Hi Phil

I've contributed recently on this topic to another forum which, I believe, previously decided to ban you for the way you were treating other forum members.  You might have missed the discussion there, so I'm happy to explain here too if you like.

I don't really understand your campaign against beet sugar.  As a result of the stuff being posted there I made enquiries from British Sugar, the company making most of the beet sugar sold in the UK, to clarify a statement they had already put out.  They told me that they routinely employ an accredited company for quality control of their product and have never ever had a detection of imidacloprid in their product using a method which detects imidacloprid at 1 ppb.  I do accept that there are studies which suggest sub-lethal effects at 0.5 ppb, but there are also studies which show a lack of long-term effects in bee colonies at much higher levels.  However, no detection is no detection and I can't believe that there is a problem with this product in UK beet sugar.  I'll leave it for others to comment on whether the EPA got it wrong.

The reasons for the lack of imidacloprid in beet sugar are not hard to spot.  A tiny amount goes in on the seed in comparison to the large harvest of beet roots. Although it is a systemic insecticide it is not partitioned to the roots (one study found only 0.1% of applied imidacloprid in the root but much higher levels in foliage), and the refining process removes impurities too.

Consider the higher levels of imidacloprid you would expect to see in nectar and pollen from oilseed rape, by far the biggest spring source of nectar and pollen in most arable areas in the UK.  A large intake of the pesticide you would imagine (from the imidacloprid seed dressing now used extensively in the UK on OSR) compared to the trace possible for beet sugar, yet colonies appear to build up just as they have always done on this particular forage.  Summer colony collapse isn't seen in the UK, and our recent problems in winter can't be due to early spring forage contamination given the turn-over in the hive through the summer and autumn.

As to your comments on organic farming and your wish for the BBKA to lobby for its adoption, we are currently facing concerns over the security of the food supply and rising prices worldwide.  Are you able to point me to an independent, thorough review of the likely effects on food production (and prices) should major producing countries go over totally to tightly defined organic production methods?

best wishes

Gavin

PS How can we 'opt out' of receiving more emails from you if you are transmitting them through Bee-L?!

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************