On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:43:31 -0600, Bob Harrison <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >If your hypothesis was true Brian then why are millions of hives around the >world doing just fine on comb which has those levels of those chems? > > Randy Oliver and I have pondered the question and it seems to me that bees >can tolerate a very high PPM of those chems. i thought we had a world wide crisis in honeybee health? what does doing fine mean? one answer may lie in a tipping point kind of explanation. since around 2004 the two widely used strips stopped working and the jug mixes around here became the norm (pre-apiguard). I do feel for the beeks who have had a hard time keeping their bees alive and I'm sure they believed it was their only choice. using unlabelled chem applications in a hive is hard to justify when science can only do so much to insure chems are safe, then turn around and blame farm chems for your ills? all this science is an educated guess at some point in time. time goes forward and new information emerges. but maybe we can agree keeping ALL chems out of hives is the best way forward! i have found human nature in dealing with pesticides figures if some chemical worked more must be better. some migratory beeks have issues with big mite loads on CA almond hives that come back. some treat twice a season. i would postulate that chem use frequency and rate has changed since 2000 or so as almonds have become king cash for cash flow. the financial squeeze on beeks has also increased during this time. strips are expensive and must be removed. jug mix is cheap and the rag/cardboard does not have to be removed. its a simple business descision. the cost of fines are still below the cost of approved EPA treatments for a large operation. the system is BROKE!!!!! times are changing and the honeybees are in trouble, we have a couple of better choices now for legal mite treatments and more and more resistant bee lines to work with. i find it disingenuous for beeks to point to Ag chems when over and over again we find massive contamination levels in brood comb and beekeeper applied chems top the list for ppb. as some of our parents told us as kids - clean up your own act before pointing to others! **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************