Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides !
Come to the Green Tent this Sunday, September 28, and learn about what you can do to eliminate a dangerous new class of toxic chemicals from our soils, our foods and our bodies.
In just 2 minutes you can complete an action step toward saving the bees and other pollinators.
The Problem:
A critical problem affecting the bees is that they are increasingly exposed to a relatively new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids (neonics). These chemicals have been used in exponentially increasing quantities in the last few years and studies definitively link loss of bees to exposure to neonics. Some bees experience acute toxicity from directly sprayed crops and die right away, while others are chronically exposed as they collect pollen from flowers grown from neonics-treated seeds.
Neonics are neurotoxins. In addition to weakening bee immune systems and making them more susceptible to disease, the neonics disorient the bees meaning they can’t find their way back to their hives. And unfortunately the NIC in neonics acts just like nicotine in cigarettes – it can be addictive to bees. So bees are exposed and then go back and back again to plants that have been treated, increasing their exposure and speeding up the die off.
The Solution
To fully save the bees we need to phase out and then ban the use of neonics and we need to ensure that they are not replaced with equally or more dangerous chemicals. Common sense alternatives exist, like altering the time of planting and watering, and planting more native species, but big big agrichemical companies like Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Bayer and Syngenta are fighting to prevent bans.
Thankfully, many legislative bodies have already begun the process of removing this deadly chemical from our lands. The European Union has banned several of them; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has committed to phasing them out on the public lands they manage; and cities like Seattle and states like Maryland and Connecticut have taken action as well.
In order to restore bee populations to health and save our food supply, we need states and cities to ban the sale of bee-killing pesticides. In California, we’re focused in particular on closing the loophole that has allowed companies to continue to sell neonics-coated seeds, an issue the state is required to address with new legislation proposals by February of 2026. And on a local level, we’re looking to expand the number of “Bee Friendly” cities and campuses across the state.
How?
With many strategies including
Petitions
Press conferences
Lobbying with statewide leaders
Volunteering
Canvassing
Organizational History:
Our partner groups Environment America and U.S. PIRG both have a history of working on pesticides and bee-killing pesticides. Environment America has organized chefs and restaurateurs in support of a Bee Friendly Food Alliance. And U.S. PIRG has a long history of working on pesticides, mostly from a public health perspective, and in this case from a food supply perspective. The last time this campaign was run in California, we got several universities and cities registered as “Bee Friendly”, and got legislation passed to ban the commercial sale of neonics sprays in private gardens.
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