Posted: Sat Mar 20, 10 6:55 pm Post subject: BBKA caught backing the wrong horse
New research from China has shown that synthetic pyrethroids - the same chemicals that we have been told to use in our hives against Varroa for the last 30 years, and the same chemicals that the British Bee Keepers Association cheerfully endorse as 'bee friendly' - are in fact toxic to bees and it has now been shown that 'the hatch rate of pyrethroid-exposed eggs was significantly depressed'.
This immediately raises the questions: why was this research not done BEFORE we were told to use them in our hives. And if it was done, how were the manufacturers allowed to fudge and/or conceal the results for so long?
Is it because - in the words of Dr L R B Mann, who was for 12 years advisor on toxins to the New Zealand Ministry of Health, "the chemical industry is, as an historical tendency, a refuge for crooks"?