As someone who speaks and reads fluent French, I have read reports out of France that detail imadicloprid's effect on the honey bee. The pesticide is designed to hamper the navigational abilities of insects. And that's just one of many pesticides. 
As one beekeeper noted, "at a purely common sense level it is inescapably 
rational to say that insecticide is, by definition, antagonistic to
bees, right? ...the idea of putting 
insecticide in a beehive is inherently a little daffy."

The beekeeper then adds that "Worshipping science can be just as faulty as other kinds of idolatry."

I find it strange that there are beekeepers out there defending these products. 
I am not saying this is the singular cause of CCD. As a reporter, I am simply relating theories out there as 'wildy' different as they may be. We don't know what is causing CCD. And it's not necessarily one singular thing. 

In general, it seems that some parties are determined to find a cause for CCD stemming from Mother Nature such as a virus or fungus, instead of thinking that the root cause lies in something man-made or because of our programmed practices....  


 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Keith Benson<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
  To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
  Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 6:34 AM
  Subject: Re: [BEE-L] Daily Green report


  > > What role do you think pesticides play into this?

  Shouldn't that read, what role, *if any*, did pesticides play, or did pesticides play *any* role?  Otherwise the question is one that presupposes they did (and calls into question the OPs objectivity).

  If it was pesticides (and it doesn't look that way at present, but who knows what the future will hold) fair enough, but looking for an answer you *want* to find ain't science (with or without the capital S), and it frequently only lends itself to the confusion as opposed to the solution.

  Keith

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