doesn't sound like much.

a Mr Oliver snip...
If it were due to neonics, that would mean that the Calif and Georgia cell builder
colonies were exposed to neonics during the cell building process.

I don't know about Georgia, but this certainly doesn't happen in
California.  So any purported elevated failure rate of Calif queens would
not be the result of neonics in the cell builders, even if they did have an
effect.

my simple questions...
and how on earth would you know whether cell builders in either California or Georgia were or were not exposed to neonics?  Is either place a beekeeping edens shielded from all possible pollutants and contamination ? < given the movement of bees into and out of the almonds I suspect whatever is in one location is also in the other.  and of course if one really wanted to have some idea of 'the why' for queen failures in either California or Georgia one might first want to look into the use of beekeeper applied miticides for varroa.  

it also seem to be assumed HERE that neonics are purely an agricultural problem...  personally I would suspect that urban use of neonics is not totally insignificant and in most places the water runs down hill.

what I see here > what seem to directly effect the queens I rear here's 'short term viability' are excessively high winds, excessive temperature (at time of mating) and nutrition levels (approximately 21-30 days prior to mating which seems to directly influence drone sperm viability).  To some degree I can manage around these environmental limitations.

personally I don't loose much sleep over the potential negative impact of neonics here and at the end of the day I would always want to look at the benefits of neonics vs what ever other alternative was available.  some folks do seem to put more focus on the negative while totally ignoring the positive.  

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