Information provided by Bayer CropScience news release.

This week Bayer CropScience announced that European bees are much healthier than many recent publications suggest. According to a Bayer CropScience news release, new field data from nearly 400,000 bee colonies from 21 countries in Europe and the Mediterranean show that overwintering losses of honey bee colonies – a leading indicator of general bee health – are at their lowest level in years.

According to Bayer CropScience, the non-profit honey bee research association COLOSS (prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes), which comprises more than 360 scientific professionals from 60 countries, has published new data showing that the overall mortality rate of bees in the 2013/2014 winter was nine percent – in Europe, losses below 10 percent are considered to be normal. This compares with losses between 30 and 34 percent in the UK and Belgium during the 2012/2013 winter season.

“It is great to see that our bees came out of the 2013/2014 winter in the best shape seen over the past several years,” said Dr. Christian Maus, Global Pollinator Safety Manager at Bayer CropScience in the news release. “These results are also very telling since the data relate to a season during which neonicotinoid-based crop protection products were in common use throughout Europe. This offers further evidence that these important components in a farmer’s toolbox do not impact bee health under real-life field conditions.”

The release reemphasized that neonicotinoids used in farming do not harm bees and referenced scientific studies, field monitoring data and risk assessments, that concluded that neonicotinoids don’t harm to bees if used properly.

“It seems that everyone is looking for just one culprit of reduced bee health and colony losses, but you can't point the finger of blame at a single factor. Bees are facing multiple challenges around pests and pathogens, loss of habitat, and poor farming and beekeeping practices. Pollination matters to agriculture, hence safeguarding the health of bees is a shared responsibility of all the partners involved: farmers, beekeepers and industry,” said Annette Schürmann, Head of the Bayer Bee Care Center, in the news release.

More information on the Bayer Bee Care program can be found at www.beecare.bayer.com.