At 12:43 PM 3/6/1999 EST, you wrote:
 
Lori:
 
First, my personal opinion is that many of the tests used to address
pesticide hazards to bees for label registration are inadequate.  People
like L. Atkins and C. Johansen understood bees, understood the limitations
of their tests, included replication, and worked for University's that
mandated publication of results.  More recently, much of the work done for
label registration has been privatized.  Those results are almost
impossible to obtain unless you go through the Freedom of Information Act
Route, and then you need to know the exact formulation - which is unlikely.
 
Secondly, beekeepers used to be able to get some reimbursement for
pesticide losses.  That government program no longer exits.
 
Thirdly, the beekeepers themselves used to make themselves heard in D.C.
When I first started in the beekeeping arena, EPA and others paid attention
to beekeeper needs.  Now, in the U.S., the emphasis for protection of
non-target species tends to be on birds (the kinds that hunters go after),
not on bees.  Why, because the regulatory agencies pay attention to issues
should as chemical transfer to humans (eating ducks).  They will pay
attention to beekeeper interests, but only if the beekeepers remind them
that agricultural chemicals are still a problem.
 
I know from personal experience that if a beekeeper or group of beekeepers
protest strongly, you will get attention from the regulatory agencies.  If
you don't continue to remind them of the importance of bees as pollinators
and as producers of honey, wax, and other products, they will assume that
the current label's are adequate.
 
I can also verify that beekeeper input is heard.  Because we do testing on
bees in the context of chemical stressors, whenever a group of beekeepers
makes a loud enough noise, I usually get a call (and I assume that my
counterparts get calls) asking if the problem is real.
 
And I always respond that pesticides, particularly certain formations,
continue to impact beekeepers.
 
Finally, I suspect that you are partially right about the mites.  It is the
hot issue at the moment.  We have seen the "crisis" of the moment
overshadow the continuing problems before.
 
However, the beekeeper perspective probably varies depending on the type of
beekeeper involved and the geographic area.  From our work on the east
coast, where small beekeepers abound, and where mites have only recently
been "acknowledged", the mite problem commands attention.  For our large
commercial beekeepers in the Northwest, the mites hit many years ago, and
the surviving beekeepers have been able to obtain some level of control
through appropriate management practices.  However, they continue to
sustain losses from pesticide applications in orchards, truck gardens, and
field crops (as they have for decades).  These are harder to manage,
because the beekeeper has little or no control over who sprays, what they
use, or when.
 
Cheers
 
Jerry