The Bees Have Vanished: Will We Be the Next to Disappear? | Event Registration

In March this year, the topic of pesticide spraying on rapeseed causing losses for beekeepers sparked widespread discussion. Beekeepers witnessed large patches of dead bees, and public attention began turning to the impact of pesticides on pollinating insects. But beyond the visible deaths, there is a more insidious form of disappearance: the bees do not die in the hive — entire colonies vanish, leaving behind empty, silent hives.

Professor Lü Chensheng of Harvard University and his research team discovered through their experiments that sustained intake of low doses of neonicotinoid insecticides impairs mitochondrial health in bees and ultimately leads to the disappearance of entire colonies — a phenomenon later named Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

◉ Inspecting an experimental hive overwintering. Photograph: Richard Callahan

Moreover, pesticides do not remain outside the hive, meaning the impact extends far beyond bees alone.

With the widespread adoption of seed coating technology, systemic pesticides enter the plant at the seed stage and, throughout the crop’s growth cycle, migrate into soil, water, pollen, and air, affecting insects of every size across the food chain and ultimately reaching the human table and entering the human body. Professor Lü Chensheng’s own testing in China confirmed traces of neonicotinoid insecticides in water sources, soil, common fruits and vegetables, and even in the blood of pregnant women.

When a pesticide can move from seed to plant, from plant to environment, and from environment to the table, what it ultimately affects is not merely agricultural production but the land, our food, and our health.

◉ Maize seeds coated with neonicotinoid insecticides. Photograph: Lü Chensheng

Seed companies represented by Monsanto have strengthened their control over agricultural production by binding pesticides to seeds, while also introducing ecological and health risks. Yet regulatory oversight remains inadequate, and policy continues to favour agribusiness capital. Why, before a new pesticide is deployed on a large scale, does the government not conduct a comprehensive assessment — including its impact on all organisms within the ecosystem and on humans themselves?

Bees and humans share the same environmental system; the problems that surface in bees first may well be the very problems humanity will eventually confront. Professor Lü Chensheng has turned his experimental work and subsequent reflections into the popular-science book The Vanishing Bees, hoping to use the bees’ disappearance as a reminder for humanity to find a better balance between the benefits and harms of pesticide use.

2 pm, Sunday 31 May, at DT51 RDV Bookshop, Beijing — Foodthink invites Professor Lü Chensheng, author of The Vanishing Bees, to explore with us the ecological and health consequences of extensive pesticide use, starting from the bees; and to examine how seed companies shape agricultural policy and regulation, so we can rethink the relationship between food, people, and the environment in modern agriculture.

Lü Chensheng | Currently a Distinguished Professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Resources and Environment, Southwest University, a Distinguished Expert appointed by the Chongqing Municipal Government, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health. Before returning to China full-time in 2018, he served as Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and Associate Professor at the Emory University School of Public Health. His primary research areas include population pesticide exposure and health risk assessment, the survival and safety of pollinating insects in stressed environments, and the development, testing, and application of biomarkers for transgenerational toxic inheritance.

Tianle | Founding editor of Foodthink and convener of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.

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