I decided to reproduce this article I wrote for Cornale.it few months ago, to give you an idea on the current situation of our agriculture and beekeeping in particular. The emergence of the bees
2008
Date:
October 21, 2009
few lines with some observations which I hope can make us reflect on the value of our experience in favor of sustainable agriculture and sustainable consumption, which in the not suspects have spent in the field Cornale and that gathered the attention of a growing number of consumers.
We are living a year not so simple in terms of weather and therefore productive, but every time I go to visit my apiaries factor increased anxiety in contrast to the past is not the quantity of honey from my hives, but the presence or absence of my team.
The numerous cases of poisoning with retention of foraging bees in the hives, which have also affected nearly two hundred hives on my farm, we were forced to move in the spring the bees will not chase for the best blooms, but the search for pollution-free areas neonicotinoids and then away from plantings.
The bees do not return to the hives and this has serious repercussions on the environment for non-pollination service in hives and dramatically reduces the production of honey. A phenomenon that is growing exponentially, affecting especially the area of \u200b\u200bthe Po Valley. In 2007, the loss of 200,000 in Italy hives caused an economic loss not only for the pollination of 250 million euro.
But coming into the 2008 allow me to do a little news in recent months of Ogun to allow you to better understand the phenomenon. "April 8, 2008: Arnie empty and deserted hives."
These are the first records that start right from the Piedmont to favorable climatic conditions has given the go ahead to the plantings. The reports have followed the course of the sowing of maize in other areas of the peninsula. For now, and just for now, the estimate of over 100,000 hives deserted in contemporary with the sowing of maize. And this spring the chemical analysis of dead bees have discovered new molecules of neurotoxic insecticides. The situation of our farms shows conclusively terminated by the time the new powerful poisons, in infinitesimal doses, have dramatic effects, immediate and over time, on bees, insects, nature. "
The environmental impact of pesticides is in addition to other emergencies affecting the bees, but the new molecules can be considered fully the straw that breaks the glass. The new insecticides that are scattered into the seed massacre bees are called Confidor, Actar, Gaucho, Poncho, Regent Cruiser. eurotossici and are second-generation neonicotinoid, produced by chemical giants BASF, Bayer and Syngenta. In France, the authorization of use of these substances, which have proved highly toxic and persistent, was suspended on all crops of interest in beekeeping for the past two years.
"apicidio This is absurd - we're all convinced - but what are the measures of the Italian authorities to date we can not know. Thanks to the cooperation between organizations bee Piedmont Coldiretti and the achievement of the convening of a regional board which resulted in the will of the Piedmont Region to apply for suspension of products nationally and the development of a phase of agricultural trials to test the models implementation of certain practices and the impact thereof on the health of bees.
Meanwhile in other European countries, the alarm in the Rhine Valley, Germany's most fertile region, where in conjunction with one another, sowing a lot of reporting that decimated hives because the bees in contact with these molecules are no longer able to return to their hive and die. The German authorities after a number of contacts with beekeepers and organizations with the same producers of giants "in the dock" decided to suspend the authorization for the use of these products. The story continues and also Slovenia, in late May, took the same decision.
In recent days, have presented the preliminary results of the analysis performed on more than half of the samples of bees collected in Lombardy. Of the 41 samples analyzed so far, a total of 17 were positive for the neonicotinoids. We are confident that after overwhelming evidence that these are able to find a solution to these problems because the working bee is too valuable for nature and for each of us to treat it that way.
James Ballari
