Title: No, we aren't losing all of our honeybees. And neonicotinoid seed coatings aren't driving their health problems—here’s why | Genetic Literacy Project
Headings: No, we aren’t losing all of our honeybees. And neonicotinoid seed coatings aren’t driving their health problems—here’s why
No, we aren’t losing all of our honeybees. And neonicotinoid seed coatings aren’t driving their health problems—here’s why
Myth of Honeybee decline
Colony Collapse Disorder is not the same as bee losses linked to diseases and chemicals
High prices are the solution to their own problem
USDA bee researcher: “If there’s a top ten list of what’s killing honey bee colonies, I’d put pesticides at number 11.”
Jon Entine is the founder and executive director of the GLP. Follow him on Twitter @jonentine
A version of this article originally ran on the GLP on Apr 17, 2018.
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Content: The overall population of honeybees in the US, Canada and Europe has held steady or increased slightly since the widespread adoption of neonics in the 1990s. The US honeybee population hit a 22-year high in 2016, according to the figures released by the USDA. In 2019, there were 2.67 million colonies. So what’s behind the popular meme of the honeybee, legs pointing to the sky? As often happens in discussing controversial issues such as food and chemicals, it’s complicated—and in part ideological. First of all, honeybees aren’t the cute symbol of the natural world that environmentalists make them out to be. They’re actually a managed species, like livestock, bred by beekeepers to make honey and shipped around the country to pollinate crops like almonds. They’re also an exotic species in North America, brought over from Europe by early colonists. [ Note: European honeybees originated in Asia 300,000 years ago .]