>Neonics may not cause the bee deaths outright, but one look at her graphs
and charts points out that entire colonies might be diminished to the point
of failure.

Robert, I've also recently seen the data from Judy Wu that Dr. Spivak
presented, as well as a manuscript in prep by another collaborator, Dr.
Vera Krischik.  I've also spoken with both of the original researchers.

My personal take on their findings is that the chronic feeding of
imidacloprid in nectar does indeed have negative impacts on tiny nucleus
colonies.  However, as Judy increased the size of the studied colonies in
her progressive studies, the effects diminished.  When Dr Krischik fed
large doses to full sized colonies over the course of the summer, there was
little or no effect until the doses were unrealistically high (I am not at
liberty to share more information at this time).  Oddly, Dr. Krischik has
been slow to publish her findings, despite their being of great importance
to the neonic debate.

These findings are in accordance with previous research by Drs. Dively,
Pettis, Lu, and numerous others over the years--that chronic feeding of
field-realistic doses of neonics to full-sized colonies has no measureable
adverse effect.  They also reflect ground truthing by Canadian and Corn
Belt beekeepers, and the excellent studies by Drs. Scott-Dupree and Cutler
in Guelph.

So while Dr Spivak's presentation at first glance may seem alarming, in the
greater context of real life exposure to full sized colonies, they do not
seem to be of as much concern.

I'm not in any way suggesting that exposure to any insecticide is harmless
to bees, plus want to be clear that some other bee species (notably Osmia
sp) may be more sensitive to neonics.  However, I feel that we need to put
these studies into perspective.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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