Full article here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/honeybeePesticideBan.php
Quoting:
Walter Haefeker, president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association, reporting to Chemical and Engineering News said [1], “Beekeepers in the region started finding piles of dead bees at the entrance of hives in early May, right around the time corn seeding takes place.”
It's a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association told The Guardian [2], “50-60 percent of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”
The incriminating evidence was so convincing that a press release from the Julius Kuehn Institute (JKI), the German federal agricultural research agency, stated: “It can unequivocally be concluded that a poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from the corn seeds.”
Tests on dead bees showed that 99 percent had a build-up of clothianidin.(sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho) produced by Bayer CropScience, approved for use in Germany in 2004, and with some restrictions in the US in 2003.
The pesticide was applied to the seeds in advance of being planted or sprayed while in the field. The company blamed an application error by the seed company which failed to use a substance that glues the pesticide to the seed, resulting in the chemical getting into the air. Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. It transpired that this year’s corn seed in Baden Württemberg was coated with a double dose to counteract a corn beetle infestation [2]. Unusual circumstances yes, but the lethal effect of the pesticides has been suspected for a long time.