> It is a lot more productive to treat for varroa than to make up facts about neonics or any other pesticide being a problem for my bees.

I am glad that neonics are not a problem for you Richard.  But I think
you do a disservice to some beekeepers that DO have a problem with
neonics by assuming that their problems stem from not keeping varroa
under control.  The PMRA clearly found that in the year when there was
a very dry spring neonics were the cause of spring losses in Ontario.
Bayer has paid out compensation to beekeepers in Germany and Italy
from losses that were clearly from neonics.

The sub lethal effects are not as clear and so much more
problematical, but you are or were a chemist and a scientist, and so I
would think that the fact that there are several hundreds of papers on
sub lethal effects that rang alarm bells in the 29 scientists that
reviewed them might make you rethink accusing beekeepers who are
having problems and looking at neonics as contributing to them of
"making up facts".

I have a lot of hives and have had them for many years.  Although I do
not blame neonics for any problems at present, I still am convinced
that they caused me a lot of losses in the past at the time when
foliar spraying and soil injection was the way that they were applied.
Varroa was never a problem at that time.  It had just come to PEI and
was easily controlled by fluvalinate strips and it was too early for
residue from the strips to be affecting the bees.  If the products
caused problems for me at the concentrations they were using then, but
are tolerable at the lower concentrations they now use, that does not
give me a lot of confidence in them.  And I also remember that I did
NOT have much bee kill from the sprays used before neonics,  despite
the fact that potato fields were sprayed regularly because bees do not
visit potatoes and the fields do not have weeds in them.

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