On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:47:55 -0500, Bill Truesdell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


>Appreciate the post that did ID the "pesticides" that had the highest
>concentrations and most prevalent to be those introduced by the
>beekeeper. Personally, and I have said this often, most of the pesticide
>problem in our colonies are of our own doing. 


Thank you Bill, 

another factor to consider is this "self induced contamination" can come around to bite a 
beekeeper a second time if they're buying queens from a producer who has the same problems in 
his/her  brood comb. 

it can be REALY interesting to ask queen producers about their comb contamination levels and see 
if they have seen the literature concerning the effects on queen and drone fertility etc.

based on my own observations about how many queen producers flunked my telephone 
questionaire on comb contamination and referring to that survey in Bee Culture on beekeeper 
miticide use, and what I see going on in the commercial operations here in the heartland; let me 
toss out the idea that maybe half of  all U.S. beekeepers have infertile queens on moderate to 
heavily contaminated brood comb. 

In my view this is a much more plausible explanation of what's "killing the bees"  then the idea 
that some huge percentage of beekeepers or hives are being exposed routinely to pesticides that 
are the root cause behind the downward trend in bee losses.  

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