Jerry Bromenshank wrote:
>Did your bees go down fast - days, couple weeks, or slowly - weeks, months?
Usually, low level poisoning takes some weeks, sometimes months to decimate
a colony -- but I've seen rather quick responses to toxic metals when a plume
hit the ground during an inversion.It is about three weeks between visits to a yard. The hives went down fast enough that one one visit we put a super on, thinking they might need it, andon the next the hive had collapsed.
>Heavy metals generally dwindle down the population, and the brood looks like
it has foulbrood -- but the pathogen doesn't come up in the lab assays. Its
not foulbrood, but rather poisoned brood. We have no heavy industry whatsoever in Prince Edward Island. We do not getmuch in the way of airborne pollutants from elsewhere. Agricultural chemicalsare our main pollutant. In my operation there is very low incidence of AFB, but EFB has been a problem in hives that dwindled. To be fair, I should note thatEFB has been noted for many years in hives that pollinate blueberries in Maineas well as Atlantic Canada. Last year we had very little incidence of EFB, despite the fact that we used no oxytet in either fall of 2005, or spring 2006. We also had very little "disappearing bees". We did not pollinate any seed canola followingpotatoes. We do see many deadouts with very few bees in them, but that is not abnormal here, and Iwould not call it CCD.
>The study may have collected bees, but I did not see/hear of any analysis of
bees. Actually, I noted your comments about dust from contaminated soil before the last year that Jim Kempstudied my hives, and asked him to sample some bees. I do not know if he did, but it isn't of muchconsequence if a person can't get access to ANY of the results.RegardsStan
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