2025 has been particularly lethal year for bees, with beekeepers losing upward of 60 percent of their hives, but the neonicotinoids that kill pollinators, are also damaging human health.
"Research links neonic exposures in the womb to birth defects of the heart and brain, autism-like symptoms, and reduced cognitive abilities. Adult exposures are also associated with lower testosterone and sperm quality and count, altered insulin regulation, and changes to fat metabolism," according to the National Resources Defense Council.
This is alarming, given that over 95 percent of pregant women have neonics in their bodies, with the highest levels in Hispanic women, and levels are on the rise.
Beware: drinking water treatment does not remove neonics from water.
TAKE ACTION: Ask your state legislator to support a ban on bee-killing neonic seed treatments!
Honey bee colony losses continue at alarming rates. In the 2023-2024 season, commercial beekeepers saw a mortality rate in their hives of 30.9 percent, which was 7.9 percentage points higher than their running 13-year average summer loss of 23 percent.
New York State made history in 2023 with the Birds and Bees Protection Act to ban neonicotinoid (neonic) coatings on corn, soybean and wheat seeds. Vermont followed, passing a similar law in 2024.
The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators has stepped up to address the crisis with legislation to restrict the use of bee-killing neonic insecticides. Across the country, bills to ban, restrict or regulate neonics have been introduced in 23 states and passed in Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
There's still more to be done, because most of these laws target home lawn and garden use. The victories in New York and Vermont are inspiring action targeted at the larger problem of agricultural use, and can be used as inspiration for other states.
What began with the collapse of bee colonies has become a full-on insect apocalypse that scientists say is “tearing apart the tapestry of life”, devastating bird populations, harming deer and rabbits, impacting human health and threatening the future of foods that rely on pollinators.
The U.S. agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to bees than it was 25 years ago and crop yields for apples, cherries and blueberries are already being reduced by a lack of pollinators.
Why? Because of Bayer’s business model: genetically modified seeds soaked in bee-killing neonic insecticides.
In the 1980s, Bayer invented synthetic neonicotinoid compounds that could be applied to the seed of a plant and remain effective for the plant’s entire lifespan.
The Environmental Protection Agency knew neonics were developmental neurotoxins, but it did nothing to protect babies. A 2001 study Bayer submitted to the EPA found that when pregnant rats were exposed to high doses of the Bayer's neonic imidacloprid, fetal brain development was impacted. The EPA then set a limit for imidacloprid at a medium dose, even though Bayer never submitted data showing that this level of exposure was safe.
By 2004, Bayer had agreements with the top genetically modified seed companies to coat their seeds with massive amounts of neonics.
By 2007, 80 percent of the corn seed sold by market-leader Pioneer (Monsanto’s rival-cum-partner) was treated with Bayer’s clothianidin-based Poncho.
By 2008, Colony Collapse Disorder was a worldwide problem.
Today, nearly all corn seeds and about half of soybean seeds are coated in neonics.
Bayer takes advantage of the fact that, in the US, seed treatments aren’t regulated as pesticides. Seed treatments used to be measured in overall neonic use, but the US Geological Survey started leaving them out in 2014.
That’s crazy, because just one corn seed can hold enough neonics to kill a quarter-million bees!
TAKE ACTION: Tell your state legislators to ban neonic seed treatments!