>
> >and how on earth would you know whether cell builders in either
> California or Georgia were or were not exposed to neonics?


How on Earth?  Very simple--one tests for the presence of residues.  Due to
queen breeder concerns about pesticides in recent years, I've been privy to
the results of pesticide analyses from many cell builder colonies,
including that of combs, beebread, nurse bees, and royal jelly.  No detects
of neonics.  And that's why I said that I couldn't comment on the Georgia
breeders--I tend not to comment unless I have hard data on hand.

>
> >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.
>

Again, actual analytical results from urban Marin County, CA samples
suggest that neonic residues are insignificant.  Opposed to Lu's finding of
more widespread prevalence in Mass.   The Calif queen producers are far
from urban areas, and have few if any neonic-treated row crops within
flight range.

>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.
>

These queen producers are not stupid.  This has been done regularly (at
least in Calif) since the debacle with coumaphos. At least some know
exactly what sorts of residues are in their combs.  I also suspect miticide
issues may be involved, but read on.

There are often complaints of queen failures.  But here's the thing.  At
least some of these queen producers track each queen from grafting day to
buyer.  They can tell you who grafted, which cell builder, which mating
nuc, who caged the queen, etc.  And then they ship out thousands of queens
a day.

Out of a daily batch of thousands of queens, perhaps many from the same
queen mother, some recipient beekeepers may have great success, whereas
others report mass failure.  All the queens come from the same batch, so
why such differences in success when introduced into different operations?

Far more variables are added to the equation AFTER the queens leave the
hands of the breeders.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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