Tag: Insects

They Might Be Mites

 

Of all the ills afflicting bees, giants of a sort may not be among them, but mites may be implicated in their decline. If you believe the sort of giants that may be afflicting the bees worst of all, which is to say pesticide manufacturing giants such as Bayer and Syngenta, the primary culprits to blame for bee colony declines are not their neonicotinoid pesticides, but rather Varroa mites. The mites afflict honey bees, weakening them as they feed on the bees’ fat reserves and injecting viruses into the bees through their sucking mouth parts.

 

But all manner of bees and other pollinating insects are declining around the world, not just the honey bees that are afflicted with Varroa mites. Neonicotinoid pesticides work systemically by being absorbed into every part of a plant, including the flowers, attacking the nervous system of whatever invertebrate feeds on the plant, including the flowers. As the name suggests, neonicotinoids are derived from nicotine, a poison found in tobacco and other plants in the nightshade family.

Nicotine has long been applied topically to plants and insects as a pesticide. Japanese chemists synthesized Imidacloprid, the first neonicotinoid, in the 1980s. In the 1990s, Bayer began large scale manufacturing and distribution of the pesticide, which was an advance over plain nicotine on account of its solubility in water and consequent ability to disseminate systemically throughout a plant for long-term protection from insect feeding, rather than being restricted to the temporary effects of topical application.


Bombus lapidarius queen - Echium vulgare - Keila
A red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) queen feeds on the flower of a blueweed (Echium vulgare) in Keila, northwestern Estonia. Photo by Ivar Leidus.

It’s interesting then that the pesticide manufacturing giants have followed the lead of Big Tobacco in muddying the research waters regarding their products. In the previous century, the tobacco industry fought efforts by researchers and regulators to fully inform the public of the dangers of tobacco use, generally by spreading the spurious claim that there was more doubt about the issue than there really was, and by persuading a vocal minority of clinicians and media flacks to side with them. This model has since been followed by the fossil fuel industry in denying the human causes of climate change.

A 2013 cover by Circe Link and Christian Nesmith of “Your Move” by Yes. One could choose to hear the lyrics in the background chorus as “Give bees a chance” instead of “Give peace a chance”.

Now, after scientists and environmentalists sounded the alarm about neonicotinoids in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the pesticide giants have adopted the same methods, and their fall guy, as it were, is the lowly Varroa mite, a creature difficult to like in any scenario. Bayer and Syngenta and the rest have been aided and abetted in their disinformation campaign by the current presidential administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, an agency rendered ineffectual in protecting the environment by the hiring of right wing ideologues who are all too eager to sow goodwill among multinational corporations by not allowing the collapse of bee populations to get in the way of reaping enormous sums of money. After all, what are friends for?
— Izzy

 

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Spilt Milk

 

“Oats. n.s. [aten, Saxon.] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”
— from A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson.

The detrimental effect on the dairy industry of lockdowns state governments have instituted in reaction to the coronavirus could have long term consequences, tipping the balance abruptly toward greater production of plant derived milks, butters, and cheeses. Traditional dairy has been losing market share to plant derived dairy for decades, with losses getting larger especially in the past decade. Now loss of revenue due to coronavirus lockdowns of schools and restaurants could mean bankruptcy for many dairy farms and a long term shift toward lower production as traditional dairy transforms into a lesser role.


There will no doubt always be demand for traditional dairy products, but if supermarket shelf space is an indicator of what consumers want, then plant derived milks have taken the largest chunk of shelf space away from traditional dairy, while butters, and particularly cheeses have been less competitive. The consumption of animal milk products has always been a peculiarly human practice. The desire for milk and associated products is so great that people will go to great lengths to produce and consume ersatz milk derived from nuts and grains. It is beyond the scope of this article to investigate why that is; it is enough merely to point out that consumption of milk fulfills for many people a deep-seated need, a need met for all other mammals in infancy, and then forgotten.

 

Hafermilch aus dem Bio-Supermarkt
Different brands of oat milk available in a German organic supermarket in September 2015. Photo by Fretdf.

“Milk. n.s. [meelc, Saxon; melck, Dutch.]
1. The liquor with which animals feed their young from the breast.
2. Emulsion made by contusion of seeds.”
— from A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson.

It follows then that animal milk production for human consumption is an artificial activity, consequently involving some pain and suffering by the animals, both mothers and their artificially weaned young. We have done these things for so long, for centuries going back ten thousand years or more to the beginning of agriculture, that we think the activities are natural. They are not. The closest parallel in the rest of the animal kingdom can be seen with how ants tend to aphids in order to secure for themselves the aphids’ honeydew secretions. Those secretions are not intended for consumption by the aphids’ young, however, but are merely a byproduct of their ingestion of plant juices. The relationship is closer – but not entirely the same – as our relationship to honey bees than it is to our relationship with dairy animals. The relationship we have with dairy animals is mere exploitation, closer to that of vampire bats with their prey, or to bloodsucking insects with their victims, or even to a virus with its host.
— Izzy

 

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See You Later

 

The Department of Energy is proposing to change a rule implemented late in the Obama administration that mandated energy guidelines for light bulbs which would have effectively removed all but Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs and Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs from the market in January 2020. Since manufacturers are phasing out CFLs, LEDs would have the market to themselves shortly. Even though manufacturers are turning out more LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs, making the old style bulbs less significant in the market with each passing year, they still apparently chafe at the rule and are behind the push to get it changed.

 

There’s no question LEDs save energy over incandescent bulbs, which waste a lot of energy producing heat instead of light. LEDs also last far longer than incandescents. While the retail price for LEDs had been around ten times higher than the price of incandescents, the price has fallen significantly in the past few years as LEDs flood the market. Unlike the light given off by CFLs, the quality of the light given off by LEDs is every bit as good as that from incandescents, and because there are many options for changing the light from LEDs they are better overall. If Americans are serious about saving energy, it’s difficult to imagine a good reason for not switching over to LEDs sooner rather than later.

First Day of Creation
Separation of Light from Darkness, a 1512 fresco by Michelangelo (1475-1564), painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. The Vatican recently completed an eight year project to install LED bulbs and fixtures throughout its facilities, including the Sistine Chapel, cutting their energy use for lighting by 90 percent.

Energy savings from the indoor market for LED bulbs probably will pan out as scientists predict since people will use about as much lighting as they’ve used before, only they will have switched out the type of bulbs they use. Municipal outdoor lighting, on the other hand, has not proved to save energy when switching to LEDs because officials tend to have more of the new lights installed, negating energy savings as well as increasing light pollution. There are compelling reasons for municipalities to increase outdoor lighting, such as fighting crime, but still it seems a terrible waste of resources that may have more to do with bureaucrats defending their turf from budget cuts which might ensue after energy savings. Luckily, private citizens don’t usually control their own budgets in a similarly wasteful manner.

About outdoor lighting at home, it should be noted that scientists don’t know exactly what type of light is most attractive to insects, or to what extent the heat given off by bulbs is a factor. Some types of light are more attractive than others to some kinds of insects and not to others, and most insects are drawn to heat, but not all of them. There is no truth to the rumor that all LEDs, even bright whites, are not attractive to insects. To avoid drawing insects, the best kind of bulb is still an orange one, usually marketed specifically as a “bug light”, though of course it would more accurately be described as a “no bug light” or a “fewer bugs light”. The LED will be more effective than the incandescent because it also takes much of the attractive heat out of the equation. The absolute worst kind of outdoor lighting to get is marketed as a “bug zapper”, for a number of reasons. There are now bug zappers available which use LEDs as their light source, and that makes the least sense of all, except perhaps to someone who with unwarranted satisfaction feels better about saving energy while unnecessarily luring to their deaths any and all bugs.
— Techly

 

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Mulch too Much

 

 

As summer fades into fall, gardeners consider tidying their flower beds and around their trees and shrubs. Putting down new mulch can be part of this process, and it raises the question: How much mulch? Mulching two to three inches in total depth is plenty, making sure to keep the mulch from touching plant stems, and not piling up volcanoes of the stuff around trees. Any “professional” landscaping outfit or individual who does otherwise is acting out of either ignorance or the desire to sell more mulch, perhaps both.



Garden gnome with wheelbarrow-20051026

Another consideration is whether to put down commercially produced mulch or wood chips. The term “mulch” can apply to organic or inorganic ground covers, such as pine bark, shredded hardwood, or stone. Wood chips are made from every part of a tree, and chips range in size from coarse chunks to finely ground pieces no larger than an inch. Gardeners should be careful to check the source of wood chips because they may have come from trees infested with beetles or borers, and if the chips have not been ground up finely enough or heat treated, then the insects may survive to cause further damage in new surroundings. Commercial wood mulch should not cause similar problems if the manufacturer has effectively screened it for pests, though gardeners should not apply it directly up to the foundation of a house, where it can serve as cover for termites already present in the soil.

 

A good rule of thumb to follow when applying mulch is not to apply it so thickly as to make it a heavy slog for the average happy garden gnome pushing a wheelbarrow.
– Izzy

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