The first alarm about bee-killing pesticides that caught my eye warned of plants that had been sprayed with neonicotinoids doing the killing. Then petitions like this one got my attention and I hoped it meant that only the big boxes stores were at fault here, selling horrible products. But then I read some more and realized it’s not just two unfeeling companies involved here. These bee-killing pesticides (neonics for short) are sold everywhere. You know, on the shelves of garden departments and garden centers everywhere – products from companies like Ortho and Bayer. Scroll down here for the list of products.
Worse, the deadliness of neonics to bees is being claimed not by some fringe greenies but by such establishment authorities as the USDA. There’s really no argument about the problem here.
No surprise then that the campaign against neonics has gained a lot of momentum and big bucks are being spent to get the message out – like for this full-page ad in the New York Times. The ad announces that “This week, 15 countries are imposing a two-year restriction on the use of several of these chemicals. Meanwhile, the United States is stalling. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates it will be 2018, 5 years from now, before it makes a decision on this deadly class of pesticide.”
So far, all the EPA has done is to develop an advisory warning consumers not to use these pesticides “where bees are present.” HUH?
The Impact on Retailers
So, what would be the impact, both horticulturally and financially, of banning these bee-killing pesticides, anyway? I turned to people in the independent garden center world for their thoughts on the matter, since like the big boxes, they stand to be hurt financially, and I actually WANT them to make a profit and continue to feed my plant-buying habit.
Here’s how important these pesticides are to them: They sell lots of those blue and green bottles, especially the bizarrely named “Rose and Flower Care” – sounds harmless, doesn’t it? And almost all growers, I’m told, use these pesticides. Here’s why, via email from a perennial buyer.
Virtually all ornamental plants we sell are treated with them at one time or another. That’s why they are the most popular pesticides on the planet: They work. They have low mammalian toxicity. They came on the market at the same time that many of the other long-term pesticides were coming off due to environmental and health concerns. They replaced diazinon in grub treatment for example.
He went on to predict that the since “the EPA has banned just about everything over the years, I have no reason to think that they won’t act properly on this issue.”
And what are the alternatives to neonics? Not a lot: hort oils, pepper spray, Neem and pyrethrins, to which there is wide resistance.
Even without EPA action, retailers with a conscience could just stop selling neonics, right? Just like the good ones refused to sell Impatiens this season (due to downy mildew) – and took a huge hit because customers got right back in their cars and drove to Home Depot to get their sickly annuals. No doubt that would happen again if small retailers took these super-effective pesticides off their shelves.
And what if the small retailers tell their growers to stop using neonics? One wrote to tell me that:
We’ve contacted most of the growers we buy from to ask about their spray programs and to find out whether they are aware of recent reports about neonics, or how widely publicized they are. I spoke to one grower who said they would quit using neonics (which they use sparingly, in rotation with other controls) immediately if they thought that we, the garden centers, and our customers would buy plants with “pests” and occasional, visible insect damage. I hope to see a lot of education from the garden media, and anyone who has the eyes and ears of the public about the fact that we will have to adjust our notions about all insects being pests. We need to accept that if we want to save the bees and butterflies, we’re going to have to live with some aphids too.
There are several growers who were proud to say they didn’t treat with neonics, so I’d like to see some education among the growers, who will have to implement new methods to address all of our concerns. I have great respect for the people who are growing our plants, and I hope the public understands they are farmers, with much at stake on their crops and methods.
Another retailer agreed that “Growers will do what their customers want them to do. Do we think the main players in the horticultural world, which is the mass merchants and their suppliers are willing to do this? Not yet.”
One garden center owner suggests better labeling and education about the proper use of neonics:
The use of neonicotinoids on plants that are visited by pollinators is inappropriate, and nursery professionals should advise their customers of that — regardless of what the product label might say. If we want to retain these products for appropriate uses, we will need to stop using them in ways that harm beneficial insects. They have become among the most widely used pesticides in agriculture and horticulture, and in many cases they are unnecessary and clearly have unintended, undesirable consequences. We as an industry need to support reasonable re-regulation and re-labeling of neonicotinoids and discourage their inappropriate use by our customers.
Solutions, please
From what I read, the EPA absolutely should act faster to ban neonicotinoids because the science is clear. But until they do, we should put pressure on the huge retailers with oversized clout to stop selling these products now, and tell their growers to stop using them, too. Then the local garden centers can follow without digging their own graves. That’s my take, anyway. Yours?
Sources, and for more reading: Chemistry World, Mother Jones, the Center for Food Safety, and Minnesota Public Radio’s report that plants for bee habitat may be killing bees.
Bee image courtesy Shutterstock.
I think there are larger, deeper issues here (and I am agreeing with you on everything). The deeper issue is that we expect our landscapes to be perfect 24/7 — which is something outdoor living shows on HGTV play / prey on, as well as lawn maintenance companies. Insect damage is a good thing. Yes, fine, there are bad infestations, but my god let the aphids be on the milkweed and the lady bugs will come, and much more. Of course, as we import god knows what new invasive pests come about…. We have a spray first mentality in this country born of post WWII chemicals. Education? Yes. Acceptance of nature? Yes. Living with nature and not being afraid of bees and wasps? Yes yes yes.
The people that are afraid of bees and wasps, and I would include fleas and mosquitos, are not getting rid of them with neonics. They are using persistent broad spectrum insecticides.
HOLLA!!! Yes yes yes – a big no to the 24-7 magazine perfect garden (I think images like those published in garden mags do more harm than good in many cases)
One needs aphids in their garden to attract the ladybugs to keep aphids in check. It isn’t APHIDS that are bad, it is an OVERABUNDANCE of aphids that are bad! The balance is important or the beneficials won’t thrive.
A big 10-4
“It isn’t APHIDS that are bad, it is an OVERABUNDANCE of aphids that are bad!”
Which are easily taken care with a well aimed spray of water. Then there is “petting” them heavily with a gloved hand.
If you get rid of the systemics, most people will switch back to topicals. You think the bees survive contact with beta-cyflurin? The ‘organic’ alternatives just suck.
Besides, residential users aren’t the problem. Urban feral bees are doing better than their commercial counterparts, and most commercial bees never come in contact with a residential landscape. The commercial beekeepers are complaining about neonics, but they refuse to let bees draw there own comb because they want unnaturally large and unhardy bees that are higly susecptible to varroa. They use horribly inbred and fragile queens. They use european hives that don’t facilitate the ejection of varroa.
The ryanoids are coming up as another systemic, so we’ll see how that works out. But until then I’m not giving up my imidicloprid.
oh, and if you saw my garden, you would see it’s not about perfection. I let the aphids go when they show up. However, when I encounter say a citrus with a terrible white fly infestation, that has to be knocked back in order to let the plant recover and defend itself. I’m also not going to wait around for beneficals when one of my rare endangered species gets hit by an infestation.
Christ almighty – 5 years????? The EPA has become about as useless as tits on a wheelbarrow. In 5 years, most of the bees will be dead, and we’ll begin tripping down the long road to starvation.
The picture between the pesticides is of a fly, not a bee.
[…] How to Stop Bee-Killing Pesticides? Start with the Box Stores! […]
Starting with the big box stores is the wrong approach. They don’t care how many pollinators they kill as long as they’re making a profit. The people who are educated about this issue usually don’t shop there or buy the pesticide laden products, anyway. You need to start small with independent nurseries who have an established consumer base willing to buy “clean” but possibly not picture perfect plants. They become the guinea pigs. Until they become a viable threat or at least an irritant, the big box stores have no motivation to ever change.
Like most other revolutions, this needs to start at a grass roots/local level. Educating the sheeple who mindlessly buy these bottles of death has to become part of the dialogue. The fear of an unsustainable food source has to be greater than the desire for perfection before the people who buy and sell this stuff make different choices. I saw the ad when it rain in the Post but considering how low their print circulation has become, it makes me wonder if enough people saw it. There needs to be a TV ad to really get the public’s attention.
“Educating the sheeple who mindlessly buy these bottles of death has to become part of the dialogue.”
I’ve had a little bit of success with my mother-in-law. First I had to train her son, dear hubby, after he came home from a box store with systemic rose pesticide. I had him take it back explaining that there were herbs and other edibles integrated with the roses in the garden. Though shortly after that he “helped” me by weeding out the baby basil plants that I had started inside (he is now only allowed to mow grass).
His mother, on the hand, is a bit harder. She literally grew up in a greenhouse (they lived above the flower shop, and her father grew several in the adjoining greenhouse). She expected perfection. She commented that my roses had holes in them, which I told her came from leaf cutter bees. Oh, noes! After she told I had to do something with them I reminded her that they were pollinators, and there are edibles in my “flower beds.”
Of course, it took a while for her to get over that I have always had edibles in my front yard. It was something I learned from my mother’s cousin forty years ago, she had tomatoes growing in her rockery integrated with the flowers. But that is another story.
Though our Thanksgiving meal was delayed a bit when daughter found an aphid on her plate. More than likely from the centerpiece I had made from bay laurel, rosemary, sage and bachelor buttons I picked only a few hours earlier. :-/
I’ve always voiced the need to allow for imperfection on ones plants and in one’s gardens – it is actually where we find the beauty. Count my voice as one of those calling for an end to the use of these poisons. Sorry, but if a plant has an infestation it can’t shake through organic methods, you have planted the wrong plant in the wrong place. Ditch the poison and use design/hort skills instead.
Thanks for this post Susan! Got me all fired up!!!!
“Sorry, but if a plant has an infestation it can’t shake through organic methods…”
This reveals the false dichotomy between ‘organic’ and synthetic that I have a problem with. It makes people think that as long as a chemical has the ‘organic’ stamp that itis not damaging to health or the environment, but the reality is far more nuanced. Sure, I could control an infestation with pyrethrum instead of beta cyflurin. B-cyflrin and pyrethum have near identical LD50s, so in that respect they have similar levels of safety. However, pyrethrum can cause benign neck tumors whereas b-cyflurin doesn’t. Then there is the question as to whether it is more of less environmentally damaging to use a broad spectrum topical that will effect detrimental and beneficial species equally or use a systemic that will mainly effect those species predating upon the plant in question. It doesn’t matter if the chemical is ‘organic’ or synthetic, you are still using poison. While we should all strive to use these chemicals as little as possible, life has a way of thwarting are attempts to do so. Irrigation systems fail and cause stress to plants. Sometimes you get a freak heat wave that stresses a plant, or a neighbor that overwaters the plants on your patio while you are away. Sometimes just gaining the horticultural knowledge pertaining to a new plant involves improperly placing it where it for instance gets too much shade due to a microclimate. In that case, there is no reason to let the plant die, knock back the infestation in the least environmentally damaging way and move it to a more appropiate location.
There is no plant so unequivocally special that preventing its death is worth killing hundreds of pollinators. Our choices and their consequences are bigger than ourselves and the priorities of one affect us all. Rationalizing a bad choice doesn’t make it any less bad. It just makes it easier to live with.
how exactly does a neonic being used on a plant not in flower kill hundreds of pollinators? How do pollinators get into my screened shadehouse in order to be killed?
I agree. If something is so special you feel the need to keep it alive by ultimately poisoning the environment for us all – as we are ALL carbon based life forms and we are all interconnected – we know this, right? . . . Well, I hope you will re-examine those priorities.
yeah, screw those endangered species in favor of an invasive species that produces a product that tastes yummy and sweet.
every single one of us is poisoning the environment simply being on the internet, why is saving a living thing, especially an endangered species, worse than that?
FORGET ABOUT INSECTICIDES, AND WORRY ABOUT CHILDREN KILLED BY HONEY
In their usual method of arriving at scientifically illiterate conclusions, bee-keepers have somehow concocted the imaginary danger that neonicotinoid insecticides were the reason for bee colony collapse disorder. This is a mere ploy to attract money in the form of illegitimate compensation. It is also a ploy to distract the public and government officials from the real problems of bee-keepers, such as botulism and the illegal use of products. Botulism-infected honey products can kill infants. Honey is the only known dietary reservoir of botulism spores linked to infant botulism. Honey can kill children ! http://wp.me/p1jq40-77n http://wp.me/p1jq40-76J Bee-keepers could not care less about the risks to children since they are more interested in profits from the sale of honey. What about neonicotinoid insecticides ? Bee-keepers allege, with no scientific proof, that neonicotinoid insecticides used by the agriculture industry somehow cause bee colony collapse disorder. If it is safe to eat botulism-infected honey, then it is safe to raise honey-bees near farms using neonicotinoid insecticides. Bee-keepers are perpetuating myths ! In fact, when used properly by the agriculture industry, with best management practices, neonicotinoid insecticides cause no harm, and do not hurt bees. However, bee-keepers appear to be unwilling or unable to resolve deadly pest problems that are the true reason for the death of their bees, such as varroa mites. http://wp.me/p1jq40-6wj Some observers have concluded that bee-keepers may not be competent to handle their pest problems, and are wholly unsuited to be raising bees. In order to somehow resolve their problems with deadly pests, they resort to the use of illegal, unregistered, deadly, and cancer-causing products. There are a growing number of reports that bee-keepers all over North America are violating federal law by using illegal, unregistered, deadly, and cancer-causing pest control products. Recently, in Alberta, bee-keepers were fined for using these unregistered pest control products to combat mite infestations, resulting hefty fines from Health Canada. Bee-keepers violate federal law by using products like amitraz, which is known to cause cancer, and is known to kill people. http://wp.me/p1jq40-70c If bee-keepers are lying and cheating by using illegal and dangerous products, then, are they also lying and cheating with their public statements about bee deaths and neonicotinoid insecticides ?!?! There is no evidence to suggest a link between neonicotinoid insecticides and bee colony collapse disorder. Additionally, if bee-keepers are exhibiting depraved indifference towards children poisoned and killed by their products, then it must be concluded that bee-keepers could not care less about the risks to children since they appear to be more interested in profits from the sale of honey. For more information regarding bees, go to The Pesticide Truths Web-Site … http://wp.me/p1jq40-2ba http://wp.me/p1jq40-6h8 WILLIAM H. GATHERCOLE AND NORAH G http://pesticidetruths.com/ http://wp.me/p1jq40-2rr
Have you ever tried to talk someone out of a ‘bottle of death’? It’s not that easy. As someone who works at an independent garden center, there’s a hefty percentage of our customers who would rather spray first and ask questions later. I’ve had folks remove heirloom roses planted 100 years ago because they “couldn’t deal with it getting destroyed by Japanese beetles every year.” In an area hard hit by emerald ash borer, one of the pesticides licensed for homeowner use is imidicloprid (neonic). The recommendation is to treat your ash for the life of the tree. That’s a lot of imidicloprid out and about. Applied by homeowners. Who believe that if you apply something, more than the recommended dose at the recommended timing, must work better.
So, my question would be – how do we educate the general public effectively? How do we change millions of minds about pesticides and the benefits of insects? Independent garden centers, Master Gardeners, garden writers, plant info services at botanic gardens and arboreta, etc. are trying, but it’s a very steep uphill battle.
Ash is a pretty easy vector to deal with. Just don’t apply neonics to female plants in the spring until after it flowers.
Better yet… just stop supporting the big box retailers…
Dollars Leaving your Community
Huge Carbon Footprint
Huge Budgets with Big Media
Corporate Decisions instead of Local
Poor Quality Plants
Bug and Disease infested Stores
Little or no Horticultural knowledge or advice
Shop your local Garden Center… talk to them about your concerns and you CAN CREATE CHANGE… promote them, talk them up and ALIENATE the big box retailers from the community… we must take back our landscapes, food and water for our communities to have a vibrant future… getting local and moving away from national retailers is the key to this future.
The biggest threat to bees from neonics comes from the use of neonics as a seed treatment in agriculture. This is especially true if the proper sticker isn’t used.
[…] thought crossed my mind when I re-tweeted a link from Garden Rant last week about the neonecontinoid pesticides and bees. Then I heard a story on […]
I can’t imagine that big box workers and customers who walk the isles of these pesticides aren’t being sickened.
A healthy garden should have 10-20% of plants eaten by bugs. That’s nature. No bugs is bad. A balance of bugs is good.
When I started gardening I used these chemicals (sevin, malathion) and learned the hard way that killing all bugs doesn’t work.
But I think this knowledge isn’t new. I think serious gardeners have always know that we need to work in concert with nature.
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