Beekeepers ask Boulder County to ban class of pesticides

By Laura Snider Camera Staff Writer
Posted: 11/24/2011 11:00:00 AM MST

Hovering around the debate over whether GMO crops should be allowed on Boulder County open space has been a less vocal buzz over bees.

Some beekeepers say a class of commonly used insecticides is killing their bees.

Last week, when two Boulder County advisory boards held a meeting to listen to public comments on a proposed cropland policy, a half-dozen bee advocates showed up among the GMO protesters to ask the boards to ban neonicotinoids.

"I speak for the insects, specifically, for the bees," said Tom Theobald, who has been a beekeeper in Boulder County for 36 years. "My most specific concern is with the systemic pesticides -- the neonicotinoids."

The two advisory boards -- the Food and Agriculture Policy Council and the Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee -- made a decision on the part of the proposed cropland policy that has garnered the most public attention: whether farmers should be allowed to plant genetically modified organisms on land that they lease from the county. Both boards agreed that GMOs should be phased out over time.

As for neonicotinoids, neither board is now recommending a ban.

The county commissioners will make a final decision about the entire cropland policy next month. And before they do, Theobald -- who owns Niwot Honey Farm -- plans to make sure they hear from beekeepers.

He said he thinks corn pollen from plants treated with neonicotinoids is responsible, at least in part, for the devastating losses he has experienced over the last several years in his bee colonies.

Poisonous pollen?

Neonicotinoids are often used to treat seeds before they're planted to protect the seedlings from insect damage.

"They are a seed treatment -- a powder that's applied to the seeds," said Adrian Card, a Colorado State University extension agent for Boulder County. "When the seed germinates, it takes the insecticide into the seed. As the plant grows, the insecticide is systemic."

Because the insecticide is taken up through the plant and incorporated into the plant's tissues, neonicotinoids can be found in pollen.

Bee colonies across the country have been wiped out in recent years by an unexplained phenomenon dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists have not agreed on a cause of the problem, though many now say a variety of factors may be at play.

Theobald -- who has lost as much as 60 percent of his bee colonies in some years -- has recently started to do some of his own research, and it has led him to target neonicotinoids, which have been in widespread use for about a decade, as a probable villain.

"About three years ago, in the spring, I sat down in one of the yards that had really high winter losses, and I went through those colonies very carefully -- Sherlock Holmes-style," he said. "These colonies went into the winter apparently strong and healthy, plenty of honey, and then nothing. Dead."

Theobald said he thinks the corn pollen collected by bees in the summer is stored in the hive as a reserve while bees continue to eat whatever other pollen is fresh at the time. Then, toward the end of September, when other kinds of pollen become scarce, the bees begin to feed on stored corn pollen that may be laced with neonicotinoids.

"It disrupts the fertility of the queen and the viability of the brood," he said.

Considering a ban

After Theobald and several other local beekeepers made their case to the Food and Agriculture Policy Council and the Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee last week, both boards discussed the possible connection between neonicotinoids and bee death when they voted on the cropland policy proposal.

Several members of the agriculture council said they were concerned about the systemic insecticides. Member Erik Johnson suggested that the council adopt language from a minority report that was included in the draft cropland policy. (Only three of the nine volunteer members of the county's Cropland Policy Advisory Group, which wrote the draft policy over the last year, agreed with banning neonicotinoids.)

Johnson's motion did not pass.

Dick Miller, a conventional farmer on the council, said he did not support banning neonicotinoids because he didn't think there is evidence that the insecticide is connected to bee death. Miller also said his own bee colonies appear to be doing fine.

"I just have a problem just blanket-banning it because I don't think it's credible information," he said.

But Shanan Olson, an organic farmer who also serves on the Food and Agriculture Policy Council, said she is concerned that insecticides may be having an impact.

"I have a relationship with the bees and other pollinators -- we are a seed farm, there are a ton of flowers -- and I absolutely see the effects," she said.

Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee members also did not vote to recommend a ban on neonicotinoids, though they did approve language that would prohibit the insecticide "should neonicotinoids be shown to play a significant role in Colony Collapse Disorder."

"I checked in with a couple of scientists I know who work on Colony Collapse Disorder, and there's no evidence (connecting it to neonicotinoids)," said committee member Janice Moore, a biology professor at CSU. "What they think is that colony collapse, if there was one cause, they would have pounced on it by now. They've really looked at (neonicotinoids) as a solitary cause, and it doesn't cause colony collapse. It may work in conjunction with five or six other things from climate change to Lord-knows-what to induce this. But as far as a stand-alone cause, this is not it."

Before the county commissioners vote on the entire cropland policy, Theobald plans to make sure they know the beekeepers' concerns, whether or not all scientists agree with them.

"They've crucified us on this you-don't-have-the-evidence thing -- you don't have peer-reviewed science," Theobald said. "But (beekeepers) have global experience with this. There is no higher peer review than that. We have experience, and the experience is that there are some very, very serious questions surrounding these systemic pesticides."

Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com.