The two faces of hypocrisy

On the back cover of today's Guardian newspaper.

A nice, warm, bee-friendly advert for B&Q.  Aw, bless.

In our local branch of B&Q, in the entrance, 30 litres of Bayer Provado, which contains Thiacloprid, a neonicitinoid, recently banned by the EU.

In this display there is enough pesticide to kill all the bees in the UK, 750 times over.

In 2012, several peer reviewed independent studies were published showing that neonicotinoids had previously undetected routes of exposure affecting bees including through dust, pollen, and nectar^[34] and that sub-nanogram toxicity resulted in failure to return to the hive without immediate lethality,^[35] the primary symptom of CCD. (Wikipedia)

Sub-nanogram toxicity disables a bee.  In this display pack there are 30 litres at 15% solution.  That makes 4500 cc of the substance. A nanogram is 1 billionth of a gram. So with this display we can kill 4,500,000,000,000 bees.

There are about 200,000 hives in UK managed by beekeepers who register on Beebase.  Taking these alone, that gives us about 6,000,000,000 bees.

Photo taken in B and Q Chippenham 11.05.13

Way to go, Bayer and B&Q!  You are selling, in just one store, an overkill of 750 times the UK bee population.

Of course, I am exaggerating for effect.  Not every drop would come in contact with a bee.

But the point is this: there is absolutely no need (beyond the commercial interests of Bayer and B&Q, that is) for domestic sales of these lethal products.

B&Q should withdraw them now.

Yeah, "say bye bye to bugs" indeed.