" I am just
making the point that it is difficult to find neonic free
environments."

I live in as close to a neonic free environment as exists in the US I suspect. First of all over 95% of the land within a mile of my apiary is unmanaged beech, maple, oak, tulip forest, mostly around 75 years old.  Under such forest conditions bees nearly never fly a mile.  There are two small gardens within flying distance of my hives.  Neither grows anything treated with neonics that would make either pollen or nectar that would attract honey bees.  The nearest corn or bean field is over three miles straight line distance.  I have exactly the same experience as Peter.  I either carefully control varroa to quite low levels or my hives die.  In the second year of non treatment hive death rates are 70%.  So, I treat for varroa and have few hive deaths.  It is a lot more productive to treat for varroa than to make up facts about neonics or any other pesticide being a problem for my bees.

As an aside I find swarming and supersedure to be a very ineffective varroa controls.  Hives that do either still die at very high rates unless treated for varroa.

Dick


" Any discovery made by the human mind can be explained in its essentials to the curious learner."  Professor Benjamin Schumacher talking about teaching quantum mechanics to non scientists.   "For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."  H. L. Mencken

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