NRDC Sues EPA for Honey Bee Lab Data and EPA Approves Another Bee-Killing Pesticide

“Sometimes in combination, multiple pesticides are many times more toxic than either one would be individually ...A chemical combination can be 1,000 times more toxic than each of the individual pesticides.”

- Aaron Colangelo, Sr. Attorney, NRDC

September 25, 2008  Washington, D. C. - For two years, honey bees have been dying and disappearing in massive numbers throughout North America, Europe and spreading to other parts of the world. Half of Italy’s bee population died in 2007 and in September 2008, the Italian government issued a ban on four nicotine-based pesticides linked to honey bee deaths, including clothianidin and imidacloprid. Argentina has lost more than 30% of its bees and the  British Beekeepers Association reports that one-third of English honey bee hives did not survive through this past spring. The Association says if colony collapse disorder continues, “honey bees will disappear completely from Britain by 2018, causing calamitous economic and environmental problems.”