> ~1/2 pound per acre = a only a handful amount per year and 
> most likely mainly granular insecticide for corn rootworm 
> control

A half pound of granular insecticide certainly is
an excessive amount of insecticide as compared to
alternative rootworm controls on the market.

What if the seed corn had been equipped with a seed 
treatment rather than the tossing of a granular 
insecticide around on the ground?

I have no idea what the current seeding rates for Illinois
would be, but Iowa State seems to like 32,000 plants per
acre. See:
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/2006/4-10/seedrate.html

The normal rate for corn seed treatment for rootworm is a 
seed loading of 0.5 mg clothianidin per seed (this is from 
Bayer, who makes one type of clothianidin).

So, 32,000 seeds at 0.5 mg of pesticide each...

32,000 * 0.5 mg = 16,000 mg = 16 grams = 0.035 pounds
per acre, a mere 1/14th as much pesticide as used in 
the Illinois example cited above.  This is the advance 
of technology, and we ought to stand up and cheer it, 
as it reduces the total exposure of everything, from 
the soil, to groundwater, to farmworkers, to harvested crop.

Anything that uses less pesticides, and applies the
pesticide only precisely where needed is a big step 
forward, as no pesticides are sprayed at all, and
spraying is what tends to present problems for bees.

> granules couldn't harm pollinating insects.

I'm not sure that is strictly true.  If a poorly-glued
seed treatment of a "massive" dose of 1.25 mg of 
clothianidin per seed could turn into dust in the seed drill, 
become airborne, land on blooming canola in adjacent fields, 
and cause pesticide kills in several thousand German beehives, 
then there are also highly unlikely scenarios that could play 
out for a granular application.

The easiest to imagine would be the same sort of "dust generated 
by sloppy application method" scenario what happened in Germany.

But if the only pesticide kills are the ones that can only
be explained with complex sequences of coincidence and unlikely 
errors behind them, then pesticide kills as "business as usual" 
are eliminated, and all pollinators are better protected.

Dare I say it?  "Better Living Through Chemistry"?
I think it is true in these specific cases.

Most beekeepers seem to want it not just "both ways", but
"all three ways".  They want zero bee kills, they want to 
ban systemics outright based upon rumors that everyone 
keeps refuting, and they want to eat.  To me, systemics 
seem to be the only way to reduce bee kills and keep crop 
yields high.  Remember, bees are not the only segment of 
agriculture reeling from multiple new invasive exotic 
pests, pathogens, and parasites that hitchhiked on all the 
world trade we've had forced down our throats since the 
1980s.

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