But be assured that his one will get traction while the honeybee study will not. It is the impala- nice metaphor BTW.

The nice thing about the honeybee study was there were a variety of locations and tests of pollen for all pesticides. That, to me, is key as the neonics are only one class of pesticides that the bees encounter.

Again, I am leaning toward BBs having more problems than honeybees in the field, but so far there is nothing definitive.




Bill   Have you read "bumble bee economics"  ?  it’s a real good read actually.    One of the  takeaways from that was the number of bumbles is a highly variably issue.  While honeybees being managed are fairly stable.  In a bad year we feed our honeybees.  In a bad weather year bumble reproduction is suppressed.   Much like some years we get swarms like crazy,  other years hardly any.

That makes any/all solitary bees hard to use as the monitor.  Simple weather variations have more impact than most of us can imagine,  nor de we have a good way to evaluate it.


Charles

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