In coming weeks, the European Commission (EC) will publish plans to restrict the use of the neonicotinoids – clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam – for seed treatment, soil application and foliar treatment on bee-attractive plants and cereals for two years, effective from 1 December 2013. After two years, the EC will review the use of the pesticides, taking into account scientific and technical developments.
“I have been in the bee business for 26 years and this is the first real step that has been taken to help the bees,” said Mpumalanga Bee Group co-ordinator Fred Bunce. The situation in Mpumalanga is bleak, with local bee farmer, Don van Heerden noting that the number of feral swarms he had captured in the Lowveld area had declined from 800 swarms in 2000 to 130 in 2012. “Only about 20% of our bees in nature are still alive. The others don’t come to our valley in White River anymore,” said Bunce.
“It comes down to lack of food for bees, monoculture in forestry and agriculture, and the influence of insecticides and herbicides.” Insecticides with the active ingredient fipronil are believed to play a role in swarm losses and should be de-registered on citrus and mangos, and glyphosate should also be investigated, said Bunce. He estimated losses in Mpumalanga since 1990 at about 15 000 swarms.
KZN Bee Farmers’ Association chairperson Craig Campbell said that he too had seen the result of ‘pesticide poisoning’.
“I have walked on a carpet of dead bees in vegetable farming areas. “We have to strike a balance. Farmers have to spray their crops, but at the same time bees need to be protected.” However, Dr Gerhard Verdoorn, a consultant with the Association of Veterinary and Crop Associations of SA, said the bee issue was ‘politically’ and not ‘scientifically’ based.
“We don’t see any need at all to have similar measures to those introduced in the EU imposed in South Africa because we have in place measures to prevent contamination. There are no major bee health or bee mortality issues reported in South Africa, and any evidence to substantiate claims about neonicotinoids being responsible for bee mortality is seriously lacking in our country.”
Verdoorn said products with these active ingredients played an important role in controlling a large number of plant pests.
“They’ve replaced a number of intrinsically highly toxic insecticides that were generally used before the advent of CNIs and also offer a more environmentally compatible mechanism for plant pest management than simply doing foliar applications of large volumes of agricultural remedies,” he said.
