Here is a rough Google translation from a French news report:
Confronting the threat posed to bees emerging from winter quarters, by the neonicotinoid insecticide 'Cruiser' used on canola/ rapeseed, French beekeepers will take to the streets, parading in their bee-suits with banners and bee-smokers, on October 15, 201. They feel compelled to act in the face of widespread bee-deaths, resulting from the use of Cruiser and the repeated ministry -authorisations for the use of Cruiser on maize, despite the over-turning of these ministerial decisions by the French Council of State in February 2011. Beekeepers say they are confronting years of ignorance and inaction on the part of the French government, which has failed to deal with the destruction of half of all French bee-colonies, killed by neonicotinoid insecticides in recent years.
Attacked from all sides by pesticides, insecticides
and fungicides, honeybees, bumblebees and butterflies could become
extinct as quickly as the dinosaurs.
After the Apimondia
conference of September 2011 in Argentina, European beekeepers denounced
the massacre of their bees by the insecticide Cruiser.
French
beekeeping leaders have taken the initiative to mobilize nation-wide
street-demonstrations to demand Justice and try to save their bees. For
month after month, tens of thousands of beekeepers have watched their
hives dwindle and die during blossom time
Several trade-unions are preparing regional events on October
15th, against the authorization of the pesticide Cruiser OSR for use on
rapeseed (canola).
The French departments of Isere, Lot-et-Garonne and all of Burgundy are already mobilized for the protest day.
The pesticide Cruiser (thiamethoxam, fludioxonil and metalaxyl-M) is dangerous for human health, fatal to the bee. |
The
National Union of French Apiculture (UNAF), which brings together most
regional bee co-operatives, launched the campaign, after Cruiser OSR
received official authorisation last June; they have attacked this
licensing decision in the courts. Under pressure from beekeeping
leaders, government deputies and senators have asked more than 130
parliamentary questions on the issue.
Anne Furet, project manager for the National Union of French Apiculture (UNAF), reached by telephone, said:
The neonicotinoids are a class of neuro-toxic insecticides which have been on the market since 1994. They include preparations such as the Gaucho (Imidacloprid), Cruiser (Thiamethoxam) , or Proteus (deltamethrin, ¬thiacloprid;). All these systemic pesticides are toxic for bees at every stage of the growing cycle: at the seedling stage, and during flowering; but there is also added danger of poisonous guttation, or sap-exudation, (an important source of water for bees). Leaders of the beekeeping fraternity are unanimous in their judgement that these insecticides cause serious damage to bee colonies and jeopardize the national production of honey ...."
The behavior of the Minister of Agriculture worries beekeepers.Beekeeping leaders have unanimously deplored the irresponsible decisions of the Agriculture Minister, Bruno Le Maire. At the forefront of this fight, the president of the Ardèche and Drôme Beekeepers denounces the genocide of the bees:
National leaders of the UNAF recently asked ANSES to hand over their studies and assessments of the effect of Cruiser on bees, so that they could judge the validity of these tests independently. But having seen the documents provided by ANSES, it seems that these tests do not comply with the law, in terms of what is needed to assess the impacts of these pesticides on bee colonies; (Durations of Exposure to the pesticide were too short, areas of crops treated with the pesticide were too small etc.)..
Anne Furet explains:
Last April, Slovenia
banned the use of Cruiser 350, because of excess mortality of bee
colonies. In late June, Italy renewed its ban, on the use of
neonicotinoid insecticides on corn, for the third consecutive year,
(See : New Victory of the Italian bee).
A few days later, Italy published a study of the evolution of bee colony deaths in the maize-growing regions of Italy:
These
have fallen from 37.5% over the period 2007-2008 (before the ban on
neonicotinoids), to just 15% for the period 2010 - 20112 (after the ban
on neonicotinoids)
Please note, bee-colony-mortality is averaging
30% in the other countries of the European Union (Germany, France,
Spain, UK, Holland, Belgium, Poland etc.)
What can manufacturer patents tell us about the risks their chemicals pose to non-target insects?
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A link to the French language news report, can be found on the link here.
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