BEE-L Archives

Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

BEE-L@COMMUNITY.LSOFT.COM

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:09:12 GMT
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (29 lines)
Hi Allen,

Yes, these details are very well laid out in the full text.

I'm finding the statistical analysis a bit hard to follow.  For instance, Table 1 looking at imidacloprid levels is measuring:

"Imidacloprid levels(meanąSEM, ppb)"

...I can't for the life of me figure out what they are actually measuring here.

I'm interested in the statistics specifically because I've seen one of the authors present at our local bee club about more recent work with imidacloprid (Jody Johnson is doing some of the field work in Worcester wrt imidacloprid injected trees).  There was one point in the presentation where she showed a graph with imidacloprid levels in various plant and environmental samples....I asked if the averages were typical of individual samples...the answer was no, that the levels were really all over the place from sample to sample...enough so that I would question the validity of the tests (i will try to go back and see what she said specifically about how much they varied).

WRT the procedures, essentially free flying colonies are fed protein patties with or without imidacloprid, emerging bees are taken from these colonies (in an incubator), innoculated with extract of infected bees, and caged for 12 days.  After 12 days, 20 surviving bees are assayed from imidacloprid and nosema.

It is noted that no more than 20% of the caged bees died before the 12 days was up in any one cage.  I'd be curious to see an assay of these bees that _didn't_ survive 12 days.  By no means do I expect all the caged bees to survive, but the dead bees should be just as interesting.

It's also worth noting that in the 1970s, Martha Gilliam (and others) did a lot of looking at gut microbes (yeasts, molds, fungi, bacteria) under differing circumstances....sugar feeding, treating (with both ag chems and beekeeper chems), and caging _all_ had some effect on some of these microflora.  Given that nosema is essentailly microflora to a bee, it seems like "stacking too many variables"  ...treating (and note that the text says "All colonies were managed to limit the levels of other pests and pathogens."...this is in addition to the experimental treatments of imidacloprid), feeding, and caging are all done as part of this experiment, and can't help but complicate the data.
(the Gilliam studies can be found at: http://beeuntoothers.com/index.php/beekeeping/gilliam-archives for those that like to read studies).

deknow

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm

ATOM RSS1 RSS2