> Stan, since you're following this thread, I've been wanting to ask you to
> give us an update of your experiences in neonic treated fields these past
> two years.
>

I have not had any problems I can attribute to neonics in the past two
years.  I think that there are two factors that should be remembered:
First, the potato acreage on PEI is decreased by about one third from when
I saw what I complained about.
Second, treating the potato set itself, rather than foliar spraying or soil
injection has greatly reduced (by an order of magnitude) the amount of
imidacloprid used per acre/hectare, and the residue in succeeding crops.

I continue to put bees in thiamethoxam seed treated canola.  It does not
have the long residual life of imidacloprid or clothianidin.  I do not see
increased loss from those bees before or after winter.   I am told by the
grower of most of the canola where I put bees that the thiamethoxam  will
only protect the canola seedlings for about three weeks after emergence.
When canola was grown in fields following imidacloprid soil injected
potatoes there were similar amounts of both neonics in both nectar and
pollen, showing the much longer half life of imidacloprid.

As someone has pointed out in this discussion I would be most worried about
the application of neonics on trees, and especially in forestry
applications, where high dose rates may be used and multi year pest control
is happily documented by the foresters.

Stan

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