News just in provides compelling evidence that Bayer's neonicotinoid pesticides are a significant cause of bee deaths in Britain and elsewhere, supporting the case that we have been making for years.

The British Bee Keepers Association must now climb down from the fence and clearly state their opposition to the use of these deadly chemicals on agricultural land, or face even more derision and condemnation from beekeepers and other associations both in the UK and abroad.

A key study, published in a respected scientific journal, demonstrates that neonicotinoids are routinely found in lethal doses in samples of dead bees, in seed planter exhaust, in fields where seeds had been planted and in dandelion flowers growing nearby. This shows clear pathways by which bees are being poisoned and removes any last shred of an excuse for the BBKA to continue to toe the pesticide industry line that these substances are 'safe if used correctly'.

If you keep bees within flying distance of agricultural land where maize, oilseed-rape (Canola) or other crops are grown using clothianidin-coated seed, YOUR BEES ARE IN DANGER. Likewise, all other pollinating insects - including endangered bumblebees - that live on or near that land will be poisoned, as will the birds and reptiles that feed on them. There is also growing evidence of possible long-term effects on human health.


SUGGESTED ACTION

Read the paper here - http://tinyurl.com/776y97v

PLEASE write to the BBKA and ask them to put their weight behind efforts to ban these deadly toxins from our countryside, while we still have some bees left.

Send an email to bbka@britishbeekeepers.com asking the BBKA to STOP supporting the pesticide industry and to work to have neonicotinoids banned in the UK. (More BBKA email addresses below)

If you are a BBKA member, pass this email around your local association - the more people who understand what is going on, the better. Make sure this issue is discussed and a resolution is passed to BBKA HQ.

If you are a gardener, look out for neonicotinoids in household sprays and compost: the common ones are Imidacloprid, Clothianidin, Thiamethoxam and Fipronil (also found in pet flea treatments). Return all such sprays to the shop and tell the manager why you will not buy them. Make sure your local gardening club / allotment association are aware of the dangers.

Gardeners may also be interested to know that Glyphosate (Roundup) has recently been shown to be much more toxic that Monsanto would like you to believe. In this report, Don Huber, Emeritus Professor at Purdue University and senior scientist on USDA’s National Plant Disease Recovery System, links glyphosate to reduced nutrient availability in plants, increasing plant diseases, the emergence of a new pathogen, animal illness and possible effects on human health.
See http://www.i-sis.org.uk/USDA_scientist_reveals_all.php


EXTRACT FROM THE PURDUE PESTICIDE RESEARCH PAPER

"Our results demonstrate that bees are exposed to these compounds and several other agricultural pesticides in several ways throughout the foraging period. During spring, extremely high levels of clothianidin and thiamethoxam were found in planter exhaust material produced during the planting of treated maize seed. We also found neonicotinoids in the soil of each field we sampled, including unplanted fields. Plants visited by foraging bees (dandelions) growing near these fields were found to contain neonicotinoids as well. This indicates deposition of neonicotinoids on the flowers, uptake by the root system, or both. Dead bees collected near hive entrances during the spring sampling period were found to contain clothianidin as well, although whether exposure was oral (consuming pollen) or by contact (soil/planter dust) is unclear. We also detected the insecticide clothianidin in pollen collected by bees and stored in the hive."

"These findings clarify some of the mechanisms by which honey bees may be exposed to agricultural pesticides throughout the growing season. These results have implications for a wide range of large-scale annual cropping systems that utilize neonicotinoid seed treatments."


BBKA EMAIL ADDRESSES

PRESIDENT - Martin Smith - martin.smith@bbka.org.uk
CHAIRMAN - Brian Ripley - brian.ripley@bbka.org.uk
VICE CHAIRMAN - Dr David Aston - david.aston@bbka.org.uk
TREASURER - Michael Sheasby - michael.sheasby@bbka.org.uk
BBKA News and Year Book Editor – Sharon Blake m-s.blake@overstratton.fsnet.co.uk
Examinations Board Secretary – Val Francis valfrancis@blueyonder.co.uk
Public Affairs Director – Tim Lovett tjl@dermapharm.co.uk

TRUSTEES
Dr David Bancalari - david.bancalari@bbka.org.uk
Doug Brown - doug.brown@bbka.org.uk
Chris Deaves - chris.deaves@bbka.org.uk
Brian Dennis - brian.dennis@bbka.org.uk
Dawn Girling - dawn.girling@bbka.org.uk
John Hendrie - john.hendrie@bbka.org.uk
Roger Patterson - roger.patterson@bbka.org.uk
Julian Routh - julian.routh@bbka.org.uk
Michael Young - michael.young@bbka.org.uk


Let's make 2012 the year that British bee keepers take positive action to clean up our countryside - for the sake of the bees.

Best wishes
Phil Chandler

Termites are not so different to bees in many ways: both are social insects that live in large colonies and have several castes. Both use grooming as a first-line defence against potentially damaging diseases. 

Bayer sells a pestide called Premise that kills termites, which they market on the strength of its ability to interfere with the termites' grooming process. The active ingredient is Imidacloprid, and yet they claim never to have tested it on bees to see if it has a similar effect. Some would say that this a a significant oversight, while others might suggest that it is evidence of Bayer's usual habit of being 'economical with the truth'. 

Whatever we think about this, there is no statutory requirement for Bayer to conduct such research.

You can read Bayer's Premise leaflet here http://www.elitepest.com.sg/brochure/Premise_200SC.pdf

See http://tinyurl.com/6a7wa9z for an article about this issue in the Independent newspaper.

Amanda Williams worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years, and now campaigns on behalf of bees, giving talks in schools and running an informative web site www.buzzaboutbees.net

Also in this edition, we launch Bee-Friendly Zones - see www.beefriendlyzone.com

I came away from the conference with several hours of audio recordings and after many more hours of editing, the result is a sort of impressionistic sound picture, which I hope you find interesting.

Some of the background music was provided by Homebrewed - http://www.myspace.com/homebrood_the_band/music - with Dan on the fiddle. There are also excerpts from Lara Conley's Bee Song - hear more of her music at http://www.myspace.com/laraconleymusic - with the full version to conclude the recording.

David Heaf is well known as the translator - together with his wife, Patricia - of the Abbé Warré's book about 'The People's Hive' into English. He gave the keynote speech at the First UK Natural Beekeeping Conference, which was warmly received and which generated much friendly discussion. 

David's new book, 'The Bee-Friendly Beekeeper' is available form Amazon and other outlets.

The music on this podcast is 'The Bee Song' by Lara Conley.

Italian beekeepers Renato Bologna and Marisa Valente have vowed to 'eat like bees' in protest against the use of neonicotinoids. They say that they now have scientific proof that pesticides are killing their bees, and they want the Italian govenment to take action to ban neonicotinoids on all crops. At present, their use is only banned on maize.

I spoke to Renato, whose English is a lot better than my Italian, and you can hear the result in today's podcast.

PLEASE SUPPORT Renato and Marisa by going to their web site and signing their petition - http://www.rfb.it/bastaveleni/adesioni.htm

The front page of their site is here - http://www.rfb.it/bastaveleni  If you do not speak Italian, I suggest using Google Chrome to view it and click the 'translate' button at the top.

Lara Conley has written a song that I think you will enjoy - and you can hear it for the first time here on the Barefoot Beekeeper Podcast. 

Lara has a web site on MySpace - - see www.myspace.com/laraconleymusic - and I hope you will listen to and buy some of her music. I think you will agree that with a song-writing talent and a voice like hers, she deserves a wider audience.

You can also see Lara on YouTube here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AvA1k4obO0

This podcast is based on a recording I made at Welcombe, North Devon earlier in July 2011 with a group of people on an 'Intermediate' level natural beekeeping course. We discussed the various ways to set up a top bar hive, including different entrance arrangements, top bar widths and the options for swarm management. 

There has been a good deal of controversy over the plans by the Co-Op to import up to 600 colonies of bees from New Zealand. I have myself been critical of introducing 'foreign' bees in such numbers, but I wanted to get the facts on the story, so I arranged with the Co-Op to interview Murray McGregor, the man in charge of the import.

This podcast will give you an opportunity to listen to what Murray has to say and to make up your own mind as to the rights and wrongs of the issue.

A reminder that if you have a question for me, or a subject you would like me to talk about, please send an email to phil@biobees.com.

The voicemail number is no longer operational, as nobody was using it and it was costing me money. If you really want to be able to talk to me, please make contact on Skype, where my username is beesontoast.

I do get a lot of emails and I simply don't have time to answer detailed questions, so if you have a beekeeping question, please remember the natural beekeeping forum at naturalbeekeeping.org, where you will find over 5,000 people willing to help you, some of whom may be in your area.

Recorded at the Sheepdrove Farm Conference Centre, June 29th 2011.

This event was organized by Samantha Roddick, and you will hear her after Peter Kindersley's introduction. Sam's talk is followed by mine, and this session finishes with Peter Melchett of the Soil Association.

I will upload more audio from this event in later podcasts.