Over the last few years there has been a growing concern over the collapsing of bee colonies around the world. Scientists have expressed great concern over the collapse because without bees we don’t have crop pollination which of course will impact our food chain.
Well it turns out that the US Environmental Protection Agency has known for years what the cause of the bee collapse is. Through a leaked memo we found out that the EPA is attributing the collapsing bee colonies to a pesticide developed and sold by Bayer Cropscience, the manufacture of Bayer Aspirin and other drugs.
This substance, sold in the USA as clothianidin, disrupts the nervous system of insects, and it’s been a suspect in the mass death of honey bees for years. It’s still available widely. Recent documents intimate that the EPA has known for a long time the chemical could be harmful to bees, but has kept it on the shelves while bee populations plummet.
This class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, attacks the nervous system of insects, killing them off, while having little effect on other animals. This makes them excellent pest control — so excellent that many seeds are sold treated with neonicotinoids. The plant grows with the pesticide inside it, allowing it to kill all the insects which attack it.
Not in the least ways surprised about this. Hopefully now that this is in the open something can be done to stop the collapse of the bee colonies.