I just had a chat with my buddy, Chris Werner, of Indian Summer honey farms in re: to issues he is having in the Claremont area of central Florida. 

He told me about his four very big mating yards he uses in his queen business. Evidently, two of the four yards are by "packing plant" groves. They pack the fruit they grow and need very nice looking fruit, which to me means, "sprayed more" , for perfect looking fruit. 
The two yards very close to these two groves have had very poor matings all along. Chris has been told by the grove owners that they haven't been spraying with the bees in the groves, but they were using neonics before then. 

I mentioned that I understand concentrations build systemically in the trees and I hear the concentrations of neonics can be exponentially higher in the nectar. It dawned on him that perhaps the grove manager wasn't deceiving him and there could be an explanation. 

The hives don't die off with huge carpets of dead bees like we used to see (at least I have in the past, but not any more), but the the queens failing to mate is perhaps a clue to individual bees not returning to hive. 

What's better? Blatant bee kills with the old pesticides or more subtle damage with the newer class pesicides, ie. neonics? 



Kirk Jones

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