Just to confuse matters further, there were anecdotal reports 
from Italy that pre-dated the German incident, yet made the same 
claim - that the mere planting of seed-treated corn caused hives 
to suffer pesticide kills.

The headline of the article that caught my eye was
"Cominciano le semine, muoiono le api", which translates to
"They start sowing, [and the] bees die".  The article was 
written in early April 2008.

People who work in toxicology tell me that the allegations of bee kills 
in Italy from seed treatment products go back a number of years (at
least 
since 2003) and have been aimed at several different products.  First it

was Gaucho (imidacloprid).  Then it was fipronil and thiamethoxam.  
Now it is Poncho (clothianidin).  In the past, the Italian expert panels

that have reviewed the evidence, found it insufficient to prove the
claims.

The German incident seems to be the result of a complex chain of
failures
ranging from a "glue" that did not hold the pesticide to the seed corn,
to
a higher-than-usual pesticide dosage to combat a specific pest, and a
popular model of seed drill that raised giant dust clouds with blasts
of compressed air.  All in all, the German incident was essentially
a reenactment of a Roadrunner cartoon, where products from Acme
Industries
fail on Wiley E. Coyote in bizarre and unexpected ways.

But the French admit that they banned a pesticide without any evidence
at all - that's what the "Precautionary Principle" is all about.

And Italy seems to have cried wolf several times.

It is strange that Italy would accuse the planting of seed-treated
corn of being the cause of pesticide kills well before it actually
happened in Germany.  It is just such a strange scenario, I don't
think that even any of us would have come up with it as "plausible".

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