> I have no idea why you would not fully trust the information 
> put out by the manufacturer.  

Perhaps because the track record of the manufacturers has been to
consistently lie, and then to consistently lie about having lied.

> After all, if they lie they are subject to all kinds of 
> law suits and unfavorable regulatory actions.

These are mere costs of doing business to the manufacturers - no fine or
damage award even makes a dent in their profits, and they have learned to
stall the regulatory and legal processes to the point that a new product is
already on the market by the time the old one is "banned" by the usual set
of EU countries who are the first to act.

> ...glyphosate which has an acute toxicity in the same range as table salt

But "acute toxicity" neve was the concern, was it?   The usual concern
voiced by beekeepers is the impact of fungicides and herbicides on simple
things, like the ability of the bees to make "bee bread" with food value to
larvae when the pollen/nectar mix is contaminated with "trace levels" of
fungicides and herbicides.  The R&D community tends to look at areas other
than nutrition, as they are easier to quantify and measure:

Herbert, L. T., Vázquez, D. E., Arenas, A. & Farina, W. M. "Effects of
field-realistic doses of glyphosate on honeybee appetitive behavior". J.
Exp. Biol. 217, 3457–3464, https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.109520 (2014).

Balbuena, M. S. S. et al. "Effects of sublethal doses of glyphosate on
honeybee navigation". J. Exp. Biol. 218, 2799–2805,
https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.117291 (2015).

But even the two studies above, chosen simply because they are first in my
index, are sufficient to move us past the denial stage on agricultural
chemicals formerly considered "non-toxic" to bees.

Further, the condescension with which misinformation is ladled out in
non-responsive reply to a legitimate question is disheartening.  One need
look no further than the experience with fungicides in the almond fields to
see the progression of knowledge, from "they are harmless" only a few years
ago, to "they directly cause 2 to 3 times the mortality 10 days later vs
bees not exposed to these fungicides":

Fisher, Coleman, Hoffmann, Fritz,  Rangel "The Synergistic Effects of Almond
Protection Fungicides on Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Forager Survival"
Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 110, Issue 3, 1 June 2017, Pages
802–808, https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/tox031

The honest answer here, is "the stuff is clearly not at all harmless to
bees, but the level of damage done is still not well understood".
Spraying the stuff "near" hives is a breach of the pollination contract if
you have clearly stated "spray nothing", and if you haven't, you need to
update your agreement form.

While this rebuttal may seem a bit "over the top", it is a very mild reply
to the misleading statements phrased as if they were fact, as both were
intended to deflect the question asked, rather than offer an honest answer.
The honest answer here is admittedly incomplete, but to pretend that the
incomplete knowledge does not exist at all is less-than honest.

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