Hello Richard & All,

 Ohio is filled with corn and
> we grow hundreds of acres of it ourselves.  Never sprayed a pesticide 
> once on it.

Spraying a pesticide has never been the problem. However spraying sevin on 
sweet corn while the bees are working is a problem.

The issue started in France where beeks seem to think that imidacloprid 
treated seed has caused the loss of around 120,000 hives. Some products of 
systemic insecticides were banned( much to the dismay of certain chemical 
companies).

The German beeks claim losses from misapplication (according to chemical 
companies) of similar systemic pesticides and were awarded two million 
dollars.

The U.K, has banned some systemic pesticides.

Quite a few U.S. beeks claim they have lost bees in areas in which certain 
systemic pesticides have been used and in areas of systemic pesticide 
treated seed of both corn & soybeans.

There is plenty of information on the subject in the archives.

Did you use corn seed which had a tag which said "pesticide treated seed" 
Richard? Did you look or like most farmers do and simply pour into the 
planters. Many farmers we have spoke with have never noticed the tag and if 
they did only thought the tag was meant the seed was treated to prevent some 
kind of pest damage while in the bag.

The neonicotinoids make all parts of the plant a killer of chewing insects 
and is found in both pollen & nectar.

The amounts and degree of harm to bees is not yet understood but funding 
paid for by Hagen Das is supposed to research the sub lethal effects of the 
neonicotinoids in bees.

To be fair:
Research from the makers say the dose is too low to harm bees ,

Research in Italy seems to show the opposite.

The roar against the neonicotinoids has been mostly from other parts of the 
world.

However we had around 36% of our hives crash last year and if I remember 
correctly around 30% the year before on a yet to be found problem named CCD.

Canada beeks have had similar losses but their researchers say the cause is 
NOT CCD but not sure the cause of the high losses.

So far none of the researchers can explain fully the losses but even looking 
into the neonicotinoids presents "an inconvenient truth".

In my opinion the neonicotinoids are here to stay and the most beeks can 
hope for is a few label changes. Hopefully further research will provide 
better information on if the neonicotinoids are problems to bees and what 
the sub lethal effects might be.

bob 

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