It's an Obama thing, so get rid of it..

@OggggO Bees hinder GMO crops. The pesticide that has just been re-legalised kills bees.

@HerKing How would bees hinder GMO crops?

@OggggO It depends on the crop. Some are developed that have additional proteins that are deadly to certain kinds of insects. Those crops aren't harmful to bees and actually can reduce the use of pesticides. But not all.

The family of chemicals they're lifting the ban on are used on GMO crops and, while less toxic to birds and animals, are definitely toxic to bees. The bigger picture is that they're allowing this to take place in wildlife refuges that allows for crops.
It's a bad move.

@OggggO Because they cross pollinate. Bees don't know the difference between a GMO flower and a none GMO flower. Monsanto are selling sterile seeds to African countries so that the countries have to keep buying seed for crops. Rather than seeds that can bear offspring to make those countries self sufficient.

@Ynotisay The pesticides the ban is being lifted on are used on GMO and non-GMO crops alike. They may harm bees, but they have nothing to do with genetic modification.

@HerKing Cross pollination doesn’t matter because commercial crop seeds are not replanted. Being hybrids, whether they are genetically modified or not, their next year’s growth is wildly erratic, and farmers much prefer to rebuy so that they will get freshly hybridized seeds every year and have a consistent product.

As far as terminator seeds go, they have not been sold commercially, by Monsanto or anybody else. Due to the above, there’s really no need or point.

@OggggO Not sure if that's true. Just because neonicotinoids can also be used on non-GMO crops doesn't mean their impact on wildlife is negated. I understand the difference. I'm actually pro-GMO in most cases. But while some GMO crops decrease the use of insecticides others increase the use of herbicides. It depends on the crop. The bigger picture, which I'm sure you see, is opening up wildlife refuges to industrial agriculture which means toxic chemicals that harm insects, like bees, and animals. Some GMO's have been developed to be resistant to herbicides like Roundup. Monsanto sells the seeds along with the Roundup. That's their money play. Now they'll be doing it in refuges. Roundup, and others, can kill bees. That's the issue.

@Ynotisay Neonicotinids aren’t herbicides. They are insecticides. There’s no point In genetically engineering plants to use them on because they don’t affect plants to begin with.

And last I checked, Roundup doesn’t kill bees.

@OggggO OK. But I didn't say neonics are herbicides, did I? Glyphosate, the main chemical in Roundup, is an herbicide. It impairs a bees ability to get directly back to its hive. Bees that can't get to their hives die.
Is it just a 'screw public land' thing with you? Too many regulations? Whatever.

@Ynotisay It’s a pro-science thing. Neonicotinids are awful, but pinning that on GMOs is ridiculous. Further, most claims of harm by glyphosate are made by people with an axe to grind or people uncritically repeating their claims.

https://thoughtscapism.com/2018/06/11/no-glyphosate-is-not-a-threat-to-bees/

@OggggO Thoughtscapism? Really? OK. And did you read the opinion piece?
[i]I often try politely to inform the person that what they are probably thinking of are insecticides, particularly such groups of chemicals as pyrethroids or neonicotinoids, several of which can, if sprayed directly on the bees, prove lethal to them. [/i]

So if it's a pro-science stance, one that I agree with, let's look at some peer-reviewed studies that back up what I said. It's not about killing on contact. It's about disrupting their ability to get back to their hives. I'm usually pretty careful with the words I choose.

The Abstracts sum it up. A couple of different negative effects.

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/17/2799
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25063858

Like I said, I'm on board with most GMO's. I'm NOT on board with GMO's that rely on chemicals. I'm SURE you know the Monsanto game. Here's the seeds...buy the chemicals to optimize the seeds.

The fact that they're doing this in WILDLIFE REFUGE AREAS is the real point here.

@Ynotisay Yes, I did read it, including the part that said:
[quote]After this they tried to re-captured the bees, but only managed to get hold of four bees in the high treatment group. All four re-released groups flew back home at very similar times, between 3-11 minutes, which by the way is a range where the first high treatment flight-time falls in too (see A in the next figure below – why they have the scale so zoomed out this time, so that comparison to the first figure A is not as clear, I don’t know). The range was similar between releases, with no clear learning effect for any group. The flight times to the feeder were similar too, apart from the high treatment group, which was actually faster. Of course, at this point each flight-group studied had between 1-4 or 1-12 bees (…), and so nothing was statistically significant.

Let that sink in. Yes, the paper claims to analyze ‘long-term consequences’ for bee learning – based on two flights, and with experiment ‘groups’ that are 1 bee strong.

To actually say anything meaningful about bee behaviour, it’s not very radical to ask that we’d want to see clear differences in said behaviour of actual groups of bees, and in several repeat experiments. I am not alone in my thinking, either. I talked about this paper with an entomologist who does science outreach over at the blog The Mad Virologist, and he had this to say:

With that type of experiment, you really need large numbers of insects and many replicate flight experiments. With only two replicate experiments, this would be a hard sell in an entomology journal, especially given the low numbers used in each experiment.

He went on to contrast this study with examples of robust studies instead: like one on bee foraging with three replicates of RFID-tagged bees – in each colony, they included 400 bees per treatment condition (vs the 10-20 in Farina’s); or an earlier study of bee flight of more than two thousand bees all in all, and with four replicate experiments.[/quote]

@OggggO And yet, for some reason, you'll take an opinion piece over peer-reviewed studies. Find that kind of interesting given your comments about "pro-science" and an "ax to grind."
I can't repeat what I've already said a few times about what this issue us REALLY about. Chemicals in wildlife refuges. You're clearly ignoring that so I'll just exit stage left. Thanks.

@Ynotisay It’s not an opinion piece, it’s an explanation of said study, and other studies. Sorry I don’t find things scary just because they have are a “chemical”. Everything is a chemical.

@OggggO Now you're pushing my buttons dude. I said I was done. I said thanks. That's not enough, huh?
And yeah dude. It was opinion. Commentary on other people's work on an insignificant website.
And 'scary?' Is that what I was said man? Did you see where I said I choose my words carefully? Was there anything there remotely associated to being scared? I still have no fucking idea why you won't acknowledge what I've said repeatedly about what the real issue here is though. I'm sure you have your reasons.
If you see my name again here don't put freaking words in mouth or presume my thoughts, ok? I can handle my shit just fine.
I'd say don't write me back on this but it's pretty clear you're one of those guys so...whatever.