Again, I would say the worry over neonics distracts from more serious concerns. Almonds and other crops receive heavy applications of fungicides which do not kill bees outright. The long term affect of fungicides stored with pollen are being documented. Many queen producers rent their bees to almond growers, or put them in almonds for buildup. Then they haul them back to the surrounding regions. 

* * *

The effects of sublethal pesticide exposure on queen emergence and virus titers
were examined. Queen rearing colonies were fed pollen with chlorpyrifos (CPF) alone
 and with CPF and the fungicide Pristine®. We chose this
combination of pesticides because we commonly detect CPF in almond pollen collected by honey
bees, and Pristine® is often sprayed.

The findings from this study suggest that queen producers should not use pollen in their queen
rearing colonies that might be contaminated with pesticides and fungicides even if the worker bees
seem to be unaffected. There could be severe reductions in queen cell capping and emergence.
Furthermore, the queens that do emerge might have DWV and thus extend the impact of pollen
contamination into the colonies headed by those queens.

DeGrandi-Hoffman, G., Chen, Y., & Simonds, R. (2013). The effects of pesticides on queen rearing and virus titers in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). Insects, 4(1), 71-89

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