Just look at States in the Midwest such as Illinois and Indiana,  I doubt there is any location except in the middle of the a National Forest area (such as the Shawnee National Forest)  in Southern Illlinois where you could locate an apiary which is not within a 3 to 4 mile radius of corn or soybean fields.   A 3 mile radius around a colony encompasses over 18,000 acres (18,110.2 acres to be exact).

I am not aware of bees dying by the millions at planting time in these States and we have plenty of bee keepers, many of which ARE active farmers.... and guess where their apiaries are.... within a few hundred yards of fields planted in corn, soybeans or other crops.

There is something else in play in the Canada situation, but apparently people are too eager to hitch a ride on whatever bandwagon rolls through, willing to jump the gun on it and blame the corn seed and what it is coated with.  

I am not saying the neonictinoid class of chemicals is not having an accumulative affect (it has not been proven one way or the other yet from what I have read), but I have never seen it instantly or soon after exposure, knock out bees like exposure to carbaryl or malathion.  

If the planting dust is the real culprit, then it can easily be mitigated with modifications to equipment to spray a mist of water to settle the dust so it is not carried by the wind, and/or by imposing weather conditions restrictions as to when planting can be done (planting restrictions would border on the ridiculous).

At this time of the year in the midwest, homeowners go nuts with the carbaryl and other chemicals to try and obliterate the Japanese beetle which emerges in about June of every year.   The bee kill I see in front of my colonies is most likely neglience on the part of home owners or lawn/landscape care companies.   If your location does not have Japanese beetles, it will as they migrate from East to West across the USA and North America.   Agricultural aerial spraying also dramatically increases once the damage threshold by Japanese beetles and other insects is reached.   This will catch foragers as they are flying over or through corn or soybean crops when the aerial spraying is done.

Illinois participates in Driftwatch.org and has a spin off of Illinoisbees.com (really il.driftwatch.org) which applicators can use to locate apiaries or sensitive specialty crops which are in the area they will be spraying (provided the bee keepers or the speciality crop growers have identified their locations to Driftwatch).

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