I've been surprised not to have seen this data from any of the activists.
From:
From: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/honey_bees/downloads/2011_National_Survey_Report.pdf
99 samples of pollen taken from the broodnest (not trapped pollen) in 11 states.
Almost 1/3 had Amitraz metabolites present...I'm not sure what the levels found indicate.
What seemed out of whack with other data that I have seen was the level of Imidacloprid found in this stored pollen. 9.1% had imidacloprid, with an average of 30.8ppb.
I don't know the pharmacokinetics of how stored pollen moves through the superorganism, but I imagine that under some circumstances this would certainly be acutely toxic to individual bees (and brood?), and perhaps to the entire colony.
I'm not a "ban the neonics" kind of guy....but I also think of levels like these as higher than "field realistic". There may be some skewing of the data (I'm sure there is), but this is worth a closer look.
deknow
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