Stan said:

> For a really interesting look at how imidacloprid 
> get transferred around in a colony of social 
> insects that practise trophyllaxis just as 
> honeybees do...

But if this was happening, then there would be more
than the occasional random trace level of any 
pesticides found in "CCD hives". The pesticide would
be very very detectable at high levels in dead
insects, stored food, and so on.

One can chant "sub-lethal effects" all one likes,
but there would still be a need to explain the 
sub-detectable levels of any single pesticide or 
class of pesticides in the samples taken from the
affected hives.

In these days of parts-per billion and parts-per-trillion, 
one has to at least admit that anything with an impact of 
the bees would have to show up as measurable, at least 
at the trace level.  When something is sub-detectable
with modern gear, it is not just "sub-lethal", it simply 
is not there at all.

Without a consistent appearance of pesticides in
hives with CCD-like symptoms, the data at hand tends
to compellingly exonerate imidacloprid specifically 
and neonicotinoids in general.  The data that exonerates
rather than implicates, while still not yet formally 
published, has been clearly explained and updated at 
multiple beekeeper meetings over the past year.

If anyone has any data conflicting with the data openly
discussed, they have not mentioned it in public.  The
lack of divergent data or analysis has been total.

So, call, raise, or fold, but further bluffing is 
not going to work here.  At some point in poker, 
one needs to have some cards that are worth a darn,
and at some point in science, one needs to have some
data that is worth a darn.

The time has come and gone several times for someone,
anyone to do more than sputter and accuse.  So, show 
us the data that links a pesticide to CCD in any way.

If you can't do that, please fold your hand, as this
is a high-stakes game where many farms and livelihoods
have been wagered.  No one can expect the group to
buy into a claim that something that cannot even be
detected at the parts-per-trillion level is somehow
still present in "CCD hives", and is the proximate
cause of the problem.

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