<= Version française |
Demonstration against
Imidacloprid Coordination des Apiculteurs de France: Syndicat
National d'Apiculture Translated by Peter Dillon pdillon@club-internet.fr |
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<= Version française |
Demonstration against
Imidacloprid Coordination des Apiculteurs de France: Syndicat
National d'Apiculture Translated by Peter Dillon pdillon@club-internet.fr |
You can use these pictures, just give the credit : "Gilles Ratia - www.apiculture.com"
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COMPOSITE DOCUMENT OF PRESENT POSITION RELATING TO GAUCHO / SUNFLOWER and BEES
Coordination des Apiculteurs de France :
Syndicat
National d'Apiculture
Syndicat des Producteurs de Miel de France
Union Nationale d'Apiculture Française
Paris,18th. December 2000.
| PREAMBLE : a press
communication dated 16th. December 1998, produced by the Minister of
Agriculture and Fisheries, announced that: The commission (Commission de toxiques) charged to evaluate the impact of Pesticides have studied the dossier "GAUCHO" (Imidacloprid - BAYER). Following these studies, it has published the following advisory comment "Taking into account recent studies evaluating the impact that Imidacloprid could have on the activity of bees when used as a seed treatment for sunflowers ", the Commission des Toxiques during its meeting held on the 16th. December 1998 considered that:
( ... )" |
We are still at this date uninformed of the responses brought by BAYER
On the other hand, the results of work undertaken between 1998 - 2000 by
researchers in public institutes have been supplied to us after their
presentation to the Commission des toxiques, 15th. November and 13th. December
2000.
It appears to us that the results we present below entirely respond to the
questions raised by the Commission des toxiques.
The metabolism of the product in parts of the plant accessible to bees.
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Dr. J.M. Bonmatin (CNRS Orléans ) During the growing period of sunflowers treated with GAUCHO, the levels of Imidacloprid decrease. From the start of capitule formation, this level shows an important and rapid increase. Depending on the plant variety, the average value in the capitule at the beginning of the flowering period varies from 5 to 6 ppb. Equally in maize, Imidacloprid is found throughout the plant, notably in the panicle (average: 4 ppb.) and in the flower (average: 10ppb.). Sunflower and maize both allow for an important bioavailability during the flowering period. In the environment wherever sunflowers are treated GAUCHO and also whenever it was so for maize (GAUCHO sites in field trials undertaken by ACTA in 1998), the pollen from traps commonly contained around 5ppb Imidacloprid. |
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M. Fr. Laurent ( INRA Toulouse ) Tracing and measurement of the radioactivity at different ages and in different parts of the sunflower plant). In stem sections as in the leaves of one-month-old plants, one finds the occurring gradient, except that the leaves are10 times more charged in Imidacloprid than the corresponding stem section. The metabolic profiles in the different plant organs all show a peak mainly of Imidacloprid (50 -80%). It is established that the half-life of the original molecule by itself in sunflower is in excess of 60 days. At the moment of flowering, there appears to be a transfer towards the capitulum, notably towards during the sepal and outer edge seed formation. It is suggested that this mobilisation is able to cause even higher levels of contamination of nectar and pollen produced by the inner rings of florets. In pollen, the global residue measurement of Imidacloprid is in the order of some ppb. |
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The CETIOM. The nectar of sunflower contains between 0.4 and 5.0 ppb. total residue, it being taken that these total residues is essentially of Imidacloprid. |
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M. Kl. Wallner (Univ. of Hohenheim. Germany) The nectar of Phacelia, treated with GAUCHO (50 g active material/hectare), taken from the crop of the harvesting bees contained between 3 and 10 ppb. Imidacloprid. The pollen collected by the bees was charged at the same level. (Toxicological studies accept that fruits such as apples and peaches may be put on to the market for human consumption, if the residues of Imidacloprid do not pass the limit of 300 ppb. Consequentially, the presence of Imidacloprid and or its metabolites at a level of a few ppb. in the produce from hives should not pose any problem in terms of human health.) |
2. The limit of the toxicity of the product and its metabolites for bees and the quantities present.
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Dr. M.E. Colin ( INRA Avignon ) The frequentation, characterised by differing criteria, at a source of syrup either contaminated or un-contaminated - was studied in semi-controlled conditions. For Imidacloprid, the negative effects are still present at 6 ppb. At 3 ppb., the effects are still present under certain criteria. (BAYER communicated in January 1997 during the A.N.P.P. Congress that the first effects on the bee show from levels of 5,000 ppb.. Three years later, this threshold has been brought down to a few ppb.!). The toxicity of the derivative OLEFINE is clear at 1.5 ppb.; it is still present at 0.75 ppb. - but with a less regular occurrence. |
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Dr. M.H. Pham-Delègue ( INRA Bures sur Yvette ) (November 2000): Showed that prolonged ingestion of Imidacloprid contaminated syrups cause a significant decrease in performance of Olfactory learning at levels between 6 and 12 ppb.. |
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Dr. L. Belzunces ( INRA Avignon ) Showed that prolonged ingestion by bees of 4.5 picogramme of Imidacloprid and associated metabolites /24 hour cause the appearance of significant mortalities, 3 to 4 days after the start of the treatment, which corresponds to the time delay between nectar flow and hive population losses observed by beekeepers. According to M. Belzunces, it is very probable that the intoxication process in bees by Imidacloprid is due to the presence of toxic metabolites with a particularly noxious and "deceitful" action. The breakdown into the toxically significant metabolites originating from Imidacloprid by bees is very rapid: the half-life of the original molecule is situated between 2 and 4 hours. |
3.The persistence of imidacloprid in the soil and the presence in crops that have not been treated?
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The CETIOM. Imidacloprid is present in soil for several years after the last treatment. Throughout these years, untreated sunflower plants present this residual Imidacloprid. |
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Dr. J.M. Bonmatin ( CNRS Orléans ) Throughout, where treatments from one or two years previous are present the concentrations of residual Imidacloprid are able to reach levels of up to 10 ppb.. Even in the case of only one "GAUCHO" treatment two years previous Imidacloprid is still detectable in the soil. He states that these results are compatible with recent published results from BAYER. Like CETIOM, he also concludes that sunflowers are capable of absorbing and expressing the presence of residual Imidacloprid from crops treated two years previously with GAUCHO. The capacity to absorb residual Imidacloprid from soils falls in the following direction:
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IMPORTANT
Before the grave problem of too long soil persistence by Imidacloprid, CETIOM
and BAYER were employed to verify if accumulation in soil was to be worried
about. They estimated that after three years of GAUCHO treatment a stabilised
threshold value was reached - this information has not been released to us. We
would like to know who allows the continuation of this position: CETIOM's
protocol proposal that the measure of residues in sunflower plants serve as an
indicator of the of residual Imidacloprid levels in soils is certainly not ready
to be validated!!
M. Bonmatin (CNRS Orléans) analysed in year N. the soils supporting a
non-treated GAUCHO crop, knowing that they during the two previous years, i.e. N
-1 and N -1 plus N -2 had been treated with GAUCHO. They contained on average
Imidacloprid at 4.8 and 8.6 ppb. respectively, which does not invite for the
exclusion of a phenomenon of accumulation, seeing that there is nearly a factor
of 2 between these values. Also one is able to reasonably imagine that the soils
with three years previous GAUCHO treatment (N -1, N -2 and N -3) would contain
on average 10 ppb. Imidaclopride. Accepting that Imidacloprid, having very low
mobility in soil and that it rests in the upper 30cm soil horizon, one may
calculate that with an average charge of 10 ppb. it is equivalent to 50 grammes
of Imidacloprid/hectare, and therefore by implication equivalent to a treatment
of GAUCHO on sunflowers!!
Considering that:
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Imidacloprid has a negative effect on
individual bee behaviour,
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THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON THE SURVIVAL
OF THE HARVESTING BEES.
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IT IS EVIDENT THAT DURING THE FLOWERING PERIOD OF GAUCHO TREATED SUNFLOWER AND MAIZE AS WELL AS ALL CROPS WITH APICAL INTEREST CONTAMINATED BY PREVIOUS GAUCHO TREATMENTS - FORAGING BEES ARE EFFECTIVELY EXPOSED TO DOSES OF IMIDACLOPRID WHICH IN LABORATORIES HAVE REVEALED A NEGATIVE IMPACT.
In the open countryside, this negative impact is verified by observation - already at least on the sunflower honey flow:
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Dr. M.E. Colin ( INRA Avignon ) : Having analysed video documentation obtained from sunflowers growing in agricultural condition during 1998 and 1999, Dr. Colin has been able to conclude that foraging by bees on sunflowers treated or contaminated with GAUCHO, takes place with less efficiency and with a behavioural comportment very different to that compared with those foraging sunflowers growing in Organic conditions and on soils that have never received any GAUCHO treatment. |
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The Beekeepers: Since 1994 for some, from 1995 or '96 for others, depending on the region, they have witnessed exploitation problems concerning the bees on the sunflower nectar flow: problems of acute hive depopulation and of aberrant behaviour patterns, being accentuated year on year. For them, there is no longer any doubt that these phenomena are linked to the crop flowering period. It requires only 3 or 4 days from the start of the sunflower flowering period to initiate the problems - this taking place at the beginning of July or 15 days later in the case of 1998. It is the same and unique itinerary every year - and only when the hives are in the areas of crops treated with GAUCHO. Those hives moved before hand to other areas for such nectar flows produced by sweet chestnut trees, lavender, pine and wild blossom escape totally the fore-mentioned phenomena. The year that GAUCHO is introduced into an area the troubles appear for the first time. The phenomena are:
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The above assessment imposes that a definitive withdrawal of all uses of the molecule Imidacloprid is put into place immediately. We do not imagine that the studies undertaken by BAYER (1995-2000) - certainly judge and jury in the affair - are able to be far from the fore-mentioned contributions made by the Public Researchers of France. If by bad luck it were not the case, it would be a terrible snub for the scientific community; at least they would not have been contaminated by other considerations of another order.
Coordination des Apiculteurs de France :
Syndicat National d'Apiculture
Syndicat des Producteurs de Miel de France
Union Nationale d'Apiculture FrançaiseTranslated by Peter Dillon pdillon@club-internet.fr
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