Finally, a study released that may help to explain why colonies sometimes
crash when placed on imidacloprid-treated crops.  It has been pretty clear
that IMD did not have a direct toxic effect.  However, when you add Nosema
ceranae to the equation, then IMD appears to increase bee mortality and
energetic stress due to nosema infection.

I have been very curious as to whether this effect could be part of the
cause for colony troubles in corn and sunflower, both here and in Europe.
However, most corn is treated with clothianidin, and that product was not
tested in this experiment.  If clothianidin had a serious effect, one would
expect to see it in the bees placed on canola in Canada.

So I take these results with interest, but caution that we do not yet jump
to wild extrapolations.  I'm looking forward to a trial with clothianidin.

Alaux 2009 Interactions between Nosema microspores and a
neonicotinoid weaken honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Randy Oliver

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