" But I think
you do a disservice to some beekeepers that DO have a problem with
neonics by assuming that their problems stem from not keeping varroa
under control. "

Locally only three other people that I know of control varroa.  All have good survivability.  Then there are the large number who do nothing at all about varroa and have 70 to 100% hive deaths per year and blame Monsanto's neonics or round up including many just as far from agriculture as I am.

I am sure someone someplace has problems with neonics killing his bees.  We all know planter dust can be deadly.  We also all know that spraying trees in bloom with neonics is deadly.  But, we also know people who live in a big Ag desert surrounded by crops treated with neonics and round up who do not have unreasonable hive deaths.

I think by far the largest problem we have is PPB.

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


--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 4/4/15, Stan Sandler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [BEE-L] IPM and neonicotinoids
 To: [log in to unmask]
 Date: Saturday, April 4, 2015, 6:56 PM
 
 > It is a lot more
 productive to treat for varroa than to make up facts about
 neonics or any other pesticide being a problem for my
 bees.
 
 I am glad that
 neonics are not a problem for you Richard.  But I think
 you do a disservice to some beekeepers that DO
 have a problem with
 neonics by assuming that
 their problems stem from not keeping varroa
 under control.  The PMRA clearly found that in
 the year when there was
 a very dry spring
 neonics were the cause of spring losses in Ontario.
 Bayer has paid out compensation to beekeepers
 in Germany and Italy
 from losses that were
 clearly from neonics.
 
 The
 sub lethal effects are not as clear and so much more
 problematical, but you are or were a chemist
 and a scientist, and so I
 would think that
 the fact that there are several hundreds of papers on
 sub lethal effects that rang alarm bells in the
 29 scientists that
 reviewed them might make
 you rethink accusing beekeepers who are
 having problems and looking at neonics as
 contributing to them of
 "making up
 facts".
 
 I have a lot
 of hives and have had them for many years.  Although I
 do
 not blame neonics for any problems at
 present, I still am convinced
 that they
 caused me a lot of losses in the past at the time when
 foliar spraying and soil injection was the way
 that they were applied.
 Varroa was never a
 problem at that time.  It had just come to PEI and
 was easily controlled by fluvalinate strips and
 it was too early for
 residue from the strips
 to be affecting the bees.  If the products
 caused problems for me at the concentrations
 they were using then, but
 are tolerable at
 the lower concentrations they now use, that does not
 give me a lot of confidence in them.  And I
 also remember that I did
 NOT have much bee
 kill from the sprays used before neonics,  despite
 the fact that potato fields were sprayed
 regularly because bees do not
 visit potatoes
 and the fields do not have weeds in them.
 
          
    ***********************************************
 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
 

             ***********************************************
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