COVER STORY | BEES
“SILENCE OF THE HIVES,” CONTINUED... flection of our constantly changing agricultural industry. Not only is trucking hives across the country stressful for bees, but congregating them in massive holding yards is a quick way to spread disease. Farmers are also treating their plants with a merry-go-round of pesticides and fungicides, and honey bees are now suffering from long-term exposure. Indeed, as the parasitic Varroa mite — the single most destructive honey bee pest worldwide — builds up resistance to pesticides, new chemical treatments are developed that may have even worse effects on bees. “The number of beekeepers who have gone out of business is a very long list,” says Sheppard. “Living in a chemical treadmill and doing everything the way you’ve done it before is just not working.”
Public enemy No. 1
Fifty thousand bumblebees dropped dead in a Target parking lot in Oregon this past June. The scene at the shopping center looked something like a war zone. “Yellow-faced bees fell from the trees, twitching on their backs or wandering in tight circles on the asphalt,” described the Oregonian newspaper. “A few dead bumblebees even clung to linden flowers, while hundreds littered the lot.” A few days earlier, a landscaper had doused 55 linden trees in the parking lot with an insecticide called Safari. In response, the Oregon Department of Agriculture instituted temporary restrictions on more than a dozen different insecticides containing dinotefuran, Safari’s active ingredient. Environmentalists felt vindicated: The culprit
behind the massacre was part of a class of nicotinederived pesticides known as “neonicotinoids” — the most high-profile suspect in colony die-offs. Introduced by the German chemical behemoth Bayer in the mid-1990s, neonicotinoids are the fastest growing class of insecticides in the world. You can find them in your local hardware store or garden center under names like Bayer 2-1 Systemic Rose and Flower Care. “Neonics,” as they’re often called, are systemic insecticides: Once applied, the plant absorbs the insecticide chemicals, which circulate throughout its tissue. Neonics work by attacking the central nervous system of any insect that feeds on it. Evidence suggests neonics disorient bees, impair their memory and reduce their capacity to forage for food. Some scientists, environmental advocates and beekeepers believe that low-level exposure from
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