"My results have convinced me that local levels are pervasive but low (average of 0.64 ppB for all 10 samples for all 8 neonicotinoids) but high enough to account for a drastic reduction in the quality of bee health and survivability that I have seen in our area"

 While you may very well have seen a local reduction in bee health and survivability blaming it on sub 1ppb levels of neonics makes little toxicological sense.  Most poisons act by blocking some specific enzyme pathway essential to survival.  Feeding under 0.005% of a lethal dose daily is very seldom going to have health or survivability issues that a bee keeper is going to be able to see.  The exceptions would be if the poison is a mutagen, carcinogen or induces anaphylactic allergic reactions with repeated exposure.  Very specific toxicology studies showing the pesticide is not a mutagen, does not cause cancer and does not induce allergic reactions on repeated exposures are required as part of all pesticide registration packages.  It seems unlikely that any of these are the cause of your reduction in bee health or survivability.  In fact, I have never heard of an insect getting cancer, nor suffering from severe allergic reactions.  A honey bees life is
 so short cancer seems near impossible, except perhaps for queens.

There is no question in my mind that bee health and survivability where I live is drastically lower than it was 35 years ago.  Yet, I can not imagine where my bees would get any pesticide exposure at all other than the very minor amount of 2,4D and glyphosate I spray myself for weed control and fungus control on a couple of apple trees sprayed with chlorothalonil well after bloom is done and only typically sprayed two or three times all summer.  These are the same sprays I used 35 years ago.  The closest crop land that could potentially have neonic treated seeds is about three miles thru fairly mature forest.  Bees simply do not forage that distance in forest.  They seldom go one mile based on where I see my bees and where I see my neighbors bees whose yard is 1.7 miles from mine.
  

Dick


" Any discovery made by the human mind can be explained in its essentials to the curious learner."  Professor Benjamin Schumacher talking about teaching quantum mechanics to non scientists.   "For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."  H. L. Mencken

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