Hi all, and James in particular;

Your posting in reply to mine was full of rhetoric, but did not actually
address anything in my post with facts,  which is rather below your usual
calibre of post  (I must admit I DO enjoy your rhetoric, but I also like it
when you post information that you have a great knack for obtaining.)  Did
you even read the paper at the url I posted?  

First of all, I don't believe that I have ever said that imidacloprid is the
cause of CCD.  But I do believe that it affects bees in very small amounts,
and I know that in Prince Edward Island where about one in every five acres
gets it about one year out of three, and it has a half life in the soil of
about a year, that it is definitely in the environment.

That being said, I have lost over a third of 3,200 hives this spring, and I
am NOT saying that I have CCD, nor am I blaming it on imidacloprid.  I was
too late getting my mite treatments on in the fall and went in to winter
with not enough winter bees.  Yards that were treated earlier fared not too bad.

But, if you had read the paper, you would have noticed that the termites in
the colony did not tremor and shake and become incapacitated right away with
the tiny dosage they received (so tiny it is frightening).  They continued
to share food and spread the insecticide to their hivemates.  And Bayer has
claimed for years now that this weakens the colonies and make them
susceptible to other things.

I do believe that imidacloprid caused the collapse of some of my colonies in
the past when mucc higher amounts per acre were being used.  I do not think
that it acceptable to use something with such a long half life.

>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.

I have no data pertinent to CCD, but I have posted data on imidacloprid. 
And I didn't use a lot of rhetoric, I just send the table showing that the
year after potatoes were treated in New Brunswick, bees were picking up
imidacloprid at a few parts per billions from nectar and pollen of canola
grown the next year.  Bayer never published this data and has never released
the results of a full summer of testing my hives in canola following
potatoes the next year in PEI.  This infuriates me and I wish I knew what to
do about it.  It would not cost anything to the bee research community to
make Bayer make public the research they paid for.

>  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. 

Well, I am not trying to link a pesticide to CCD.  I just think this
pesticide is problem, and that it has some rather nasty sublethal effects
that are not helping our bees health.  But, I don't feel the need to fold my
hand, because I am not playing a game.  Moreover, I have my operation and my
livelihood and the livelihood of several people that work here on the line,
so I do not appreciate that comment.

What would be useful is advice on how to make Bayer release the data from
that study.  I have repeatedly asked to researcher at the University (Jim
Kemp), and I have sent letters to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency.  Is
the University ethically involved?  Is it "science" to just publish the
results you want and bury the rest?

Stan

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