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--></style></head><body lang="EN-US" link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> Christine Hall [</span><a href="mailto:Christine.Hall@cei.org"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">mailto:Christine.Hall@cei.org</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">] <br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, June 16, 2015 11:03 AM<br><b>To:</b> </span><a href="mailto:kr@pollinator.org"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">kr@pollinator.org</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""><br><b>Subject:</b> CEI report on pollinators</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Kelly, thanks for fielding my call. As I mentioned, CEI has a recent policy report on pollinators, with a focus on honeybees.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://cei.org/sites/default/files/Angela%20Logomasini%20-%20Beepocalypse%20Not%20-%20April%2017%202015.pdf">https://cei.org/sites/default/files/Angela%20Logomasini%20-%20Beepocalypse%20Not%20-%20April%2017%202015.pdf</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">While you all are tweeting about National Pollinator Week, I thought you might be interested in the findings of this report and would consider tweeting it out. I’ve pasted some of the key points below. The report author, Angela Logomasini, is a chemical risk policy expert here at CEI.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Let me know what you think?<b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black"><br><br><br>Christine Hall</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Communications Director</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Competitive Enterprise Institute</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">1899 L Street NW, 12<sup>th</sup> Floor</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Washington, DC 20036</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">202-331-2258</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.cei.org"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">www.cei.org</span></a><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">@christinehall</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Colony Collapse Disorder is not the biggest threat facing honeybees.</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Lots of people blame hive losses in recent years on the so-called Colony Collapse (CCD) disorder, a phenomenon in which worker bees disappear, leaving behind the queen and honey. But according to a 2010 United Nations study, about 7 percent of hive losses are attributed to CCD, and the remaining 93 percent to other causes. In fact, the more significant problem is not really CCD, but instead compromised hive health, which is affected by a combination of factors, including: diseases and parasites, poor queen bee health, hive transport for pollination services, and nutritional issues. <span style="background:yellow">Pesticides are the least among these factors and neonicotinoids the least among those, if they have any impact at all.</span></span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">CCD is not a new problem that can be easily attributed to modern pesticides.</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">The mysterious disappearance of hives is not a new phenomenon. For example, the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service, points out similarly curious honeybee disappearances in the 1880s, 1920s, and 1960s.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Honeybees are not even a “natural” part of any ecosystem in the United States</span></strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">. A narrative popular among environmentalists suggests that the problem is mankind’s “tampering with nature,” but honeybees are not even “native” to the United States. Instead, they are a farmed agricultural commodity, imported from Europe during the 17th century for honey production and crop pollination. Like cattle, they are largely an agricultural commodity that is farmed and managed by human hands, in this case beekeepers.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Honeybees are nowhere near going extinct</span></strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">. In fact, the number of hives has increased globally. Globally, far more honeybees are used for honey production than pollination services, and the amount of honey produced has increased. U.S. and European commercial hives have decreased because honey production simply moved to other nations, where the number of hives have grown substantially. According to the United Nations Food Agricultural Organization (FAO) statistics the number of beehives kept globally has grown from nearly 50 million in 1961 to more than 80 million in 2013.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Surveys in 2014 show that honeybee hives have improving survival rates. </span></strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Hives kept for pollination services in the United States and Europe have shown better survival rates in recent years, much closer to what beekeepers consider normal. This occurred despite continued use of neonicotinoids.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Farming and food production is not about to collapse because of poor pollination.</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">About one third of food production in the United States benefits from honey bee pollination, according to USDA. Poor hive health is unlikely to completely undermine production of these foods, but it could make them more expensive. Fortunately, improved hive survival can mitigate such issues.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">There is no consistent correlation between neonicotinoids and hive losses.</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">If neonicotinoids were a cause of significant hive losses, we would expect to see at least some correlation between their use and high hive losses, but no such pattern has been observed since their introduction in the 1990s. In many places where these chemicals are used widely, such as in Australia, CCD is not a problem. And in Europe during 2013-2014, hives survived well in many areas where neonicotinoids were used.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Field studies find no health effects from “sublethal exposures” to neonicotinoids.</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">To date, there are no studies showing that honeybees have suffered ill effects from “field-relevant” neonicotinoid exposures. Only studies that feed the bees unrealistically high levels of the chemicals show adverse effects. Studies of bees in the field where neonicotinoids are used show no measureable effects.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Neonicotinoids do not present the most significant pesticide exposure to honeybees.</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">While activists like to blame neonicotinoids for the disappearance of hibernating bees, little of these chemicals is actually found in the hives. Instead, most of the chemicals found in the hive are put there by beekeepers trying to fight various diseases carried by mites and other organisms. “It’s like chemotherapy. They know it’s bad, but it’s a lot better than the alternative,” says bee researcher Dennis vanEngelsdorp.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Alternative chemicals may prove more dangerous than neonicotinoids.</span></strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">The U.S. Agricultural Research Service notes on its website: “The neonicotinoids were developed in the mid-1990s in large part because they showed reduced toxicity to honey bees, compared with previously used organophosphate and carbamate insecticides.” If farmers cannot use neonicotinoids, they will use other chemicals that are more toxic to bees.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><strong><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Regulations will not solve the problem.</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Regulations are slow to develop, governed by political rather than practical and scientific goals, and hard to modify, even when they become counterproductive. In the case of honeybees, the best solutions will emerge with collaboration among the parties with an interest in protecting bees, including beekeepers, farmers and home gardeners.</span></p><p style="line-height:18.0pt;background:white;text-align:start;word-spacing:0px"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#424242">Honeybee health issues are far broader than concerns raised by CCD alone and the solutions require a better understanding of the issue. Shortsighted pesticide bans will prove counterproductive, undermining food production and harming both honeybees and native pollinators because replacement products are likely to prove more dangerous. <span style="background:yellow">The best solution will strike a balance that recognizes the value of targeted and managed use of agrochemicals while minimizing risks.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div></body></html>