Saving Bees with Spider Venom?

[Tobi]

Bio Pesticides may be the way forward, controlling insect pests on crops, while doing no harm to bees.

Newcastle University researchers found a combination of venom from the Australian Funnel Web Spider, mixed with a protein from a Snowdrop plant, creates a pesticide which is not dangerous to bees.

Read the article here:

http://www.care2.com/causes/saving-bees-...venom.html

(By the way I am dismayed -although not shocked -by the UK government's ideas about Nicotinoid pesticides being nothing to worry about.)

[Catherine]

This is great news. We cannot continue to use pesticides that kill off our bees. Without bees many things would die out.

Now how do we convince certain countries to ban the killer pesticides and seek safe solutions.

[LPC]

This is indeed interesting. Any research which might save bee colonies from collapsing is worth a very close look.

The situation in the USA is dire, as it refuses to ban nicotinoids. One of the biggest countries in the world seems to want to put its head in the sand. What is Canada's position, Catherine?

As for the UK and DEFRA - well, suffice it to say that I dubbed DEFRA as "Department for the Removal of Animals" on another forum some while ago! But at least the UK is held in check by EU rules for the moment.

[Tobi]

Yes it's very interesting, and bio pesticides sound like the way forward.
Unfortunately, taking into account how many billions of mouths there are to feed on this planet, and knowing Humankind's usual track-record....it's likely that this knowledge could lead to serious abuse of the Australian Funnel Web Spider, maybe decimating their numbers, and causing damage, if not extinction!
Unless the toxins can be synthesised.

Same goes for the Snowdrop plant.

[Catherine]

The situation in Canada is no better.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bee-re...-1.2644354

The warning signs are there, but we are not responding to them.
The land and the water are heavily contaminated. Obviously some areas are worse than others, but if our wetlands are contaminated then there is a serious problem.

They would have to develop synthetic sources of the safe pesticides. There are not enough natural sources. Or maybe there are and we have not found them yet.