Tag: bee colony collapse disorder

Toxic Weedkiller Sprayed All Around Dunedin Reservoir Jan 2017

Toxic Herbicide A Danger To Health

Well, toxic herbicide such as RoundUp, which contains the especially harmful glyphosate, is bad in any measure for the environment and for the health.

But for a city reservoir to be poisoned all around the perimeter of the reservoir, to about three metres away from the water’s edge, is outrageous.

New Zealand is fast losing its clean green reputation.

I went for a walk with a friend yesterday. Wednesday the 25th January, 2017, from Brockville down to Concord. This is a fantastic walk, with many beautiful trees on the ridge, and wonderful views down to the coast.  However:

It was appalling to see the extent of the spraying around the reservoir, and also to witness the dying grass on both sides of the road, almost in a continuous line from Brockville down to Concord.  The reservoir was heavily sprayed, and so were the drains on the side of the road.  These drains run down to feed a stream at the bottom of the hill. So the water running down into this stream will be poisoned for several weeks, after which the council or their contractors will probably pour poison around the place all over again.

My guess is that Monsanto’s RoundUp was the herbicide used:  This is still the most widely used herbicide in New Zealand, to my knowledge.  It is very bad stuff – it has been banned in many parts of Europe, and environmentalists hope to get a complete ban on this poison before very long.

World Health Organization have indicated that glyphosate probably causes cancer. My experience indicates that it affects the digestive system, because it upsets the intestinal flora, which causes  candida overgrowth and consequent bowel problems.  It also causes skin troubles such as eczema, and excites the nervous system in an unfavourable way.  It is probably a contributing factor in people succumbing to diseases such as multiple scleroses, and Parkinson’s.

Exposure to glyphosate can also can affect the memory and cognitive functions in my experience.

Glyphosate and other toxic chemicals used in herbicides and pesticides have a harmful effect on our bees and other pollinating insects, as well as birds and animals too.

In my previous post, I wrote about dozens of bumble bees dying on the road and pavement at Kaikorai Valley.  This is not far away from the poisoned reservoir and the roads and drains which I witnessed today. Nicotinoid pesticides are well known for their bee-killing potential.  But glyphosate in commonly used RoundUp, a Monsanto product, also can kill insects and bees, especially when it is used in such large quantities over many kilometres of ground.

Hundreds of bumble bees, honey bees and other insects must have died in the massive spraying programme which has recently been implemented in our area. No wonder that our beehives are dying of bee colony collapse disorder.

And no wonder so many people get sick from strange viruses.  We will have this poison in our water supply for sure, after the reservoir area was sprayed. The wind carries spray particles near and far.  We all get affected one way or another.

I am going to return to the Dunedin Brockville dam tomorrow to take photos.  I will put some of these up on this page very soon.

Note:  Several people in my housing complex have had chest troubles in the past week or more. We live with a kilometre or so of the area which has been heavily sprayed. One old lady went into hospital with pneumonia.  Another has had flu-like sort of symptoms which have not developed into a real flu, but which have persisted nevertheless. I had a slight cough over the past week. After walking down these sprayed roads for an hour or so, I developed severe ear trouble by nightfall, with fluid in both ears. A severe pain began in my chest on the left side.  I took homeopathic Bryonia and Ferr phos in several doses, which has helped.  I visited the sprayed reservoir yesterday to take photos, after which a flu-like condition has manifested, with a lot of fluid on the chest.

 

Bumble Bees Dying In Dunedin Because Of Toxic Spray

Toxic Chemicals Poisoning Our Bees

On Tuesday, when we were still experiencing good weather in Dunedin before the storm, I came across dozens of bumble bees who were disoriented and dying all over the road and footpath down at Kaikorai Valley.  The location was the Taieri-Nairn street intersection.

These poor bees were severly incapacitated and could neither walk nor fly. It was obvious that they had been poisoned with either herbicide or pesticide.

The Kaikorai Reserve, which has the Taieri Stream running through it, is in the vicinity of this bee massacre.  The Taieri Stream actually has been piped underground at this location.

It is probable that council contractors had been spraying toxic chemicals that day, perhaps around the Kaikorai Reserve.  If not that, then it could have been contractors who were working at the Mosgiel end of the Kaikorai Valley – I had seen a dozen or so workers culling out weeds along the roadside as I came back on the bus from Mosgiel that day.  They were probably poisoning weeds as they went along the bank bordering the main road.

As the crow flies, where the contractors were culling weeks was only a few kilometres away from where I saw all these bees dying.

People need to be reminded of just how damaging using toxic chemicals in our environment really is.  We need all the bees and bumble bees that we can get.  Without bees and other pollinating insects, then we would all starve to death.

Bees are extremely sensitive to herbicides and insecticides. If they survive the flight back to their hive or nest after coming into contact with poison, then they carry the poison home, which will contaminate the hive and kill other bees which might have otherwise escaped the spray. This is a major factor in bee colony collapse disorder, where whole hives die.  If they do not die from the poison spray being brought home to the hive, then their immune systems become so weakened by the spray that they fall prey to viruses and mites which can potentially destroy the hive.

Councils should prohibit all use of toxic chemicals by their contractors, and insist on the use of manual labour and organic methods, instead of such things which damage the environment and the creatures which inhabit it.

When I came down the valley the following day, many more bees had arrived onto the road and pavement, all looking very sick and partially paralysed.  There must have been hundreds of bees who died in this incident – how many more bees, which we could not see, lay prostrate on the ground over the entire area, I wondered.

Councils would do well to begin educational programmes on how to protect our environment.

Agricultural chemicals poison our water, poison the plants which we eat, and kill off insects and birds.  Toxic herbicides and insectides also give us cancers and other diseases, especially those which affect the nervous system, such as parkinsons and multiple sclerosis.

Common old RoundUp, which contains glyphosate, is widely used all over our parks, streets and farmlands.  This has been cited as a cancer causing chemical which has been banned in some parts of Europe.