"Is the amount of chemical in a pound of canola nectar the same amount of
chemical in a pound of sunflower nectar, and is the amount of chemical in a
consumed-by-bees pound of corn pollen the same as a pound of
consumed-by-bees canola pollen, or soybeans, or any crop...are apples to
apples being compared?" 


Interesting questions, Kim. I certainly don't know the answers, but have a
couple of thoughts:

My guess would be that the seed company would give each type of seed enough
coating to do the job and no more, as any extra would just cost them money.

It also seems to me that corn is not really a bee plant; it's more of an
accidental food source, with bees sometimes just picking up corn pollen
because it's there (like they do sawdust). Corn pollen is by all accounts a
poor source of nutrition to begin with, so if bees are forced to subsist on
it in a monoculture situation, their subsequent struggles may or may not
have anything to do with seed treatments.

Canola, on the other hand, is a forage of choice - both pollen and nectar --
for the beekeeper who places his hives in its midst. If those bees are not
suffering as a result, doesn't that say something?

As for the amount and concentration of the chemical ingested by the bee from
each type of plant, I don't know if anybody knows. But it seems that most of
the studies that have been debated here involved the deliberate feeding of
neonics to bees, at doses estimated by the researchers to be
field-equivalent but disputed by others later. Why they can't figure out a
way to test bees in actual field settings is beyond me. Don't most of these
crops still have non-treated versions available? Why not drop one bunch of
hives off in a few acres of treated sunflowers in bloom, and another bunch
in untreated sunflowers, analyze the collected pollen and nectar to verify
the source is sunflower, and compare the bees' health in the ensuing weeks?

Eugene Makovec

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