> If they can't be successfully kept in Ag environments due to chemical pollution, 
> Where ever did you come up with that thought?  The vast majority of hives are kept in AG environments quite succesfuly????

I said IF, Charles. It's purely conjecture. However, only because of regs. A hundred years ago, fruit growers thought honey bees damaged fruit and sometimes burned apiaries. Then they started using arsenic based pesticides. 

In the 1970s, and 1980s there was PennCap. That was a micro-encapsulated Malathion that honey bees collected as it it were pollen. If it wasn't for government regs, that might still be on the market. 

There are still plenty of Ag situations where bees are not safe. Smart beekeepers avoid them, just as they would any locations that were not beneficial in some way or another. In fact, nobody would haul their bees to the almonds or do most pollination work if it weren't for the money.

Back in the 1970s a beekeeper from El Centro told me that he knew his bees were going to get killed on alfalfa. The hope was that they made a box of honey before they did. 


PLB

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