Neonicotinoid

Despite a bloc-wide ban on toxic pesticides that wipe out pollinators, several European Union member-states, including Greece, continue to export more than 10,000 tons of "bee killer" a year, mainly to poorer countries, an investigation by Greenpeace and the Swiss NGO Public Eye has revealed.

EU countries voted on April 27 for a near-total ban on insecticides blamed for killing off bee populations, in what campaigners called a "beacon of hope" for the winged insects.

Traces of toxic pesticides for bees have been found in 75 % of the honey produced around the world, according to research findings cited by Associated Press and the France press.

As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow.

By Yiannis Elafros