Pete says:

"But then, working on this type of hard problem is not as glamorous as the David vs Goliath battle between the beekeepers and Big Ag. My chief concern is, as I said, that if the neonic bans are instituted, there will be permanent harm to the relationship between beekeepers and agriculture. We need to be partners, not adversaries."

Good point!  However, if the neonics turn out to kill bees in subtle ways not being tested (let's face it, experiments are necessarily tunnel-visioned), we might later regret the resistance to banning them now.

I agree we need to be partners with agriculture.  We all need to eat.  All the same, having many ecologist friends, I also think "us scientists" need to EDUCATE, and we need to do a better job of that than we've been able to do so far.  Current mega-ag practices are just plain not sustainable.  IMHO.

Christina

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