FW: Please vote for saving bees!!
Eva Webster
Mass. beekeepers rally behind measure to restrict pesticides blamed for devastation to hives
Two years ago, all of the bees in Jeff Murray’s hives died, just like that. When he started keeping bees over 40 years ago, he would only lose 10 percent of his bees in a season. Now, he is lucky if he makes it through the winter with half.
“I’ve seen a hive the size of a beautiful big beach ball go down to one with to a circumference as big as a baseball in no time at all,” said Murray, who often leads information sessions at the Boston Nature Center and is the president of Classroom Hives, which brings observational bees to area schools.
Murray blames the devastation on a type of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which came into widespread use in the early 2000s.
On Thursday morning, he joined other beekeepers and activists at the State House to support a bill that would restrict the use of such pesticides.
The bill has support from 134 co-sponsors and more than 100 scientists from around the Commonwealth. The measure must be put to a vote before the legislative session ends Tuesday night.
“While they’re small creatures, they play a really large role in the environment,” said the bill’s sponsor, state Representative Carolyn Dykema, a Holliston Democrat. “It not only has environmental impacts but also a significant impact on food supply, because a lot of our significant crops here in Massachusetts — cranberries, apples, and corn — rely heavily on pollinators.”
The bill would restrict the use of neonicotinoids, the most common pesticide in the United States, to licensed applicators such as professional landscapers. The applicators would also have to inform consumers of any neonicotinoid use. Connecticut and Maryland have already passed similar legislation. In 2018, the European Union banned the pesticides entirely, citing the destruction to bees.
“When the insect takes a bite of a flower, that insect gets killed because the pesticides are systematic, like they’re in the blood of the plant,” said Dr. Chensheng Lu, an associate professor of Environmental Exposure Biology at Harvard who focuses on pesticides.
Dressed in yellow and black outfits or wearing full beekeeping attire, the beekeepers brought sunflowers, honey, and letters of support during the rally at the state Legislature. The beekeepers wanted to encourage House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Representative Jeffrey Sanchez, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to put the bill up for a vote.
“I am surprised that this has not gotten through the Legislature faster,” said state Representative Byron Rushing, a Boston Democrat who is a co-sponsor of the bill. “Honey production is as important for the city as community gardens.”
Dykema first proposed the bill in 2016. Since then, she has reintroduced it every session.
“We’re right down to the wire,” said Cliff Youse, a member of the Plymouth County Beekeepers Association.
Sanchez confirmed that the bill is under review by the Ways and Means Committee but he did not specify whether it would come up for a vote.
In 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council identified “Colony Collapse Disorder” after an alarming number of bees died off abruptly around North America. This was around the same time that neonicotinoids began to flood the pesticide market, Lu said. Since then, bees in North America have been struggling. Murray’s 50-percent hive loss is the norm, rather than the exception.
“It’s only since 2006, when neonicotinoid pesticides were really introduced, that we’ve had very serious problems,” Murray said.
Urban beekeepers around Boston hope the bill is approved because they are often worried what pesticides their bees might bring home from foraging.
“I think if residents had the choice, they’d say no,” said Paige Mulhern, the creative director of The Best Bees Company, after tending to a hive in the backyard of Frenchie, a South End bistro.
In her capacity as a Best Bees beekeeper, Mulhern installs and maintains residential and commercial hives in urban areas, helping private citizens and small restaurants raise their own bees. Best Bees also tracks hive data to use for research and sustainability.
Many of her clients are concerned when their neighbors use pesticides, but there’s little that she can advise them do to protect their bees.
“The honeybee can travel in a three-mile radius, so it’s very hard to control,” she said. “The more we can educate Americans about the harms of neonictonioids, the more we can collectively lessen their use.”
She replaced Frenchie’s hive as a few drops of rain started to fall Thursday afternoon, the sky dark overheard. The bees flying around her mesh-covered face seemed healthy, but there is no telling whether they will make it through the cold New England winter.
Amelia Nierenberg can be reached at amelia.n...@globe.com.
Jean Powers
4. Spring/summer/Fall: maintain areas of mud and standing water for butterflies to drink. Put out shallow dishes of water for bees to drink
1. Plant flowers. Replace horticultural, cultivars, doubles with native, species, single flowers. The bees need the flowers they co-evolved with.
2. Don't use chemicals. Fertilizers and pesticides kill soil dwelling organisms and insects. Build your soil with compost and cover crops. The flowers will attract predatory insects to handle pests.
3. Avoid disturbing the soil. 2/3 of our native bees make their nests in the soil. They often prefer bare, sunny slopes. So you don't have to be too eager to mulch everything.
4. Leave standing stems and fallen leaves in the fall. Many native bees use the stems. Many predatory insects over winter in the leaves. You want them ready to get a jump on prey insects in the spring.
5. Beyond the garden, you can support pollinators with your food choices. Organic, farmers market, home grown are the obvious. Not so obvious is avoiding processed foods and GMO crops: GMO corn and soy are grown with neonicotinoids, which are deadly to all insects.
Erin Scott
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