<story><title>EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/27/eu-agrees-total-ban-on-bee-harming-pesticides</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>exabrial</author><text>From a family of hive owners: Not sure this will have any sort of meaningful impact except raise prices elsewhere... It&amp;#x27;s a grand gesture, but the science just isn&amp;#x27;t there. The real problems are mites, which we do not have any sort of effective treatment for, and decreased biodiversity as African bees continue to push into North America.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>narrator</author><text>What would convince you that neonicotinoids kill bees?  A study recently done at Purdue University perhaps?[1]&lt;p&gt;Pesticides are absurdly politicized.  The amount of ridicule and PR flak pesticide critics get is insane.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pollinatorstewardship.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;Krupke-et-al-2017-neonic-corn-seeds.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pollinatorstewardship.org&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/27/eu-agrees-total-ban-on-bee-harming-pesticides</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>exabrial</author><text>From a family of hive owners: Not sure this will have any sort of meaningful impact except raise prices elsewhere... It&amp;#x27;s a grand gesture, but the science just isn&amp;#x27;t there. The real problems are mites, which we do not have any sort of effective treatment for, and decreased biodiversity as African bees continue to push into North America.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>olliej</author><text>Varroa are the big problem for &amp;#x2F;honey bees&amp;#x2F;. Honey bees are not the most significant pollinators (they’re technically fairly innefficient pollinators compared to other bees - bumble, carpenter etc)&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of pollination is via non-bee insects, but just reducing the destruction of wild bees will help at least.&lt;p&gt;As for mite treatment you may want to look into oxalic acid, although it’s not technically approved for use in hives (despite being less harmful than regular mite pads)</text></comment>