Fooling some of the people all of the time

My email has brought me some interesting news relating to neonicotinoid insecticides. I received a message from the Friends of Newton Cemetery announcing that they’re creating a pollinator garden with a grant from Bayer. The cemetery is a beautiful park, generously open to the public. I wondered whether its horticultural staff knew that their garden to provide forage for pollinators was to be funded by one of the world’s top manufacturers and sellers of pollinator-killing neonics.

Newton Cemetery October 2017

    Bayer makes the best-selling neonic, imidacloprid, sold as Admire, Advantage, Confidor, Gaucho, Merit, Hachikusan, Kohinor, Premise, Prothor, and Winner. 

Merit

They also sell two other successful neonics, clothianidin and thiacloprid. Despite mounting scientific evidence, Bayer has consistently denied that neonics harm pollinators, including bees. They blame other factors, such as varroa mites, for the bee die-off. Their Bee Care Program and the entity that made the grant to Newton Cemetery, FeedABee, seem to be part of a campaign to combat negative publicity for Bayer’s insecticide products. Viewed in this light, the gift to the cemetery seems less community spirited.

How dumb do they think we are?

    But a pollinator garden is a good thing. I don’t see why the cemetery can’t accept Bayer’s money for an environmentally positive project. They just shouldn’t use it to buy plants treated with Bayer’s products, or other neonics. The insecticides persist for years in treated plants. Bees that contact them die or suffer neurological damage. 

Neonics can kill whole colonies or do more subtle harm

    I wrote back to the Friends of Newton Cemetery to ask whether they’ve found a source of reliably neonic-free annuals and perennials. In my experience, this has been a difficult quest, but a necessary one. Who wants a pollinator garden that kills pollinators?

I grew these marigolds from organic seed, so I know they won't kill bees

    Meanwhile, there’s some good news on the horizon about neonics. The Massachusetts legislature is considering a bill to ban the direct sale of the insecticides to consumers in our state. I was delighted to hear from my state senator, Cynthia Creem, that she cosponsored the bill, H4041, An Act to protect Massachusetts pollinators. Since the EPA hasn’t banned neonics, it’s up to the states to take action.

    Even if neonics aren’t sold directly to consumers, though, they’ll still affect insects in our gardens as long as garden centers and big box stores sell treated plants. Plant production is a global business. Wholesale nurseries source seeds all over the world. They buy tiny annual seedlings from rooting stations around the US and tissue culture products imported from as far afield as South Africa, Holland, Turkey, and Poland (tissue culture converts tiny pieces of plant tissue into large numbers of genetically identical plantlets). Giant plantations in Costa Rica and Ecuador send cuttings of perennials for US wholesalers to root and grow to saleable size.

The annuals we buy are international travelers

    As long as plants can be treated with neonics at any of these stops on their way to market, gardeners still risk exposing pollinators to the dangers of these chemicals. Home Depot has promised that its plants will be free of neonics by the end of 2018. It’s a start.