>He added an insecticide to his spray that is still killing bees 6 weeks
later.

Lionel, would you happen to know which insecticide it was?

>That just brings up the question is a  (hypothetical?) 2% burden worth
doing something about?  I hate to say it but yes it might hurt beekeepers,
but then the question is: Is that offset by the amount it helps the crops?

Jeremy that is an excellent point.  In some of the field trials run to test
clothianidin seed treatments, the untreated crops fared so poorly that
bloom was so suppressed that the colonies did not put on as much honey.

>Will a 50% losses suffered some very good Alberta beekeepers serve the
purpose?  The actual Provincial loss probably runs up near that number if
weak colonies are considered dead.

Allen, when I view the winter loss rate for Alberta for the 2011/2012
winter, it appears to be 13% (
http://capabees.org/content/uploads/2012/10/2012capawintloss1.pdf).

Did something change in the use of canola seed treatments last summer that
would account for your reported vastly increased winter loss rate for
2012/2013?


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

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