Tom Barrett wrote:

> If bees travel say 2 miles

> If all of this area is controlled by the beekeeper

> can anybody tell me or anybody else in all honesty that the bees will pick up nectar from forage
> which has not been affected by pesticides in such a vast area?



Honesty implies knowledge of the facts - all honesty is beyond my
comprehension.

I think it would be impossible to know with 100% certainty whether your
criteria has been met. But, I think probability would be a useful tool.
The more area, as a function of the radius from the colony, the
beekeeper controlled as compared to the limits of the bee's inclination
to forage, the greater the probability that the bees collected from the
controlled area. If you controlled an area of 5 mi radius from a colony
and bees are generally considered to limit their flights to 3 mi,
chances are you control 100% of their food supply. Of course this
assumes there are no roadways within this area since
township/county/state maintenance usually involves some sort of spray
program.

I recall as a kid watching 'city folk' picking blackberries along the
roads in the country where I grew up knowing that the county had sprayed
just a few days earlier. But, I digress...



AL