A Win for the Bees — and People, Food, and Water, Too

Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law in October that bans the over-the-counter sale of lawn and garden “neonic” pesticides starting in 2025. The unprecedented decline of bee populations fueled the pressure to pass the Pollinator Protection Act to restrict the use of neonicotinoids, a poison whose use has been so great that the risk of surface water contamination is increasing.

The Pollinator Protection Act — written by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D–16th), sponsored by Environment California and the National Resources Defense Council, and supported with 35,000 petition signatures — places California 10th in the country to take action against neonicotinoid pesticides. While this legislation targets recreational use, professional application will still be legal.

The neonic class of pesticides “are systemic chemicals absorbed into plants [and] can be present in pollen and nectar, making them toxic to pollinators that feed on them,” the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation states. Neonics disrupt the nervous system of insects, whether targeted or not targeted, causing paralysis and death. Research shows that neonics are 1,000 times more toxic than DDT to insects, including the one-third of native bee species currently at risk of extinction.

Laura Deehan, state director for the nonprofit Environment California, said in a press statement: “Taking these pesticides off the shelves is a critical step to saving the bees. We can now promise our pollinators, who play such a critical role for our ecosystems from the coast to the mountains, a safer Golden State.”

Santa Barbara’s beekeeper community believes every step to protecting pollinators is an important one, especially one that targets the three main factors that lead to their death: pesticides, parasites, and poor nutrition.

“The pesticide problem is systemic,” said Tami Jauchen, the education director for the Beekeepers Guild in Santa Barbara and a 13-year beekeeper. She added that pesticide regulation “relies heavily on proper education to use them in the least deadly way.” She said she frequently encountered professionals in Santa Barbara who spray pesticides in the middle of the day when bees are most active. To protect pollinators, it is essential that any spraying be done in the morning or night, Jauchen said.

Bee populations are at an all-time high in Santa Barbara, Jauchen said, though she and beekeepers in Montecito have experienced massive die-offs to their hives. They believed their bees had landed on plants still wet from pesticides, leading to deaths in just a few hours. Proper education combined with legislative action could make a change, they hope.

An earlier version of the Pollinator Protection Act had been rejected in 2022. The Department of Pesticide Regulation had been tasked a dozen years before to evaluate neonics on native pollinator populations. However, the researchers only adequately studied one species: the California honey bee that was already suffering noticeable effects from pesticides. That bill went unsigned in part because of the DPR’s failure to evaluate neonicotinoid effects on the other 1,600 species of native pollinators.

The synthetic neurotoxic insecticide is utilized “prophylactically,” whether needed or not, on agriculture crops, lawns, gardens, golf courses, and in flea and pet treatments. The broad-spectrum insecticide was introduced in the 1980s with few guidelines. It has now made its way into 97 percent of Southern and Central California’s urban water samples, according to Environment California, which compiled a map displaying where water is now contaminated. Out of the 155 water samples taken in Santa Barbara since 2010, 94 percent contained high concentrations of neonics.

Along with water, neonic residue is present in “86 percent of U.S. honey, and they show up in popular produce like apples, cherries, and strawberries,” stated a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 

For bees, the physical damages from this pesticide are vast, but it affects humans, as well. A sublethal dose can “cause immune deficiencies, disorientation, making it hard for bees to forage, fly, return to their hive and complete other essential tasks such as ridding themselves of parasitic varroa mites,” Environment America found in a study. Research has also found the effects on humans to cause neurological damage, muscle tremors, lower testosterone levels, altered insulin regulation, and changes to fat metabolism.

A win for the bees is undeniably a win for all living things, or as Nick Wigle of Super Bee Rescue stated, “Everyone should use the safest and least toxic option possible. Good bugs live in the same places as pests, and without good bugs like bees, we won’t have anything to eat.”