In more than ten Russian regions in June and July, a massive death of bees was recorded. This is part of the global bee extinction that has been going on for about 10 years, which could lead to catastrophic consequences for agriculture.
Scientists put forward several versions of the worldwide decline in the bee population, but one of the main …
… - poisoning with pesticides.
Bees are falling down
“A few weeks ago my father-in-law called from [the village of] Bolshoye Soldatskoye in the Kursk region. He says to the bees of the khan: they are pouring right near the entrance (hole in the hive for the entry and exit of bees. –RS). My father-in-law has 20 clues there, I have 11. I didn’t have time to pump out the first honey in May due to my main job before the poisoning … Also in Kursk itself, on Druzhba Avenue, I have one clue for beauty and I manage to take a little honey every year. And these bees also rained down with a difference of one day. The remaining bees continue to pour in right next to the evidence. In the morning I watched - about a hundred were crawling on the ground,”says Andrey, a beekeeper from Kursk.
This year in the Kursk region the death of bees has become the most widespread, but similar reports come from Bryansk, Lipetsk, Belgorod, Oryol, Tula, Ulyanovsk regions, from Bashkiria, Mari El and other regions.
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“After work, I drove to the apiary and saw that the bees were just scattered around the hives! I immediately called my friend beekeepers, they have the same thing. My apiary is still dying. Of the 40 families of bees, 30 percent remained, and every day the number of living is decreasing. As long as I have been doing beekeeping, this has never happened. They say that this year they use a new pesticide at a very high dose, and it kills everything. In Ryazan, even the laboratories cannot determine what it is,”says beekeeper Ivan from Ryazan.
Beekeeper or lawyer
As explained in the press service of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, according to sanitary standards, farmers must notify through the local media about the treatment of fields with chemicals three days in advance, and then set up information boards: safety) with the indication "Treated with pesticides", containing information on precautionary measures and possible timing of entry to the indicated areas. Safety signs should be installed within sight from one to the other, stand out in contrast against the surrounding background and be in the field of vision of the people for whom they are intended. They are harvested only after the end of the established deadlines for people to leave for field work, harvesting."
If the beekeepers were not warned, the bees flew into the fields treated with chemicals and died, the beekeeper can sue the farmer and claim damages.
In practice, field handling is not always warned. According to Novaya Gazeta, this year in the Saratov region, where bees also died, local newspapers advertised chemical treatment "from May 16 to November 1". Honey is harvested in May and June and such an announcement, without specific dates and places of processing, cannot help beekeepers.
According to Alexander Kuks, head of the Interregional Union of Beekeepers, beekeepers themselves are also far from always right in conflicts with farmers.
- Before embarking on the field - and this is not your field - you need to notify the owner, negotiate with him. Arrange for him to warn when and if there will be processing. And do not stand on the field after treatment with pesticides. Why do weed bees occur? There is a field, for example, with rapeseed. They were treated with strong chemicals that do not disintegrate after 15 days, but after 30-40. A person, knowing that the field has been cultivated, but not knowing what pesticides, puts an apiary there! This is not the fault of the bees or the chemicals. If everyone observes the rules, the bees will not die, says Kuks.
Former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has apiaries in the Kaluga and Kaliningrad regions. He was skeptical about the possibility for ordinary beekeepers to legally correctly describe the damage and the accompanying circumstances. Then, according to him, the beekeeper must change his profession and become a lawyer. Luzhkov developed special mobile trailers as a "means of protection" so that hives could be transported quickly. Luzhkov believes that the problem is the lack of coordination of the actions of farmers and beekeepers:
- I put my bees on rapeseed. Rape is a good honey plant. I wrote two letters to the owner of the field about putting my hives next to his field. I even wrote one letter through my lawyer. The owner of the field was very happy. Bees help the harvest: they pollinate the flowers and the fruits appear. I asked that if he will use insecticides, herbicides, to be notified in advance. At night, I would close my bees and take them to a safe place. Working in an apiary is not only a useful activity, but also a pleasant one. By chance I arrived at the apiary, and what I see: tractors with sprayers are starting to work on the field. After two letters and the consent of the owner of the field! This is Russia: negligence, neglect, forgetfulness, indifference. I'm just promoting my apiary, started from scratch, invested a lot of money. One day I could lose an apiary, people who work for me … Of course,I stopped the tractor hard. I waited for the evening when my bees went to rest in the hive, closed them and took them away. I saved my apiary by accident,”says Luzhkov.
In general, entomologists announced the beginning of the "apocalypse among insects": in Germany, the total biomass of flying insects decreased by 76%, which has already reduced the population of Holland birds feeding on them in the Rhine valley.
Insect extinction is occurring at an alarming rate, with disastrous effects on food chains and habitats. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from the Krefeld Society of Amateur Entomology.
Insect numbers and species diversity have been monitored since 1982 at 96 sites along the banks of the Rhine, project scientific director Martin Sorg told Phys.org. During this time, more than 80 million insects have been collected.
The results of the analysis showed that the total biomass of arthropods began to decline. For example, the weight of a bottle filled with insects in 1994 was 1400 grams, and the latest, collected this year, was only 300 grams. The revealed process was called "the apocalypse among insects."
For the fourth year in a row, beekeepers in the south of Russia record a decrease in the number of bees. These insects, which are extremely necessary for the biocenosis, are dying out due to chemical poisoning and the rapid spread of diseases.
This problem threatens an ecological catastrophe that will hit the entire agriculture of the region. According to ecologists, a third of all food mankind receives from plants that pollinate insects, and about 85 - 90 percent of this work is done by bees.
And yet, in the next hundred years, all insects may disappear from the face of the Earth: in a year their number drops by about 2.5%, which is 8 times higher than the same indicator in mammals, birds and reptiles. However, they are simply necessary for the survival of other species: not only as food, but also as plant pollinators. Scientists say the consequences for the entire planet will be catastrophic. One of the main reasons for the extinction is the intensive use of pesticides, as well as urbanization and climate change.
There are already problems with the population of butterflies and moths. For example, farmland in England dropped by almost 60 percent from 2000 to 2009. Bees are also under threat. If in 1947 the number of bee colonies in the United States reached 6 million, now this figure is 3.5 million less.