Bee colonies are un­der at­tack from the mis­use of bee-tox­ic pes­ti­cides yet hon­ey seems to be abun­dant in T&T be­cause of thriv­ing con­tra­band trade.

The cheap, low-qual­i­ty hon­ey comes from Venezuela, Grena­da and oth­er Caribbean is­lands and has been de­scribed as one of the most lu­cra­tive con­tra­band trades in the coun­try, ac­cord­ing to in­dus­try ex­perts.

But while law en­force­ment agen­cies in­ves­ti­gate, very few hon­ey smug­glers have been charged and very lit­tle test­ing has been done to de­ter­mine whether hon­ey smug­gled in­to the coun­try is safe for con­sump­tion.

Of­fi­cials from the T&T Bee­keep­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion are urg­ing the au­thor­i­ties to help save bee colonies by ban­ning the use of bee-tox­ic pes­ti­cides.

In an in­ter­view, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the T&T’s Bee­keep­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion Vear­na Gloster said bees as­sist in pol­li­na­tion and are an in­te­gral part of the agri­cul­ture in­dus­try.

As a third gen­er­a­tion crop farmer and first gen­er­a­tion bee­keep­er, Gloster said she has no­ticed the de­cline of bee colonies for the past 14 years.

“I have been ob­serv­ing the ups and downs of the in­dus­try and the many chal­lenges faced by bee­keep­ers with both the in­flux of il­le­gal hon­ey and death of bees due to the many pes­ti­cides and weed­i­cides used by crop farm­ers,” she said.

Gloster said the pes­ti­cides used in yes­ter­years had no im­pact to bee colonies yet to­day, thou­sands of bees are dy­ing.

“In 2006 when a new­ly-es­tab­lished api­ary was just a stone’s throw away from the crops, there were ab­solute­ly no bee deaths to our colonies. In con­trast to­day, we have crop farm­ers and bee­keep­ers in close prox­im­i­ty due to lead space and/or land shar­ing and we find that there are many deaths to bee colonies. Hence, we are in a dire need to bridge the gap be­tween crop farm­ers and bee­keep­ers to lob­by for the need for more bee-friend­ly pes­ti­cides in our coun­try,” she added.

Gloster said, “The larg­er na­tions are ban­ning the use of those neon­i­coti­noid ‘cides’ which were wreak­ing hav­oc among their bee colonies but we are some­how be­ing af­fect­ed by it now.”

She called on the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture to stop the trend of reg­is­ter­ing bee-tox­ic pes­ti­cides.

“They may be cheap­er and bring in the bet­ter crop sprays but in the long run they will hurt the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor,” Gloster said.

She not­ed that crop farm­ers and bee­keep­ers can work to­geth­er to help to make the en­vi­ron­ment health­i­er for all.

With re­gard to the in­flux of il­le­gal hon­ey, Gloster said, T&T’s bee­keep­ers were suf­fer­ing be­cause a cheap­er ver­sion of hon­ey is now be­ing sold in su­per­mar­kets, health stores and on the road­sides.

Un­der a 1947 Act of Par­lia­ment, hon­ey from abroad is banned from be­ing im­port­ed in­to T&T. Gloster said this pro­tects bees from dis­ease as well as pro­tects the lo­cal hon­ey trade but with the in­flux of il­le­gal hon­ey, those in the api­cul­ture busi­ness are suf­fer­ing.

Con­stant sur­veil­lance of
il­le­gal trade—Ramb­harat

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Ma­rine Re­sources, Clarence Ramb­harat said a re­view of the chem­i­cals and pes­ti­cides im­port­ed in­to the coun­try will be un­der­tak­en via the pes­ti­cides and Tox­ic Chem­i­cals Con­trol Board.

“There is con­stant sur­veil­lance of the il­le­gal trade in hon­ey by Cus­toms and Ex­cise, Min­istry of Health, Pub­lic Health Di­vi­sion and the An­i­mal Pro­duc­tion and Health Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry. Con­sumers are al­ways re­mind­ed to pur­chase hon­ey from reg­is­tered api­aries,” Ramb­harat said.

Asked whether the il­le­gal hon­ey was be­ing test­ed, Ramb­harat said, “The Chem­istry Food and Drug Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Health is the en­ti­ty re­spon­si­ble for the test­ing of food prod­ucts for food safe­ty.”

He said Plant Quar­an­tine (PQ) is a sup­port ser­vice to the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and it as­sists Cus­toms in the ex­am­i­na­tion of con­tain­ers which are known to con­tain agri­cul­ture prod­ucts.

“PQ of­fi­cers are al­so based at the main ports and air­ports to pro­vide sup­port in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, seizure and de­struc­tion of il­le­gal agri­cul­ture prod­ucts. There are suf­fi­cient PQ of­fi­cers to pro­vide this sup­port,” he added.

Harm­ful pes­ti­cides

Neon­i­coti­noid pes­ti­cides have been killing off bee colonies and birds but are deemed the most ef­fec­tive in the con­trol of pests.

They are called neon­i­coti­noid be­cause they con­tain nico­tine-like chem­i­cals which act on the ner­vous sys­tems of in­sects.

Im­i­da­clo­prid, a neon­i­coti­noid chem­i­cal, is wide­ly used in agri­cul­ture to ex­ter­mi­nate pests.

The neon­i­coti­noid fam­i­ly in­cludes ac­etamiprid, cloth­i­an­i­din, im­i­da­clo­prid, niten­pyram, nithi­azine, thi­a­clo­prid and thi­amethox­am but im­i­da­clo­prid is the most wide­ly used in­sec­ti­cide in the world.

Neon­i­coti­noid use has been linked in a range of stud­ies to ad­verse eco­log­i­cal ef­fects, in­clud­ing hon­ey-bee colony col­lapse dis­or­der (CCD) and loss of birds due to a re­duc­tion in in­sect pop­u­la­tions.

The typ­i­cal lev­els of neon­i­coti­noids found in agri­cul­tur­al ar­eas kill bees and hurt their abil­i­ty to re­pro­duce.

Re­cent stud­ies by the Eu­ro­pean Food Safe­ty Au­thor­i­ty (EF­SA) have con­firmed the risk to bees and is now banned in Eu­rope.