The Harvard study marks a new low (or high) depending on how you score  
inaccuracy, poor execution, lack of knowledge.  First paper that we've  seen, 
where the press release AND the paper were distributed months before  
publication.  That's usually a violation of journal policy.
 
Randy hit most of the weaknesses, including the fact that they did not  
induce CCD, even at huge dose.  They did apparently kill some bees - no  
surprise there.  
 
Two points that have not been brought up:
 
1) If any pesticide were to commonly show up in high  concentrations in 
high fructose corn syrup, that should have triggered an  immediate 
investigation by FDA, since we (humans) also consume HFCS,  and many people are exposed 
to lots of it in processed foods.  I don't  remember any alarms about the 
dangers of people ingesting high levels of  pesticides from HFCS.  Lots of 
discussion about its nutritional value to  people, to bees though; and whether 
its sugar.
 
2) Show me the corn plant that produces HFCS, or the bee that harvests  
HFCS from corn.  It certainly doesn't come from gutation droplets or  pollen.
 
 
As per the difficulty in analyzing HFCS, its doable, just takes extra prep  
steps, costs more.  I'd like to see some numbers from the guy who  claims 
to have found imidacloprid in HFCS, but then says its hard to  analyze.  Lots 
of flag waving, no numbers from him that I've found.   Has anyone else 
actually seen some real data from him?
 
 
As someone else on this list mentioned, HFCS can be diluted  before 
analysis.  Since HFCS is made from kernels of corn (not droplets,  not pollen), one 
could also extract the corn kernels.  That would avoid the  'sticky' 
material problem.
 
Everyone on this list knows that HFCS can be toxic to bees due to the  
formation of HMF in the syrup during manufacture or storage.  That was an  issue 
that we and several other investigators looked at when CCD was first  
reported.
 
Worst case we found, a beekeeper used metal storage tanks, heated his  
syrup to make it flow better on cold days - perfect conditions  for  formation 
of lots of HMF.  There also reportedly was some bad syrup  distributed in CA. 
 And, we found a few beekeepers adding good syrup to  leftover syrup from 
the year before.
 
In summary, a few cases of bad syrup (from HMF) were found - but they  
didn't com close in numbers of cases to explaining all of the CCD cases. 
 
Jerry
 
 
 
 
 

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