small birds annually. Cats are predators. If they are outside roaming, they are looking for prey. Hunting is what they are hard-wired to do. The only answer to this problem is to keep them inside, or perhaps put a bell on a collar that might provide some warning to a small bird before kitty can pounce.

The biggest reason for the lack of birds may be the choices we make in landscaping our residential properties.  A well groomed lawn might offer a modicum of 'curb appeal', but it's not a place that is friendly to nature or birds.  Removing trees and natural groundcover in favor of nicely manicured grass is a problem, more than anything else, because keeping lawn  and gardens 'beautiful' 'requires regular applications of chemical fertilizers, weed killers, and other kinds of biocides.  At least, that's what most people assume.

It's no wonder our suburbs have gotten so far out of balance with nature. The green, weed-free lawn monoculture is hammered into us as the esthetic ideal.  Suburbs are supposed to look like a TV lawn care commercial. That vision of being a good neighbor is constantly sold to us. That's what the multi-billion dollar lawn care industry wants us to embrace. That's what maximizes profits for them.

Allowing one's property to become a bit unkempt and wild is frowned on,  even thought of as diminishing property values.

I, like most people, do not advocate turning residential suburbs into an eyesore of weeds, invasives, and non-indigenous vegetation.  We're talking about making our personal home space more friendly to the plants and animals that would be present if we were not here, not eliminating landscape maintenance altogether.

Probably with much less of a time commitment, and also at less cost than it takes to do the lawn care we are accustomed to,  we could landscape our personal outdoor space in ways that are both esthetically pleasing and friendly to the natural world.   Every well-considered argument I can visualize leads directly to a cooperative, 'green' approach to community.

I've been thinking about how to make our personal existence more in harmony with nature for some time. We have taken some steps already with our landscaping.  We have no lawn, and we allow our plantscape to look a bit busy... not unkempt, but probably too close to unkempt for some.  We also try to avoid or very much limit any use of  pesticides and herbicides. That's not to say we are a good example. We have not been attentive to what we plant. We need to do much better.  Native species and flora that are attractive and nurturing to small birds and insect pollinators  should get planting priority. Anyway,  I'm not suggesting us as an inspiring example. My wife and I need to change our yard space so that the plantings are good for the birds and bees.

About a year ago, I started asking questions and expressing myself publicly about what I now refer to as a green co-op.  At the beginning, it was just an expression of concern for birds and pollinators in the Cedar Hills area.  Then, as I asked questions and talked to local people with lots of knowledge and life-affirming experience,  a compelling picture emerged.  I was seeing my home area, Cedar Hills, as an inspiring example of what a human cooperative for nature looks like. I was seeing Cedar Hills as a reflection of a place whose primary mantra about nature is; first, do no harm.

Portland, Oregon is well ahead of most urban regions in the way nature and the environment are considered.  The Portland Metro Counsel and it's commissioners oversee a 'nature in neighborhoods' program.  They support nature-friendly community initiatives all across the region.  In fact, Kathryn Harrington, the metro commissioner for the Cedar Hills area, is already backyard certified.   

Another thing I learned is there are already many families in Cedar Hills that are living on personal landscapes purposefully shaped to encourage birds and pollinators.   What an amazing foundation to build on.

So, I wrote down a brief concept paper that makes the case for a Cedar Hills Green Co-op.  I took it to Jodie Phelps,  the office manager at CHHOA. Jodie is a real asset to our community. 

On September 9th,  I asked the citizen Board of Directors of the Cedar Hills HOA for their support in launching a Cedar Hills Green Co-op,  run by volunteer citizens of our community. The board endorsed our effort, and they will consider formal oversight of the Green Co-op after the level of community support can be determined

So, that's where we are.  Around mid-October, an announcement for the green co-op will be included in the semi-annual mailing to HOA members. The announcement urges residents to join the green co-op, and makes a special request that residents who have already embraced a green lifestyle become the core of this community initiative. 

Stay tuned. We should know if the Cedar Hills Green Co-op is going to fly well before the Xmas holidays.

The website for the CHHOA is  www.cedarhillshoa.org/

Sunflowers and Bees

Two of my favorite things go together like honey and butter.   Sunflowers are majestic.  It's amazing how fast they grow from seed in the Spring.   In July, in our backyard, we could almost watch them grow. They are now nearly ten feet tall. Each is topped by a single massive yellow flower. Some are  in full bloom, others are about to blossom. 

Sunflowers are a great place to find bees this time of year. The images below came from an outing at Howell Regional Park on Sauvie Island. The park is actually an old farmstead that still has working fields.

I applied some of my own  'painterly' photo processing that evolved from the creative application of Photoshop image processing software. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Queen of the Sun

A lovely person named Betsy Valle recommended a documentary video to me. It's called, Queen of the Sun.  This video is about some wonderful humans, who work with bees and have a profound affection for them.  It's also about industrial agriculture and the devastating impact it is having on bees.

I met Betsy Valle, who lives in North Portland, through Paul Maresh and Pam Allee, two people who are seriously involved in urban bee husbandry.  Paul has some of his bee hives in Betsy's yard, which is covered with plants and flowers that are good for bees.

When I visited Betsy Valle's yard with Paul, I was struck by the nature of the bees when Paul was present. They were calm, as if they knew him and recognized him as a 'friendly' presence. Though a hive can have as many as 60,000 bees, they all seem to be connected and work together as one organism.

Bees are incredibly important to the health of the biosphere. They are responsible for pollinating 40% or more of the plants we depend on for food.   Healthy bees are a reflection of a healthy environment.

Unfortunately, bees are in big trouble these days. A phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder is reflected in huge numbers of bee colonies dying off.  There are a number of factors that contribute to colony collapse.  Mass market industrial agriculture has led to massive monocultures like the almond crop in California. Growing a single crop like almonds to the exclusion of all other plants means that bees starve, when the almonds are not in bloom. 

Even worse is the impact of pesticides and herbicides. A class of these poisons called neonicotinoids are chemical nerve agents that can kill bees outright in high enough concentration. Even in low concentration , they disrupt bee immune and nervous system function.  The International Union for the Conservation of Nature  reviewed 800 scientific studies that looked at the impact of neonicotinoid ag chemicals on pollinators and found the link to be 'incontrovertible'.

Queen of the Sun reveals the wonderful synergy that links organic beekeepers with their bees.  It also shows what the bees are up against. The picture is not pretty, but clearly all is not lost.  Many people around the world are working to protect bees.  

I met Paul, Pam, and Betsy, all of whom are champions for bees, because I am preparing to produce a brief outreach video for Move to Amend, that uses a beekeeper's perspective to make the case that the future of bees and the biosphere in general depends on stripping bankers, bad billionaires, and business tycoons of their undue influence over our political process.

We know that pesticides and herbicides are a very significant factor in bee colony collapse.  Our government is the place we citizens must look to for a credible response to these chemical poisons. That is not happening because the gigantic multinational corporate interests behind these ag chemicals are using their wealth and influence to obfuscate the truth and resist changes in government policy that would help bees but threaten their billions in poisonous  profits.

My wife and I are going to look into putting a bee hive or two in our backyard.  I am also recommending Queen of the Sun as a wonderful way to spend 90 minutes to anyone who hasn't already seen it.  And, I am looking forward to completing my Move to Amend Outreach video,  Beekeeper's Logic.

Finally, I want to thank my new friends, Paul, Pam, and Betsy, for championing bees and for being all around good souls.

Here is a link to a video trailer for Queen of the Sun...  http://www.queenofthesun.com/

Honey Bees in 4K

I am currently working on an outreach video for Move to Amend that features the perspective of a beekeeper.    

In preparation for this project, I came across a video produced by Jacob and Katie Schwarz.  About three minutes long, it was shot beautifully in 4K ultra-HD video. The  video work and editing is marvelous. Accompanied by  original music by composer Richard Williams, this video is a touching celebration of bees.

Congratulations to Katie and Jacob. Your work sets the bar very high for those of us that use visual imagery to showcase the natural world.

 Here is as link to this wonderful video...  http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Honeybees+96+fps+4K++You+Tube&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=0A0E9EC52AF92C82CBD40A0E9EC52AF92C82CBD4

Raine Lee Ritalto - Beekeeper

Just yesterday, I crossed paths with Raine Lee Ritalto, a lady with a passion for bees. She was circulating a petition on the net calling for the state of Oregon to assume all regulatory responsibility for beekeeping. Why? Because local governments tend to treat beekeeping as an agricultural trade, which has led to local regulations that exclude or make life harder for beekeepers who have hives inside urban boundaries.  

Raine points out that pollination is a critical function carried out by bees, and it doesn't stop outside the city limits. Humans depend on pollination to grow the food we eat. In fact, about 40% of all pollination is carried out by bees.

Having one set of regulations at the state level makes great sense.  The fact is there is little threat posed by bee hives inside a city's borders. Only one percent of people are allergic to bee stings. Moreover, unlike yellowjackets and wasps,  bees are generally not aggressive, except to direct threats to a hive. 

Wild bees occur naturally in most places. At least they did until recent years, when a combination of factors has led to a precipitous decline in honey bee populations. One of the biggest threats to bees and other beneficial insects appears to be the indiscriminate use of pesticides and herbicides like Roundup.   Monsanto, the company that makes Roundup, denies a connection with their chemical and the loss of bee colonies. Despite the denials, the evidence, while not conclusive,  is highly compelling.

Where city governments are concerned, the regulatory burden should not be on beekeepers, it should be on purveyors and residential users of poisons like Roundup and Weed-B-Gone.  

Here is a link to Raine Lee Ritalto's online, national petition for shifting regulatory responsibility for beekeeping to the state level...  http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/residential-honey-beekeeping?source=mo.mp&id=98580-1312436-ag2nmKx



 

Hope on Earth

Hope on Earth, is a highly engaging dialogue between two  remarkable human beings,  Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich, President of Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology,  and global ecologist/author/anthropologist/filmmaker Michael Tobias.   Ehrlich is best known for The Population Bomb, a book co-written with his wife Anne more than four decades ago.  I should mention that I was a young man when I read the Ehrlich’s book back when it first came out.  Chilling as its message was, then and now, that book had a profound impact on my understanding of the world.  Dr. Tobias’ work is also well known to me. He is the author of more than fifty books, including World War III – Population and the Biosphere at the End of the Millennium and, with his colleague, partner, and wife, Jane Gray Morrison,  Sanctuary – Global Oasis of Innocence. Tobias has also had a distinguished career as a film maker – more than 150 productions - on subjects (mostly non-fiction, but some fiction) related to animal rights’, biodiversity, and humanity’s tenuous relationship with the environment.  Tobias is also the long-time President of The Dancing Star Foundation, a global animal protection, biodiversity conservation, and environmental education non-profit.

 

 

 

Both men have spent much of  their lives investigating and reporting on the massively expanded pressure on our biosphere caused by human population growth.  To put this in perspective, the number of people on Earth when The Population Bomb was first published in 1968 was 3.5 billion. In all of human history, it took till then to get to 3.5 billion. In the 46 years since that time, the population has more than doubled to 7.25 billion. This massive human expansion is not sustainable. The Earth’s resources are finite. We humans are pushing our freshwater, our farmland, our forests, our marine resources rapidly  to exhaustion. Our dependence on fossil fuels like oil and coal is pumping billions of tons of pollutants into the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a planetary warming that puts the very livability of our tiny dot in the galaxy at great risk. Human exploitation is pushing unprecedented numbers of plant and animal species to the point of extinction.  In fact, the consensus seems to be, for humanity to live within the planet’s long term ability to provide sustenance for most sentient beings, including Homo Sapiens,  the human population should no more than about one to two billion.  The current condition for humanity is one of extreme overreach.  Can we turn it around? Can we change our ways sufficiently to roll back  human demand so it does not exceed the planet’s ability to provide?   

Ehrlich and Tobias are skeptical. Despite that, they remain hopeful. They have both  been aggressively sounding a warning for decades. They both clearly detest the general state of public indifference, and even hostility in some cases,  despite the powerful warning signals we are getting from nature; signals like the melting of our glaciers and the collapse of the polar icecaps, the increasing incidents of extreme draught, wildfire, floods, and massive and highly destructive weather events like Hurricane Sandy and Super Typhoon Haiyan. 

In Hope on Earth, Ehrlich warns, “The past is over. We’re here now, and we’d better damn well make our ethical decisions.”  He goes on to say, “If we don’t solve the issues of population growth and consumption, all the rest of these issues won’t stand a chance of being remedied.”

Ehrlich and Tobias agree that humanity must find a path to achieving critical mass in awareness, and beyond that, a thoughtful, ethical approach to the unprecedented global-scale challenges that have emerged. The course we are on is a dead end.

I really enjoyed reading Hope on Earth. In the end, it is a dialogue about ethics. I loved being a fly on the wall, absorbing this great conversation between two exceptional minds, who understand and care deeply about the ugly turn human history has taken. Their prescription: Wake up and embrace a life-affirming cultural paradigm built on a foundation of compassion, and commitment to planetary stewardship. Do it now, before it is too late.

I give five stars to Hope on Earth. Highest recommendation.

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Mt. Pleasant Iris Farm

A very nice outing today to a beautiful location in Washougal, Washington overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.    Chad Harris and Dale Grams have created their own little slice of paradise about 25 minutes east of Portland.  This is a small farm that specializes in hybrid breeds of Japanese Iris. Chad has created some new cross breeds himself.   What a privilege to spend a bit of time here. Chad was a very gracious host, giving us access to all of his carefully landscaped garden work. If you're looking for a very satisfying way to spend a bit of time,  the Mt. Pleasant Iris Farm gets my top recommendation.

See some of my images below....

 

For directions and information, go to the farm's link...  http://www.mtpleasantiris.com/

Burt's Buzz

There's a movie out now called Burt's Buzz.  It's about the quirky beekeeper from Maine that founded the  billion dollar company, Burt's Bees.  I haven't seen the movie yet, but I hope to see it soon.  It's about Burt Shavitz the man. He appears to be a genuine 'Down East' character, who has been transformed by some very sophisticated marketing into a brand, worth a billion dollars. 

Here is the link to the trailer for Burt's Buzz...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdGZoABFYYA

Grocery Stores Without Bees

Found this piece on the net. We depend on bees to pollinate the plants that provide much of our food. Bees and other beneficial insects are in big trouble. Very likely, our use of dangerously toxic pesticides and herbicides has a lot to do with it. Yet another example of how out of step we humans are with the rhythms of nature. It doesn't have to bee that way.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I., June 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- One of every three bites of food comes from plants pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators. Yet, major declines in bee populations threaten the availability of many fresh ingredients consumers rely on for their dinner tables.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130612/DA27199)

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121015/DA92273LOGO)

To raise awareness of just how crucial pollinators are to our food system, the University Heights Whole Foods Market store temporarily removed all produce that comes from plants dependent on pollinators. They pulled from shelves 237 of 453 products – 52 percent of the department's normal product mix.

Products removed included:

• Apples
• Onions
• Avocados
• Carrots
• Mangos
• Lemons
• Limes
• Honeydew
• Cantaloupe
• Zucchini
• Summer squash
• Eggplant
• Cucumbers
• Celery
• Green onions
• Cauliflower
• Leeks
• Bok choy
• Kale
• Broccoli
• Broccoli rabe
• Mustard greens

 

"Pollinators are a critical link in our food system. More than 85% of earth's plant species – many of which compose some of the most nutritional parts of our diet – require pollinators to exist. Yet we continue to see alarming declines in bee numbers," said Eric Mader, assistant pollinator conservation director at The Xerces Society. "Our organization works with farmers nationwide to help them create wildflower habitat and adopt less pesticide-intensive practices. These simple strategies can tip the balance back in favor of bees."

 

Whole Foods Market offers four more ways to "bee part of the solution." Details are online at www.wholefoodsmarket.com/sharethebuzz.

• Bee organic: Buying organic is an easy way to support pollinators.
• Bee savvy at home: Most pest problems can be solved without toxic and persistent pesticides.
• Bee a gardener: Plant bee-friendly flowers and fruits.
• Bee a smart shopper: Look for the "Share the Buzz" signs throughout stores to support vendors also donating to The Xerces Society.
  • "Queen Bee" partners ($25,000): Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day and Hain Celestial (MaraNatha, WestSoy, Terra Chips, Arrowhead Mills)
  • "Worker Bee" partners ($5,000): Attune Foods, Cuties, Kashi, Sweet Leaf Teas, Muir Glen Organic, Talenti Gelato, So Delicious, Udi's Gluten Free.

 

SOURCE Whole Foods Market

Pollinator Pathways

So, we live in a lovely, quiet neighborhood on the west side of Portland, Oregon.   I have written in this blog before about how few songbirds we have around our home.  We never hear birds singing. When I was a kid, I grew up waking up to birds singing on Spring and Summer mornings. Not here. Part of the problem  may be crows and jays driving other birds out.  Part of it may be chemicals that people use nowadays on their lawns. Part of it could be kitties doing what comes naturally when they're free to roam.  

I would not say that bees are uncommon in my neighborhood, but I have to wonder if we're doing all we can to nurture them. In my mind, that is the proper role of humans when it comes to the places where we live. We should be doing all we can to shape our human habitats to be in harmony with the natural world.

Anyway, I say all that as a lead in to this blog piece, which is about a group in Seattle called Pollinator Pathways.  It's a  gathering of like-minded citizens in a residential neighborhood a half mile or so East of Downtown Seattle.  In 2008, in response to the increasing concern about bee hives being decimated by what is now called, 'Colony Collapse Disorder'  a group of neighbors came up with a plan to create an urban strip with plantings designed to encourage a healthy symbiosis with native bees and other pollinators. The group attracted a lot of support from the city government, local universities, and their neighbors.  They created a formal structure for their effort and called it Pollinator Pathways

I read about the Pollinator Pathway program and thought to myself, 'That's exactly what we need in my neighborhood.' 

I called our Home Owner's Association and asked if something like that might be encouraged in our Portland neighborhood. Their initial response was encouraging, so I'm going to talk to the good people behind Pollinator Pathways in Seattle, and see what I can learn about adopting their program here in Portland. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, for more blog pieces on this subject, click on the labels below for 'Bees' and 'Pollinators'

Dance of the Honey Bee

Bees are wonderful little creatures. They work tirelessly to serve the hive, gathering nectar and pollen from flowers far and wide.

We tend to take bees for granted, not understanding that they play a crucial role in the lifecycles of nature.  Most plants require a transfer of pollen from one individual plant to another to reproduce.  Bees are the instruments of much of that cross pollination. If it weren't for bees,  the natural food supply humans depend on would shrink dramatically. 

Bees are in a lot of trouble these days. Whole hives can disappear in virtually an instant due to something called Colony Collapse Disorder.   Mounting evidence suggests this could be  caused by the wide spread use of a particularly deadly form of insecticide known as  neonicotinoids. The manufacturers of these insecticides deny any link to honey bee deaths. Odd, when you consider that bees are insects. Duh.  When you spread this kind of poison over the landscape,  it's going to kill any small creatures that come into contact with it.  That bees are particularly vulnerable should be no surprise.

As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, bees are wonderful little creatures.  We need to appreciate the very important role they play in the fabric of life. That's the first step in becoming advocates that recognize that protecting bees is tantamount to protecting ourselves.

Here is a link to a new video called Dance of the Honey Bees...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo6fK1yKcAA

What Happened to the Birds - Part Two

I didn't expect to be following up my last entry with another on the same subject, but then, I didn't expect to read something as troubling as what follows  either.

The chemical giants in their infinite wisdom have figured out how to engineer pesticide right into the seed they sell to farmers and landscapers. 

"Once again this spring, farmers will begin planting at least 140 million acres—a land mass roughly equal to the combined footprints of California and Washington state—with seeds (mainly corn and soy) treated with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Commercial landscapers and home gardeners will get into the act, too—neonics are common in lawn and garden products"

Is it any wonder that songbirds and honey bees  have been decimated? Is monetary profit the only basis for assigning value in our world these days? It sure seems so.



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Not Just the Bees: Bayer's Pesticide May Harm Birds, Too

—By Tom Philpott

Mother Jones Magazine

| Wed Mar. 27, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

 

Geese in a corn field Jimmy Smith/Flickr

 

 

Once again this spring, farmers will begin planting at least 140 million acres—a land mass roughly equal to the combined footprints of California and Washington state—with seeds (mainly corn and soy) treated with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Commercial landscapers and home gardeners will get into the act, too—neonics are common in lawn and garden products. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know all of that is probably bad news for honeybees and other pollinators, as a growing body of research shows—including three studies released just ahead of last year's planting season.

 

But bees aren't the only iconic springtime creature threatened by the ubiquitous pesticide, whose biggest makers are the European giants Bayer and Syngenta. It turns out that birds are too, according to an alarming analysis co-authored by Pierre Mineau, a retired senior research scientist at Environment Canada (Canada's EPA), published by the American Bird Conservancy. And not just birds themselves, but also the water-borne insect species that serve as a major food source for birds, fish, and amphibians.
 

The article isn't peer-reviewed, but Mineau is a formidable scientist. In February, he published a peer-reviewed paper in PLoS One concluding that pesticides, and not habitat loss, have likely been driving bird-population declines in the United States.

 

That paper didn't delve into specific pesticides. For his American Bird Conservancy paper, Mineau and his co-author, Cynthia Palmer, looked at a range of research on the effects of neonics on birds and water-borne insects, from papers by independent researchers to industry-funded studies used in the EPA's deregulation process and obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

For the most vulnerable bird species, they found, consuming even two corn seeds coated with Bayer's blockbuster neonic clothianidin can have lethal effects.

 

Their conclusion: Neonics are highly mobile and persistent once they're unleashed into ecosystems, and they pose a serious threat to birds and the insects they feed on. The EPA, they continue, has in some cases severely underestimated the danger and in other cases simply ignored it. The underestimation, they argue, mainly stems from the widespread use of two bird species to judge toxicity, mallards and bobwhites. But many other bird species are more vulnerable to neonics than those two, and Mineau's paper concludes the EPA, in its risk assessment used to register a raft of neonic products over the past two decades, "underestimates toxicity by 1.5 to 10 fold if the intent of the exercise is to protect most species, not merely mallards and bobwhites." For the most vulnerable bird species, they found, consuming even two corn seeds coated with Bayer's blockbuster neonic clothianidin can have lethal effects.

The authors point to several instances of EPA scientists raising serious concerns about the ecological impacts of these pesticides, only to see them registered anyway. Back in 2003, when the EPA was first considering registering Bayer's clothianidin, an agency risk assessment concluded that "exposure to treated seed through ingestion might result in chronic risk to birds and mammals, especially mammals where consumption of 1-2 seeds only could push them to an exposure level at which reproductive effects are expected," the authors report. The assessment also described the chemical as persistent and mobile, with "potential to leach to groundwater as well as runoff to surface waters." So what happened to clothianidin? A "plethora of registered uses for clothianidin followed in quick succession," they report. The pesticide is now used on corn, soybeans, cotton, pears, potatoes, tree nuts, mustard greens, and more.

Mineau's paper notes in passing that the EPA also identified potential threats from clothianidin to bees as early as 2003, adding, however, that the pollinator issue is "outside the scope of the current review." I told the sordid tale of clothianidin's march through EPA registration despite its own scientists' bee concerns in this 2010 post.

But the most pernicious effect of neonics on birds may be indirect: By leaching into water and accumulating in streams and ponds, neonics also attack a major component of birds' food supply: insects that hang out in water, what Mineau calls the "bottom of the aquatic food chain." The EPA has severely underestimated the risk to such insects, they charge. For the neonic imidacloprid, they argue, a "scientifically defensible reference level" to gauge when the pesticide causes harm to insects is 0.2 ug/l. "European regulators acknowledge that acute effects are likely at levels exceeding 0.5 ug/l," they write. "In contrast, the EPA’s regulatory and non-regulatory reference levels are set at 35 ug/l."

Based on Mineau's analysis, the American Bird Conservancy is calling for a ban on the practice of using neonics to treat seed, joining a similar plea from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Meanwhile the EPA has been conducting a "comprehensive re-evaluation of these pesticides," but has taken no action to stop their use, and isn't expected to complete its review until 2018 at the earliest. Mineau told me that he presented his case on neonics and birds to the EPA last week, urging them to "speed things up a bit" on the review. I asked him how his message went over. "I didn't get the answer, that, sure, we'll have it done next year," he said. Instead, he added, the agency stressed it would stick to its current process. And that means heavy neonic exposure for the birds and the bees for at least another half-decade.




 

What Happened to All the Birds?

We moved into our home in Portland, Oregon a few years ago, We love Portland and, by and large, we like our home. It's on a large lot that has fruit trees, and lots of different plant varieties.  There are swatches of decorative grass, but no lawn. We have several bird feeders scattered about. There is a birdbath in the front and a pond with koi in the back.  It's a place we expected to see lots of different kinds of birds. 

Where birds are concerned, life in this place has been a disappointment. We see crows and blackbirds regularly, but only rarely any songbirds or hummingbirds. A squadron of rufus hummers did land in a flowered shrub next to our house one day, but sadly we only saw them that one time.

Why, when we live in an area that should be teeming with the chirping of songbirds, are we seeing virtually none of the little feathered buggers.   When I was a boy, my family lived in about six different states over a twelve year period. We always saw and heard birds, while  I was growing up in  Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Washington state. 

Why are we not seeing any songbirds here in our nieghborhood in beautiful Portland, Oregon?  Some are surely being scared away by the large and very territorial crows and blackbirds that live around here.   Domestic cats likely account for some of the attrition in small bird numbers. A recent study estimated that the 85 million house cats in the U.S. kill as many as a billion or more small birds annually.  Don't get me wrong, I like kitties. But, there's no denying they are hard wired to hunt.  They are predators. They are going to stalk birds if they get the chance.

I'm guessing a big part of the problem with small, wild critters, feathered and otherwise, that try to eek out a living in a suburban residential environment, densely populated with humans, is exposure to toxic chemicals.  I'm talking about the moss killers we put on our roofs and sidewalks.  I'm talking about the pesticides and insecticides, and herbicides people use around their homes.  When I go to the garden center,  its just amazing to see aisle after aisle stocked to the gills with every kind of toxic chemical guaranteed to take the work out of lawn and garden care.  I'm not carping against any use of lawn care products,  but I do think society has gone way overboard with the use of stuff like Round up and Weed be Gone.  

It's a lot easier to spray a little herbicide on a weed than it is to get on hands and knees and dig it out.  The chemicals we use around our homes may be designed to acceptable levels of toxicity for humans, but small birds weighing a few ounces and having high metabolic rates are exceedingly vulnerable to these chemicals. To a substantial degree, the average suburban landscape has been turned into a toxic chemical wasteland. 

We don't use chemicals on our property. We  don't have a lawn.  Our property is many varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowers, and ground cover.  It's a little bit wild. That's the way we like it.  Weeds are a problem. When they appear, we dig them up.  I wish more people did it this way.

It pains me not to see any small birds in our neighborhood.  The reasons for this seem pretty obvious.  To me, it's a reflection of how seriously disconnected we humans are from the natural world.





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