I thought I would update the list about my efforts to find out information
about possible residues of imidacloprid in corn syrup.  This was the
reply I finally received from the Pest Management Regulatory Agency
(Canada):

"PMRA staff has reviewed the contents of your e-mail and wishes to inform
you that it does not have any testing requirements for residue limits of
imidacloprid in corn syrup. We suggest that you contact the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency as it is responsible for the safety of food in Canada."

Since the PMRA has set the maximum residue limit of imidacloprid in 
corn at 80 ppb,  I would suppose the CFIA would allow that limit in corn
syrup.  But I have not contacted them yet.  I don't think that the CFIA
considers that BEE food is in their mandate actually.   Or then
again maybe they do,  I believe that they might have investigated
melamine in pet food.   And Bertha the bee is definitely a pet.  She
is the bee that keeps flying out of my clothes in gas stations, stores
banks, etc.  I always ask them to look after her.   This might be
cruelty (to the people) since in many cases she might be minus
her stinger.

I also phoned Bayer Crop Science.  Apparently after searching through
information and studies they had done, their information person was 
unable to find out any studies they had done on corn syrup.

I then phoned Mann Lake Bee Supply (since they have a nice picture
of a corn syrup tanker on their ad).  The person I was referred to assured
me that imidacloprid (and GMO, he said ????)  does not bind to the
carbohydrate portion of the corn.  He said it was bound to the protein
(as was the GMO stuff;  he seemed quite concerned about this).  He
said that they tested, but did not offer any results.   However perhaps
they do have results, and I urge any beekeeper who gets syrup from
them to do further inquiry and post any specific test results.

I also phoned the company that I get my HFCS 55 from (CASCO).  I
got the best service (naturally) from the company that receives my
cheques.  However,  the technical  officer from the plant in Ontario said
that what he found out is that a sample (s?) is taken twice a year (spring
and fall) and sent to a lab in the US for pesticide residue analysis.  But
on looking up the results he found that imidacloprid is NOT on the list
for analysis.  The ones which were looked for were all organophosphates.
He did promise to rectify this, but thought it would be too late for
the spring sample (s?) which has already been sent in.  As far as
looking at a sample of the corn before and after processing,  he said
this might not be very exact, as the plant does not process in batches;
it is a continuous flow operation.  

He also gave me a bit of a run down on the process involved, which
does ion exchange at two points.  So, perhaps it is unlikely that
any imidacloprid goes through, but a test result would be nice.  They
do test for other insecticides.

So I have failed so far to get a test result from anyone.  I would ask
Jerry Bromenshenk or anyone else studying CCD if they have
information or a test result on corn syrup (since neonicotinoids
are apparently a suspect in the investigation).

I would also like to comment on Jim Fischers reply (a couple of 
weeks ago now) to this thread in which he said:

 "And I've seen an Imidacloprid kill.  The bees that get a "low dose"
get "Parkinson's Disease".  They shake.  Its obvious.  So far, no one
has ever reported this sort of symptom in any CCD hives, so until
someone shows me a "bell curve" of pesticide poisoning, where some
hives or bees get a non-fatal, non-leave-the-hive dose, but still
show signs of classic Imidacloprid poisoning as they do in known
cases of Imidacloprid kills, I don't think we have any sort of 
probable cause for even a search warrant on Bayer's offices."

The bees getting the tremors are getting almost the lethal dose.
The "Alzheimers Disease" symptoms occur at much lower dose
than the lethal dose (but would lead to hive depopulation).  The
studies from France on effects at different doses are in the extensive 
bibliography that David Hackenburg sent in the letter to his
growers, which I found on the Bee Culture website at the same
url where I found your article, Jim.   I have only seen a hive with
tremoring bees a few times here (probably from gathering
water in potato drills) but I have seen plenty of depopulation.

However, I don't want a search warrant on Bayer.  I don't even
want to suggest that imidacloprid in corn syrup is the cause
of CCD.  But I don't think that it is very unreasonable to ask for
someone to do some testing of corn syrup to see if there is
any present when we know that it is present in the raw material.

Regards
Stan



******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************