Beekeepers Fuming, This Govt Will No Longer Look at Pesticides for Mass Bee Deaths

By Heather Callaghan, Editor

How do you make a problem disappear? Simple. Pretend it doesn’t exist.

Simply remove the culprit from the equation.

That’s what the French government is doing even though pesticides have created problem after problem for French farmers, wine makers and beekeepers.

French beekeepers are fuming that pesticides will no longer be sought in cases of acute, mass bee deaths.

BioAddict.fr reports (translated):

Beekeepers criticized the French government for the deficiencies in its monitoring of acute and massive bee mortalities. Seizure of the case, the French Agency for Health Security (ANSES) confirmed the criticism. But instead of improving its investigations, the government intends to no longer systematically look for pesticide residues in these cases. One way to make them invisible?

ANSES is the group criticizing the government for its nonsensical blinders to obvious pesticide holocausts on hives.

Beekeepers had the unpleasant impression that successive governments sought to incriminate their practices and bee diseases to explain the massive and acute deaths observed in France since the appearance of  neonicotinoids in the 1990s.

It’s now more than an impression. An official report published a year ago estimates that bee diseases are the leading cause of mortality and bad practice of beekeepers the second. Pesticides are almost out of the question.

How is such a conclusion possible? The National Union of French Apiculture (UNAF) has examined the subject and observed that  bee mortalities are underreported in certain regions, that pesticide research is not always carried out and that ” statistical bias “in the balance sheet gives an exaggerated importance to diseases.

It’s almost like someone is trying to protect the massive chemical corporations?

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ANSES thinks its nonsensical to look at diseases as the cause of a acute, mass bee deaths. Firstly, pesticides have been repeatedly implicated in mass bee deaths. Secondly, one can see regional differences among bee death reports, which could correlate with spraying. “In summary, if you do not look for pesticides, you can not find any.” says Bioaddict.

As we’ve said before, when Monsanto is behind initiatives to look for causes of bee deaths – it’s never their products. Surprise! We do not know if chemical companies are behind the government’s willful ignorance of pesticides, but it’s obvious that someone is obfuscate a serious problem.

SEE: France Pulls An All Out Ban On Pesticides In The Public

There is a “‘30% annual mortality of hives, disappearance of 80% of the fly biomass in 25 years … And despite this, the Ministry of Agriculture persists in its refusal to look at the impact of pesticides on the beehives ‘, says Gilles Lanio, President of UNAF.”

ANSES advises,

…focusing surveillance on pesticides, other biocides and veterinary drugs. It also suggests developing a real method of investigation applicable to the entire territory and constituting a collegial steering committee (administration, beekeepers, researchers …) for a regular and qualitative monitoring of the results, which would really allow to determine the causes of mortality.

Finally, it gives reason to the beekeepers in their will of transparency: the results of the analyzes practiced on the bees must not remain secret but on the contrary be communicated. This would also help to know if apicultural practices are involved.

Pesticides sought only “if intoxication can not be excluded”

At the end of this evaluation of ANSES, with advice, beekeepers were waiting for an improvement of the surveillance system. For them, it’s fundamental. Remember that bee mortality averages 30% in France, with peaks over 50% in some years. This means that every year beekeepers must replenish an average of at least one third of their livestock, which requires a lot of investment and puts the economic balance of their farm in jeopardy.

The UNAF in a statement, “The systematic search for pesticide residues is not envisaged and is confined to cases where” intoxication can not be ruled out.” Bioaddict points out, “But how do we know if intoxication can not be ruled out when pesticides are sprayed at night without everyone knowing that farmers are not required to declare to residents of their fields, or when they are spreading or what they are spreading, and that the winds cause the clouds sprayed sometimes far away?”

In the end, environmental/animal advocates and beekeepers feel that agrochemistry and money have been chosen over the future.

This article (Beekeepers Fuming, This Govt Will No Longer Look at Pesticides for Mass Bee Deaths) was created by and appeared first at Natural Blaze. It can be reshared with attribution but MUST include link to homepage, bio, intact links and this message. 

 Heather Callaghan is an independent researcher, writer, speaker and food freedom activist. She is the Editor and co-founder of NaturalBlaze as well as a certified Self-Referencing IITM Practitioner.

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