>In the abstract of that paper they say "Interactions between pesticides and

> pathogens could be a major contributor to increased mortality of honeybee
> colonies, including colony collapse disorder and other  pollinator declines
> worldwide".  The pesticide used in the experiments was imidacloprid.


Thanks Stan.  The problem is that the abstract doesn't give the full story.

The paper also states that: "At the end of
10 weeks, eight of 30 [colonies in the experiment] tested positive for
Nosema but there
was surprisingly no relationship between Nosema infection
and imidacloprid treatment which would have been predicted
by the lab study."

I've spoken with the authors at length about this study and other trials
that they've run.  They told me that it is really difficult to cause
demonstrable harm to a colony even with continual feeding of
imidacloprid-spiked syrup or pollen.  The colonies in this trial which were
fed imidacloprid continuously for ten weeks remained in apparent excellent
health.  I hate to speak for the authors, but they have frequently made the
point at conferences that it is difficult to extrapolate lab results of
neonic toxicity to colonies in the field.

Since they only tested a single insecticide, they had no idea as to whether
any other pesticide, or other stressor would also show the same results in
the lab.  So they were very careful to entitle the paper "Pesticide
exposure..." rather than "Exposure to imidacloprid...."

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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