>It is a 1 page second party report, at $15 it is highway robbery. My 2 sentence summary has all the information of the article. Google "David Goulson" instead.


I'm lucky enough to get access to the full paper at my work without having to pay.

You can also see Dave in this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oHDNufaLZMg

You'll know by now that, as a working scientist, I'm utterly fed up with the spin some people put on research and even the spin that some scientists put on their own research to try to show a bad effect of pesticides.  This one is different.  It is a well-planned study which clearly seems to say that colonies raised on imidacloprid-laced feed do not thrive as well as colonies on control diets.

I've read the whole paper and find it convincing.  There are real concerns raised that Bombus terrestris colonies raised on contaminated forage may fail to produce many queens. 

One thing I can't square with the observations is that the study was done a short drive from here in an environment that is almost identical except that there is more arable land around here and imidacloprid-treated oilseed rape fields are frequent.  Bombus desert their usual forage for the feast each April and May, and my honeybees take little else for 6 weeks.  Yet the local Bombus terrestris populations (and honeybees too) are healthy.  This spring there are lots of Bombus queens seeking nest sites, including Bombus terrestris.  

The loss of Bombus species in the UK has clearly been associated with loss of habitat and species like Bombus terrestris and the new one from the continent, Bombus hypnorum, have been spreading north.  There is no decline needing an explanation.

The second paper, the French RFID one, explores the effects of a different neonicotinoid.


Gavin


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