More than half a billion bees dropped dead in Brazil within 3 months

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CBS News

BY CAITLIN O'KANE

AUGUST 19, 2019 / 2:44 PM / CBS NEWS

More than half a billion bees dropped dead in Brazil within just three months, according to Bloomberg. Researchers say the main cause of death is pesticides, which could end up effecting more than the bees.

As some of the most integral pollinators in nature, bees contribute to the reproduction of various plants. About 75% of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports.

FAO has warned about the importance of protecting bees to ensure food security. With 500 million dead in Brazil, the future of food has come into question.

. . .

Lab research pointed to pesticides with neonicotinoids and fipronil — products banned in Europe — as the main cause of death. The use of these bee-killing pesticides spiked under former President Michel Temer and current President Jair Bolsonaro, according to Greenpeace's Unearthed.

In just three years, 193 weedkillers and pesticides containing chemicals banned in the European Union were registered in Brazil, the Unearthed investigation revealed. Brazil has become the biggest buyer of pesticides in the world.


Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-than-half-a-billion-bees-dropped-dead-in-brazil-within-3-months-and-environmentalists-are-worried/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. What is noticeably missing from the story

is how many bees are left in Brazil. 73? 12,045? Six billion?

I mean, did 99% of their bees die off? Or 1%? A number like half a billion bees dropping dead in three months needs some more context.

[sandensea]

3. It's difficult to say - but the problem does seem to be worse in the warmer Latin American countries

Not that just about every country in the region has been affected - except the temperate countries (Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay).

The problem seems to be both one of abusive pesticide use, as well as climate change.

[sandensea]

2. And note the number of new pesticides approved annually in Brazil:

The number took off, not coincidentally, after Dilma Rousseff was ousted in the May 2016 right-wing parliamentary coup.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Bees Are Dropping Dead in Brazil and Sending a Message to Humans

19 AUGUST 2019

Bruce Douglas and Tatiana Freitas, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Death came swiftly for Aldo Machado’s honey bees. Less than 48 hours after the first apis mellifera showed signs of sickness, tens of thousands lay dead, their bodies piled in mounds.

“As soon as the healthy bees began clearing the dying bees out of the hives, they became contaminated,” said Machado, vice president of Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul beekeeping association. “They started dying en masse.”

Around half a billion bees died in four of Brazil’s southern states in the year’s first months. The die-off highlighted questions about the ocean of pesticides used in the country’s agriculture and whether chemicals are washing through the human food supply — even as the government considers permitting more. Most dead bees showed traces of Fipronil, a insecticide proscribed in the European Union and classified as a possible human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January, Brazil has permitted sales of a record 290 pesticides, up 27% over the same period last year, and a bill in Congress would relax standards even further. Manufacturers of newly permitted substances include Brazilian companies such as Cropchem and Ouro Fino, as well as global players including Arysta Lifescience Ltd., Nufarm Ltd. and Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd. Giants such as Syngenta, Monsanto, BASF and Sumitomo also won new registrations.

More:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/bees-are-dropping-dead-in-brazil-and-sending-a-message-to-humans-1.1303537

[Evolve Dammit]

14. Good post. Incredibly tragic. We are witnessing our destruction.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Lucky them that they don't have a syphilis brain addled psychopath as

president. And I'm sure their elected leadership will get to the bottom of this......... Oops too late....

[jcgoldie]

6. The Trump Administration just last year reversed Obama ban on neonicotinoids

Because of course they did.

[Judi Lynn]

7. In the Last three Months Alone, Pesticides Have Killed Some 500 Million Bees in Brazil

According to Agência Pública and Repórter Brasil, some 500 million bees have died in the last three months in four Brazilian states: 400 million in Rio Grande do Sul, 7 million in São Paulo, 50 million in Santa Catarina, and 45 million in Mato Grosso do Sul.

By Xiu Ying -May 10, 2019

By Xiu Ying, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - Earlier this year, a large scale of bee deaths was reported in southern Brazil due to pesticides used in soybean plantations. In Rio Grande do Sul, about 80 percent of bees are dying because of Fipronil pesticides, which are used in soybean farming.

This issue is even more serious and extensive, given that it has been occurring in other states of the country.

https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/society/in-the-last-three-months-alone-pesticides-have-killed-some-500-million-bees-in-brazil/

[bronxiteforever]

8. +1 Kill the habitat, sprinkle pesticides & surprise! the bees die.

It is happening worldwide and fascism and the systematic rape of the Amazon in Brazil is going to kill a lot. Look what is happening in Russia

Large areas of central and southern Russia have seen a major decline in their bee populations in recent months. The head of the Russian beekeepers' union, Arnold Butov, said 20 regions had reported mass bee deaths.
The affected regions include Bryansk and Kursk, south of Moscow, and Saratov and Ulyanovsk on the Volga River. Mr Butov, quoted by Russian media, said the crisis might mean 20% less honey being harvested. Some officials blamed poorly regulated pesticide use. Yulia Melano, at the rural inspection service Rosselkhoznadzor, complained that her agency had lost most of its powers to control pesticide use since 2011.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49047402

[Judi Lynn]

11. Thanks for posting that link. It's new information to me, good to see. The video is stupendous! n/t

[bronxiteforever]

15. Thanks Judi! I always read your posts.

So informative.

[Judi Lynn]

19. The things I've seen in good message board forums have changed my life!

I lurked a long time before D.U. was created at a tremendous forum, in deepest interest, as people who knew about politics in the Western Hemisphere battled who came to throw disinformation and confusion into the mix, and started realizing what I had been told my whole life was totally wrong, after I started doing my homework and following up questions raised in my own mind with research, and I could never thank those many people of conscience enough.

I'm such a believer. Any questions that develop in the mind of an active reader can be answered, in time, with his/her own involvement in looking for the truth.

Thank you, so much, bronxiteforever. You are deeply kind.

[bronxiteforever]

9. Kick and recommend for visibility.

[SunSeeker]

10. The deforestation and environmental degradation of Brazil will accelerate now that China's buying.

Thanks to Trump's tariffs, Brazil is on a breakneck pace to cut down rain forests, the lungs of the world, just so it can create more tillable acreage for soybeans and other crops that China is now buying from Brazil instead of the US. Brazil's Bolsonaro wants to expand market share and cement Brazil's increasingly lucrative relationship with China, at the expense of the planet.

[Ponietz]

12. Maybe they'll stop when a jar of honey costs more than a barrel of oil

[FakeNoose]

16. It's way more than the cost of honey

If all the bees die, then agriculture - human food production - ends.

[Ponietz]

17. Yes, I am aware but the profiteers aren't or don't care

[Duppers]

13. Another K & R

People are fools because in an indirect ways, we are killing ourselves.

What would happen if all bees died?

https://www.britannica.com/story/what-would-happen-if-all-the-bees-died


If all of the world's bees died off, there would be major rippling effects throughout ecosystems. A number of plants, such as many of the bee orchids, are pollinated exclusively by specific bees, and they would die off without human intervention. This would alter the composition of their habitats and affect the food webs they are part of and would likely trigger additional extinctions or declines of dependent organisms. Other plants may utilize a variety of pollinators, but many are most successfully pollinated by bees. Without bees, they would set fewer seeds and would have lower reproductive success. This too would alter ecosystems. Beyond plants, many animals, such as the beautiful bee-eater birds, would lose their prey in the event of a die-off, and this would also impact natural systems and food webs.

In terms of agriculture, the loss of bees would dramatically alter human food systems but would not likely lead to famine. The majority of human calories still come from cereal grains, which are wind-pollinated and are therefore unaffected by bee populations. Many fruits and vegetables, however, are insect-pollinated and could not be grown at such a large scale, or so cheaply, without bees. Blueberries and cherries, for example, rely on honeybees for up to 90 percent of their pollination. Although hand-pollination is a possibility for most fruit and vegetable crops, it is incredibly labor-intensive and expensive. Tiny robotic pollinator drones have been developed in Japan but remain prohibitively expensive for entire orchards or fields of time-sensitive flowers. Without bees, the availability and diversity of fresh produce would decline substantially, and human nutritionwould likely suffer. Crops that would not be cost-effective to hand- or robot-pollinate would likely be lost or persist only with the dedication of human hobbyists.

[Mendocino]

18. Where have all the hummingbirds gone?

I don't spray a drop of "cides" on my land, but yet the birds and insects are vanishing. I use to have toads and snakes, no more. Just back in the very damp spring, I had frogs, no more. My wildflowers aren't thriving.

Be prepared for "silent springs".

[Judi Lynn]

20. Anyone who is old enough to remember a time with beautiful little hummers

were so plentiful in the world he/she was totally familiar with the little guys flying right by his/her face outdoors, remembering the thrill of seeing them close up, becoming totally familiar with their nearly impossible speed and beauty, knows how empty the world seems without them, and the random other miraculous citizens with feathers.

Was always afraid of dragonflies over water, the noise they made, their ability to be able to almost bilocate, but their absence also makes summer an unfamiliar event.

At one time a person could hear a regular funny choir of frog voices nightly around ponds, it did seem that experience was absolutely permanent.

So glad to hear you don't use poison on your property, and that at least that place in the world is still life-affirming.

[a la izquierda]

21. I still see bunches of hummingbirds in WV.

No one in my neighborhood seems to use any pesticides, so maybe they (and bees and butterflies) like us.

[They_Live]

22. Same here (in too hot Texas)

I avoid pesticides and have some native plants that attract pollinators. Hummingbirds, bumble bees, bees, etc

[roamer65]

23. I haven't seen one bumblebee this summer.

Not even one. I keep hoping, but nada so far.

First time ever.