According to a National Academies report, honeybees pollinate more than 90 crops in America yet their population has declined 30 percent in the last 20 years. The scientists who wrote the report were alarmed at the rapidity of the decline of the pollinators. Back in 1976, the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a report by one of its former employees, S. E. McGregor, a honeybee expert. The report documented that about a third of what we eat results from honeybee pollination.

Last week I wrote a piece about the worrying phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder, a complicated problem that is decimating bee populations worldwide, and the theorized role of a a group of pesticides, the neonicotinoids, sold by the agrochemical giant, Bayer. In response, David L. Fischer, Director, Environmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment, from Bayer’s CropScience division in North Carolina, posted a detailed response on this blog as well as on Bayer’s Web site. My reply is below inline with his comments …

As part of Loudoun County’s campaign to combat the spread of Lyme disease, nine county-owned parks were recently sprayed with an insecticide in an effort to reduce the population of ticks, which can transmit the disease to humans. Members of the Loudoun Beekeepers Association questioned the county’s decision to apply a bifenthrin-based insecticide, called Talstar, which they said is highly toxic to bees and poses a substantial threat to beekeeper-owned bees and the vulnerable population of wild honeybees

The original article is  Bayer: Pesticides Profit or bees ? written by Mark Gibbs

Several recent studies have questioned whether exposure to common pesticides might be impairing bee performance and contributing to the observed population declines. Neonicotinoids are a family of pesticides chemically related to nicotine, and are widely used in both large-scale agriculture as well as in home gardening products.

Thousands of bees are dying around the world amidst growing concerns of experts about the mass disappearance of this insect on which it depends for 35% of the world's agricultural production.

At least three Gaviâo Peixoto city  beekeepers  lost in the last 15 days their swarms. The hives were almost full, but the bees were dying slowly. To Tobias Jose Luis Santos, 43, the loss was 100%. In addition to affecting the production of honey, the family budget is compromised, as this is the only source of his income. "When I saw all the dead bees, thought I'd have a second heart attack.

A mild winter and unseasonably warm early spring have created conditions reminiscent of 2010, when beekeepers were caught off guard from an explosion of mite populations that killed off many honeybee colonies, according to a state expert. "The bees are coming out, but so are the parasitic mites," said Tony Jadczak, state apiarist and bee inspector. "What I've seen in my inspections is elevated mite loads because of the good health of the honeybees.

The flufenoxurom, an active principle that the laboratory BASF sold under the trademark Cascade, is a treatment moratorium may not be sold from the summer and the European Commission has ordered such removal no later than December 31, 2012 for his "high potential for bioaccumulation in the food chain "and prove that your application has" a high risk to aquatic organisms. "

The death of thousands of bees beekeepers worried the city of Gavião Peixoto, Sao Paulo. Whole hives were decimated. The bees will be reviewed by the State University of São Paulo, Jaboticabal, to know what caused the deaths. The deads occurred in hives that are in regions close to the city.