[Ads-l] apian terms: neonic, miticide, clothianidin, pollinator, Dust Bowl, monocultural, flupyradifurone, colony collapse syndrome

[Wilson Gray]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

> a relatively new class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, or neon's


OT, somewhat, but "relatively" is the operative term. After I graduated
from high school in 1954, I had a summer job as a lab tech in the Dept. of
Plant Physiology at Wash. U. in St.L. We used the neo-nicotinoids of the
day - developed by St. Louis's own, now-infamous Monsanto Chemicals, then
known, if at all, only for developing the first, successful, low-suds
laundry detergent - as our standard insecticide in the department's
greenhouses, in which were grown various species of tobacco and other
Solanaceae. Because it contains nicotine, tobacco is impervious to most
insect pests, except for the tobacco hornworm and, surprisingly, aphids.

To get rid of them, we fumigated with neo-nicotinoids. Clearly, any
nicotine-based pesticide capable of killing an organism unaffected by
nicotine itself is capable of killing a lot of other things, including
animals and people, let alone honey-bees.

Sixty years later, agribusiness is caught off guard by the suggestion that
today's neo-nicotinoids, like yesterday's neo-nicotinoids, may be capable
of killing honey-bees.

Youneverknow
-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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