Charles, can you tell us what pesticide testing he is doing?



Yes,  The BIP does a very intensive sampleing of pollen  and wax samples for pesticides.  I am not sure how you get selected,  but My hives have been tested for 3 years in a row<  I know Mark also mentioned he got his results.   There are about 70 pesticides they check for.
2 years completely clean,  this last year I tested real high for a fungicide (wet year)  

I find it great as I am in the deepest darkest area of neonics,  and keep testing zeros....

I do wish Dennis would show or share the data with us on where the positive samples are.  He knows and will tell the levels,  but what would be awesome is to see a scatter chart of where the problem areas are.

The cool thing is you can't lie or be wrong.  Its not beekeeper skills being tested!



Przemek,   I am not sure its always been that high everywhere.  History does show that it probably was.  We see loss info from guys like Dolittle and smith and Dadant,  but we fail to recognize they (the ones that wrote) were the winners in the beekeeping world.  So their losses were not quite typical,  they were way above average.   When we look as beekeeping as a whole the losses may be higher,  but its not unsustainable,  and the only way we will know in the future is if stuff like BIP gets refined.   

I agree a lot of the surveys are just crap to pull you in.  but with the BIP that is not whats going on.  

The problem is the surveys are worded poorly for commercial guys.  Horrible in fact.  They are collecting the wrong data.   We have the same problem her in IL with our state info.  It ask some really dumb questions.   I love the detail  "how many hives did you have in IL on March first?"   my usual answer ?  Zero  my hives are in CA yet then.....my yard registration shows about 100 hives,  I own a darn lot more than that!  Not lying about it  just the questionare is stupid.   BIP suffers a bit of the same,  but is getting better!




Charles

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