> Jim, if the [PEI] beekeepers who were asking for 
> a moratorium on imidacloprid were not convinced 
> that it was a problem, then what would be our 
> motivation for "telling a tale"?

> "Telling a tale" implies that you think we 
> had some ulterior motivation.

It was not my intent to accuse the PEI beekeepers
of having any type of ulterior motive.  

I don't doubt for a moment that some PRI beekeepers
were convinced.  But this did not make their views
any less improbable in light of what is known about
these pesticides.  So, while some beekeepers on
PRI certainly believed the tale, they themselves
were merely repeating a tale told to them.

I've suffered my share of pesticide kills, so I
understand how otherwise peaceful men who 
wouldn't hurt a bee or a fly could get caught 
up in the righteous fury of pent-up frustration 
at the use (and consistent misuse!) of pesticides.  

I'll defer to Dick Marron of CT, who is both a 
beekeeper and a psychologist on this, but I
posted a link a week ago to a study that may 
explain how this sort of thing happens:

http://tinyurl.com/4myeyf
or
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/10/03/control-study.html

So, localized losses led to a predictable feeling of 
hopelessness, and a factor outside the beekeepers'
control was blamed, complete with an international
conspiracy theory to explain how "the truth" was 
being "covered up".

None of this happened spontaneously of course - the 
beekeepers of PEI had Sharon Labchuk to stir them
up and exploit them for her own longstanding fringe
political purposes.  The news reports from France
also fueled the brush fires.

Not all beekeepers on PEI were taken in by the
easy answer of blaming pesticides, among them
Dr. Robert Coffin and Joyce Coffin.  

Here's a fairly decent summary of the dispute, one that
offers a cogent explanation of multiple other factors
that could have had the same net effect on the hives.

http://tinyurl.com/5gohxn
or
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6685/is_/ai_n29195483?tag=artBody;co
l1



I also think it is very interesting that Bob H. made
the following points without noting how crucial the 
points might be to his stated problems:

> I was also told temik is easily available 
> in Florida even by the truck load and off 
> label use is done often.

> Very little is tightly monitored in Florida 
> including temik.

> legislators have passed laws to cover about
> every problem but are lax in enforcement of most!

> If new rules are passed to rein in big ag then 
> lobbyists lobby to reduce the number of inspectors 
> or let the industry regulate itself.

Sounds to me like criminal misuse of pesticides could
be a significant factor in why Bob has seen so many 
problems with bees on oranges.

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