As this thread carries on, neonics are headed in a direction as the best thing to ever happen. I was pondering a conversation I had last night with a larger farmer in the area... Sitting around watching UFC 172..... Last year my bees did great on Yellow Rocket/ Mustard, a little purple flower I forget the name of. WE had a very wet spring last year. No corn was planted to speak of until late May as a result 100 of thousands of acres of blooms in untilled corn. I was lamenting that this year is terrible for me. Literally last week all the corn was planted. No tillage at all. Two points that are salient to me, first off, no burndown sprays at all this year. Since they got in right away, they don't spray burndown. Second Billys comment about Atriozine and how great Round has been for pollinators. Before roundup Atrizine was sprayed liberally. And killed about everything due to residual effects. Roundup on the other hand has no residual life. Allowing those weeds I love to flourish before tillage. I hadn't thought about it, but hes right.. unfortunately a dry early spring didn't help...another issue... Maybe we should spend more time trying to regulate the weather....... Any way.... the point is neonics are not the best thing ever....no claim to be, but in a world that wants to feed everyone for little cost, they seem to be in my area, a lot better than the alternatives. A world without pest and pesticides would be great... in the mean time we need to balance. Maybe Neonics sprayed n trees is bad, maybe in Canola its terrible, Maybe we should not allow it for yard use...These are things to watch for sure. But reporting here on the ground in corn and bean country they sure do look like they are helping more than hurting. Charles *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html