To date, there has been a paucity of evidence to support the contention that field-realistic doses of Imidacloprid have any tangible effect on bees. We have some now, fresh out of embargo: "Transient Exposure to Low Levels of Insecticide Affects Metabolic Networks of Honeybee Larvae" in PLOS ONE. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068191 I've read it through all afternoon, and run it by several genetics wonks who worked on the CCD Working Group, and we cannot find any obvious defect in the paper. The lack of a "dose response curve" is a drawback, but I suspect others will provide some additional points on the graph when they attempt to duplicate this. The work is otherwise consistent with the tools and methods known to be reliable in current genetics, no tricky bleeding edge technologies, nothing too new, experimental, or unproven. Reading as a beekeeper, the most significant paragraph seemed to be this: "Concerted Effect on Glycolytic and Carbohydrate-metabolising genes Balancing energy requirements under varying conditions necessitates coordination of lipid and glucose-metabolising pathways. We found that genes of the gluconeogenesis and glycolysis pathways have altered expression upon imidacloprid exposure ... While transcriptional changes of individual glycolytic genes have little effect on glucose flux [41], several reports indicate that coordinated changes in their expression levels occur as part of the physiological response to starvation. Diminished expression of genes involved in glycolysis has been observed in nutrient deprived Drosophila larvae [38] and can be modulated by at least two different transcription factors: the ecdysone receptor (EcR) and the estrogen-related receptor (dERR), respectively [42], [43]. The Drosophila ERR is an essential regulator of carbohydrate metabolism and a deficiency in mutant Drosophila larvae is associated with diminished ATP and triacylglyceride (TAG) levels [43]." Translation: Imidacloprid at 2 ppb messed with the bee's ability to utilize sugars, not a good thing for a flying machine that runs on a diet of almost pure sugars. I'm not calling this a smoking gun, as I lack subject-matter expertise to make a personal judgment here. But the barrel seems very warm to me, and there's a ringing in my ear. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html