Mike summarized:

> Bob said that a pesticide kill would draw out more and more 
> foragers until none were left...

Here's a much simpler way to look at the situation.

If "no foragers are left", what about the WATER foragers?
What causes them to fail to return to the hive?
How are they picking up an acute fatal dose of the
presumed pesticide?
Are we going to postulate "fatal WATER" as a result of
run-off from the "fatal crops"?

Even a tiny split or an observation hive, both having limited 
foraging forces still send out water forager sorties, so it 
seems that water foragers are consistently focused on water,
no matter what the other demands of the colony might be,
and no matter how limited the nectar/pollen situation versus
the brood situation might become.

If it looks like a pathogen, spreads like a pathogen, and
kills like a pathogen, lets not blame a pesticide that has
well-known and well-documented symptoms not seen in CCD.

Imidacloprid poisoned hives result in bees with "the shakes".
The French beekeepers were very clear about this.
(Go read the stuff still available over on the Apiservices
website.) So far, no one has mentioned seeing even a single 
bee with "the shakes" in hives affected by CCD, and we've had
a lot of eyeballs looking at these hives.

Here's another simple question - how could hives overwintered
by Dewey Caron at U DE shown clear symptoms of CCD when first
examined in the spring of this year?  What agribusiness crop
was grown within the flight range of these "pampered" bees?

I'm no big fan of pesticide companies, I'm just a fan of facts.




 

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