Jeff Pettis comment channel 4 news

[Jon]

Insecticides aren't to blame for the decline of Britain's bees, the Government's top bee scientist tells Channel 4 News.

The announcement comes as a leading American bee researcher who first posed a link between insecticides called neonicotinoids and bee deaths told MPs today that his research doesn't explain bee losses seen in the US.

There is a link to the video in the url below.

http://www.channel4.com/news/bee-decline-not-caused-by-pesticides

[gavin]

Fascinating, considering the fuss that has been made lately based largely on hints about Jeff Pettis' findings. On the other hand the Guardian take a different slant. Presumably this is the chlorothalonil fungicide effects previously reported and published in Apidologie.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/04/honeybees-entomb-hives

G.

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Gavin

... this is from the Guardian article:

The entombing phenomenon was first noted in an obscure scientific paper from 2009 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJV-4W1BVD7-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1705002884&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=4bbf488bec81479af72d519f5930aa78&searchtype=a), but since then scientists have been finding the behaviour more frequently, with the same results.I tried the link but it doesn't work.
Do you know what this obscure scientific paper is? - I would like to have a look at it.

[gavin]

Hi Doris

How are you?!

Yes, the original link from the Guardian has stopped working but you can read the paper here:

http://ento.psu.edu/directory/duv2/vanEngelsdorp_etal_2009_entombedpollen.pdf

The title is:

‘‘Entombed Pollen”: A new condition in honey bee colonies associated
with increased risk of colony mortality

And the abstract:

Here we describe a new phenomenon, entombed pollen, which is highly associated with increased colony
mortality. Entombed pollen is sunken, capped cells amidst ‘‘normal”, uncapped cells of stored pollen, and
some of the pollen contained within these cells is brick red in color. There appears to be a lack of microbial
agents in the pollen, and larvae and adult bees do not have an increased rate of mortality when they
are fed diets supplemented with entombed pollen in vitro, suggesting that the pollen itself is not directly
responsible for increased colony mortality. However, the increased incidence of entombed pollen in
reused wax comb suggests that there is a transmittable factor common to the phenomenon and colony
mortality. In addition, there were elevated pesticide levels, notably of the fungicide chlorothalonil, in
entombed pollen. Additional studies are needed to determine if there is a causal relationship between
entombed pollen, chemical residues, and colony mortality.

G.

[Stromnessbees]

How are you?!
Not too bad, keeping busy in my own weird ways. :cool:


Thank you very much for the link, will read the article as soon as I can.

This caught my eye straight away though:


... some of the pollen contained within these cells is brick red in color.
Brick red pollen - could it be from horse chestnut? Isn't there a variety (flowering pink?) which is known to kill bees?

[gavin]

The authors did say this:

'This fungicide may be responsible for the diagnostic color change
observed in entombed pollen, as it is highly reactive and forms
metabolites that may lead to colored products (Chaves et al., 2008).'

but if they are making such a claim they really should have demonstrated it experimentally. The alternative possibility, that the bees were collecting naturally red pollen from a plant treated with this fungicide, and that it was the pollen itself that the bees didn't like, seems more likely. Also, the sample size of 6 for entombed pollen tested for the fungicide is far too small to draw a watertight conclusion on the strength of the association.

[AlexJ]

Can anyone point me in the direction of the work Jeff Pettis has published to support his recent comments and/or any peer review that has been carried out on his research findings?

Alex

[gavin]

Hi Alex

If you mean the Nosema interaction with imidacloprid, I don't think that it has been published yet. Something seemed to be delaying publication, and my guess would be that he had to try more than one journal before it was accepted. Just guessing though. But he is saying in public that the lab findings do not seem to be relevant to the field setting.

cheers

Gavin

[AlexJ]

Gavin,

Thanks, as an interested bystander I'm not sure whether to sympathise with him or feel frustrated at the wait given his public conclusions. That being said it can't be an easy field to be involved in given the politics, polarised lobbying groups and liberal misinformation that's regularly peddled on the subject.

Alex

[Jon]

Hi Alex.
Jeff Pettis himself posted this comment below an article in the Independent in January which implied some dark conspiracy re. the non publication of his study.



> 'I noticed in your article that there is an implication that my research
>findings are perhaps being suppressed by the chemical industry. As the author
>of this study, I can tell you that the truth is that the review process on the
>paper has simply been lengthy, as is often the case, due to various factors,
>but that no outside forces are attempting to suppress this scientific
>information. The findings of an interaction between low level pesticide
>exposure and an increase in the gut pathogen Nosema were not unexpected; many
>such interactions are likely within the complex life of a honey bee colony. It
>is not possible to make a direct comparison with a lab study and what might
>occur in the field. Lab studies can give us insights into what may be occurring
>with beehives but we have yet to make this link. Honey bee health is complex
>and our findings support this. They do not provide a direct link to CCD colony
>losses but these results do provide leads for further study. Jeff Pettis
> '

I think that gives some idea that he is a bit peeved at how his study is being used to justify a certain position when it has not even appeared in print yet.

A study by Alaux et al. has been published which found similar interactions between Imidacloprid and Nosema. This was also a lab study rather than a study based on field observations.

[gavin]

That being said it can't be an easy field to be involved in given the politics, polarised lobbying groups and liberal misinformation that's regularly peddled on the subject.


Absolutely. Anyone who doesn't say what people want them to say is in for a pasting (Jerry Bromenshenk; French scientists who didn't follow the line promoted by their beekeeping organisations), and in Jeff Pettis' case his words have been twisted to fit the preconceptions of people really not interested in the truth.

It certainly isn't a field where you want naive scientists diving in who know nothing about the complexities of the interactions between the many factors affecting bee health. Or scientists who like jumping to conclusions without paying any attention to the existing evidence.

:p

Gavin

[Jon]

This is the Pettis study referred to earlier in the thread.
Noticed that Juanse posted a link to it on Bee-L today.
Old news, but brings the thread up to date.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3264871/

[AlexJ]

Thanks Jon, given recent activity on the forum there's probably something in the article for everyone to chew over. Perhaps once things calm down on other threads it would be good to go over the article to discuss the issues it raises in some detail to discuss the issues (as well as underlying scientific techniques/statistical methods)..........
Alex

[Jon]

This paper by Alaux covers similar territory re. nosema interactions with pesticides.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2847190/

I don't think there is a problem on the other threads. You always gets the odd person who is on a blind crusade against pesticides irrespective of the available evidence but the rest of us just want to take an impartial look at the evidence for and against pesticide damage to bees.
It is like a clash between science and religion as the mindset of the anti pesticide campaigners is often fundamentalist. That is what generates the friction.
Noone in their right mind thinks that pesticides are good for bees but some are much worse than others and some methods of application are much more dangerous to bees, ie spray applications or dust clouds from planters are high risk events.
There may well be a case for banning or restricting certain products used in a certain way on certain crops if it can be demonstrated that this is problematic for bees or other pollinators and I would welcome that irrespective of which companies have vested interests in selling the product.