The EU And The Ban On Neonicotinoids

The use of neonicotinoids in agriculture has for many years raised many concerns about their 'side effects' on pollinating insects. Neonicotinoids, in fact, act on the nervous system of insects, inducing paralysis and eventually death. These substances also impair the bees' foraging activity, their memory and impair their ability to return to their hive. Added to this is a general weakening of their health, making them more susceptible to attack by other pathogens. Finally, they seem to be responsible for a decrease in the fertility of drones, which obviously affects the reproductive capacity of queens.

Neonicotinoids were introduced into the world of agriculture in the late 1980s, to replace other types of insecticides that were considered highly toxic and dangerous. They were designed to protect plants from those insects that ate them or sucked their sap. Their methods of use are varied, ranging from soil treatment to their spread by specific agricultural machinery, although they are mainly used in seed treatment. A critical aspect that has emerged from the outset is that they are very persistent substances that can persist for years in plants and soil. The fact that they are absorbed by every tissue of the plant (and are therefore also present in pollen and nectar) distinguishes them from all other types of insecticides.

The first doubts about the sustainability of these substances emerged in the early 2000s, while it was only in 2008 that their negative effects on bee health were denounced. This denunciation led, in Italy, to the banning of these substances for seed tanning, while at the same time various research and monitoring programmes emerged to monitor bee health and the repercussions that the use of these substances had on these pollinating insects.

This was also accompanied by action at European level. In 2013, in fact, the use of neonicotinoids (clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam) was banned on those plants whose flowers attracted bees, and were a source of nectar for them, and on other types of crops, such as maize, rapeseed and sunflower. However, there were exceptions. Neonicotinoids could still be used in greenhouses, on crops after flowering and on winter cereals. However, those who used these substances were obliged to provide data in order to be able to assess whether their use, in the permitted manner, was actually risk-free or not. All of this information was collected by EFSA, which set February 2018 as the deadline for publishing an assessment of their hazard and applicability.

The EU, called upon to take a decision on the issue of the use of neonicotinoids, should have taken a decision in December 2017, but preferred to wait for EFSA to make its conclusions public. This led to a ban on the 3 main neonicotinoids (imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam), which can only be used inside greenhouses and no longer outdoors. As announced by the European Commission, the ban on their use is mandatory for all member states and will enter into force by December 2018. The dangerousness of neonicotinodes is not the concern of the European Union alone. The US EPA is also questioning their use, while Canada has already placed limits on their use.

This is certainly good news. However, it should not be assumed that this solves all problems. The risk is that these substances will later be replaced by others that are just as harmful. In this case, we would find ourselves in the same situation that led to the banning of these insecticides. Another problem is to think that this is the only threat to bees. Disease and habitat depletion also negatively affect the health and survival of these insects. Neglecting and forgetting these problematic aspects is a mistake not to be made.

The banning of neonicotinoids is certainly a great achievement for the preservation and protection of bees, but we have seen that it is not enough. Having the health of your hives under control at all times can make all the difference, allowing you to intervene promptly to nip anomalies in the bud and prevent them from leading to the loss of the colony. 3Bee monitoring systems provide you with real-time values of important biological parameters such as temperature, weight, internal humidity and sound intensity. In this way, you are always aware of what is happening inside the hive. Discover the full functionality of 3Bee systems.