Northbrook official: Consider restricting bee-threat chemical

A Northbrook trustee said April 19 that he will ask the village’s staff to investigate restricting use of pesticides linked to the deaths of significant numbers of bees. Trustee Robert Israel said he made his decision after attending “Save Bees, Save the World,” an April 16 program sponsored by the nonprofit Northbrook Farmers Market Association.

“The issue of taking out these pesticides, these poisons, I’d like to see it addressed,” Israel said. “I’d like to figure out the best way to do it. Put the facts together, ask staff the best way to do it, get something moving.”

The Northbrook Farmers Market program drew a standing-room crowd of 90 people, said to be the largest gathering for any “green” event ever held at the Northbrook Public Library. It featured the short film “Keep the Hives Alive,” which described apiaries devastated by bee illnesses.

“If we save the insects – the bees, the other pollinators, then we save the environment,” Northbrook Farmers Market Manager Dale Duda said, in introducing the program. “We have clean water, we have clean air, we have clean food, and we are basically saving our world.”

David and Phong Saad of Elgin’s Saad’s Bees, and Verd Nolan, a farmer and beekeeper of Northbrook’s The Organic Gardener, headlined the event.

Saad’s Bees sells honey and honey-related products at the Northbrook Farmers Market, which is open Wednesdays 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. starting June 20, at Meadow Road and Cherry Lane.

“Have you heard of colony collapse disorder?” Phong Saad asked the crowd. “That’s the disappearance of the bees. A lot of it is from pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and the big one is ‘neonics.’”

Bees are already challenged without the pesticides, Nolan noted. He said that he lost bees last winter due to a long stretch of extreme cold. The Saads said they fight Varroa mites, which hitchhike on bees’ chests. Those, Duda said, are on the rise due to global warming.

The film told of some beekeepers losing over 30 percent of their hives to contamination by the nicotine-like pesticides, threatening the pollination of crops. It also described the successful passage of a resolution by the city of Shorewood, Minn., to ban the use of “neonics” on municipal property by the municipality, an example that interested Northbrook Trustee Israel, he said.

The 2014 resolution, and others in that state, preceded Minnesota’s statewide executive order to ban the use of the pesticides on all government properties.

“Sooner or later, if you have enough community actions, state agencies have to enact uniform regulations,” Bret Adee, a California apiary executive and president of the Pollinator Stewardship Council, said April 19. “Otherwise, it’s too much of a patchwork.”

A statewide ban on the use of neonicotinoids on public lands was introduced in the Illinois General Assembly in 2016. It stalled despite widespread support, including local representatives Elaine Nekritz (now retired), Laura Fine and Robyn Gabel, and State Sen. Daniel Biss. The bill was refiled in early 2017, but has been stuck in the House Rules Committee for over 12 months.

Adee said that he knew of no Illinois town which has restricted use of neonicotinoids. He said that even if Northbrook’s public works department doesn’t use them now, that might change, and the village should still pass an ordinance limiting their use.

“It’s a statement,” he said. “It’s like the saying goes: No army can stop an idea whose time has come.”

One of the key sources of neonicotinoid residue in plants is the treatment of seeds with the chemical as a prophylactic measure, Phong Saad said. Some garden centers now label packets of seeds that are treated with the pesticide, she added.

Adee said that Ontario, Canada has a good plan to reduce seed treatment, as well as spraying, in agricultural settings.

“Farmers have to scout the field and prove they have a parasite there,” he said. “If they have, they get a prescription (for chemicals). If not, they get seeds that are not treated. It saves them money. The same goes for the spraying.”

Chemical companies have disputed the effect of the pesticides on bees.

“Many field trials from different groups of scientists have proven that crops which have been seed-treated with neonicotinoids do not harm the health of honey bee colonies under realistic conditions,” Dr. Christian Maus, Global Lead Scientist Bee Care at Bayer CropScience, said in a recent company publication.

The Northbrook Farmers Market’s Duda said the April 16 bee event was not intended as “a how-to on beekeeping,” but as an informational program on threats to bees and other pollinators. But a show of hands indicated several attendees were interested in beekeeping, including Israel.

He said he was previously concerned about chemicals’ effects on beneficial insects, and of any possible effect of beekeeping on “good neighbor relationships” in Northbrook, which has little regulation of the practice. So far, he said, such regulation hasn’t appeared necessary.

By Irv Leavitt
Able Mouse Media