(NaturalNews) As the European Union considers whether to lift restrictions on three pesticides in the neonicotinoid family, it would do well to consider the phenomenon, known to Canadian beekeepers, in which bees start dying in droves shortly after corn planting season.

"Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions," said beekeeper Dave Schuit in summer 2013, as reported by Eat Local Grown.

That spring, Schuit lost 600 hives containing 37 million bees. The same year, Canadian farmer Gary Kenny said that eight of the 10 beehives that he kept on his property died shortly after his neighbors planted corn in their fields.

Genetically modified (GM) corn is widely planted in Canada, but because the bee deaths occurred just after planting, the corn plants are not likely to blame for this particular die-off. Instead, beekeepers believe the cause is that the corn seeds were pre-treated with neonicotinoids. Air seeding causes neonicotinoid dust to fly off the seeds and into the air, drifting across the landscape.
 

Numerous studies point finger at neonics

In one study, researchers from American Purdue University examined the bees that died or were dying as part of the spring 2013 die-off. "Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms, analysis of dead bees revealed traces of [the neonicotinoids] thiamethoxam/clothianidin in each case," they wrote. "Seed treatments of field crops (primarily corn) are the only major source of these compounds."

A local Pest Management Regulatory Agency investigation also pointed to the same cause, concluding that corn seeds treated with those neonicotinoids "contributed to the majority of bee mortalities."

"The air seeders are the problem," said Paul Wettlaufer, a local farmer and director of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

Neonicotinoids are "systemic pesticides." They are applied to the seeds prior to planting, and then taken up into every tissue of the plant, including leaves, seeds, pollen, flowers and nectar. This makes them highly lethal not just to agricultural pests, but to all insects, and even birds that visit the plants for any reason.

"Large scale prophylaxic use [of neonicotinoids] in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers ... put pollinator services at risk," concluded one international research study.