I looked at the 2018 Sentinel Final Report published by the Bee Informed Partnership to see what has been learned.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17CnunjRyXTolDU5Vap3TzQxbH7EJO2Sk/view

They discuss Varroa, Varroa, Varroa, then toss in some smoke and mirrors about monitoring crops with satellites and add a garnish of Nosema, Nosema.

At the end of the report they have a pie graph that shows the various ailments that killed hives in 2018, based on beekeepers’ hunches, with the caption:

“ On each monthly data sheet, we ask Sentinel participants whether they lost any colonies and if so, why. This page summarizes the responses of beekeepers regarding their perceived causes of colony loss. You can see that Queen Failure was the most commonly reported cause of loss, followed by Don't Know and Varroa. Happily, no losses were reported as being due to pesticide exposure.”

Is this what passes for scientific research these days?

If they are interested in perceptions, I’ll give them mine.

I have a hunch that >80% of the hives which forage on neonic treated crops have low levels of neonics (< 4 ppb) in their stored pollen (bee bread).

I have a hunch that when honeybees consume this contaminated bee bread it has the sub-lethal effect of making them more susceptible to infections by viruses and nosema.

I have a hunch that a lot of researchers, beekeepers, and government bureaucrats are aware of this ominous undercurrent of toxins in our environment but don’t want to mention it because:
 
A) Many highly profitable crops grown today are dependent on the use of neonics to prevent damage by insects, and
 
B) The industry players that make and sell neonics are such wealthy corporate giants that they are able to effectively intimidate people into remaining silent.

I have a hunch that the Bee Informed Partnership must self-censor its research to maintain funding. And that is unfortunate because the project has such potential to determine how chemicals in our environment are affecting hive health.

I have a hunch that the conspiracy of silence regarding this subject is going to eventually cause the beekeeping industry to suffer catastrophic losses which will be blamed on varroa and nosema.

I have no scientific proof for any of these hunches, so please don’t consider them worth more than the “perceived causes” for hive losses by Sentinel participants. Happily, we are humans, not bees, so none of this is a matter of immediate life or death for us.   

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