<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>mikro2nd</author><text>Have you tried open-bottomed hives? The mites that get groomed off the bees fall to the ground where they&amp;#x27;re vulnerable to predators and can&amp;#x27;t crawl back up to the top of the hive to re-infest the bees. Supposedly solves the problem. I confess I have not tried it myself yet, but I&amp;#x27;m still learning, working on a very small scale in a very benign climate and have not yet experienced any significant mite problems, so ymm(likely)v.</text></comment>