Letter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette, published May 28, 2015

Bees have been in the news a lot lately, and with good reason.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a mysterious phenomon describing the sudden widespread death of millions of honeybees, has been steeply increasing since 2007, when beekeepers first began reporting unusually large hive losses. The losses coincided with the introduction, a few years earlier, of a new class of pesticide called neonicotinoids primarily used to treat corn, soy and other commercial crops.

While other causes of CCD are still being bandied around, the scientific community has slowly been building up proof around the case against neonicotinoids, or “neonics” as they are sometimes called. 

Neonicotinoids are a systemic pesticide, meaning that the substance is spread through all parts of the treated plant. Pollinators such as bees, bats and butterflies then absorb the pesticide through the pollen, nectar and groundwater around treated crops. Neonics are a neuro-toxin, causing  lack of coordination, paralysis and death. They are also persistent, meaning that they do not break down easily but remain in the environment for up to three years or more, having a cumulative effect as they are used year after year.

A Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Study shows that in the US, about 95 percent of corn and canola crops, 50 percent of soybean crops and the majority of fruit and vegetable crops including sugar beets and cereal grains are treated with neonics. No recent figures for pesticide use are available for Quebec  or Ontario which include data on neonics. But if our neighbours to the south of the border are any indicator, neonicotinoid use has become routine in what is somewhat ironically referred to as “traditional” farming.

The good news is, bees have been in the news a lot lately. That’s because bees are likeable; after all, they give us honey! We have songs and children’s stories that celebrate them (perhaps with the exception of the one in which we are squishing them between our palms) and we like to use them in logos and designs because they seem friendly. This may be because subconsciously, we are aware that our food supply depends on them to a large extent. Without their work as pollinators, our gardens would simply not produce.

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”  – Albert Einstein

If the bees die, we all die, to paraphrase Albert Einstein.

And so we must take very seriously any threat to pollinator health. Last week, the White House announced the creation of a Pollinator Health Task Force, mandated to take actions to improve pollinator health, including looking at risks associated with neonicotinoids. Ontario’s Pollinator Health is a proposal for enhancing pollinator health and reducing the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in Ontario. And here in Quebec? Still nothing. Until last Monday, when Montreal City Council voted unanimously to adopt the motion that I had put forward called “Motion to ban the use of insecticides from the neonicotinoid family on the island of Montreal.” This motion effectively bans the use of neonicotinoids in Montreal and then asks Quebec to take a hard look at doing the same at the provincial level. At the very least, we hope that they will propose a plan for a major reduction of neonicotinoid pesticides in agricultural use.

Meanwhile, while we wait for Quebec to act, bees here in Montreal can go about their “buzz”ness a little lighter of wing, knowing that here, at least, we are neonics-free.