> Pesticide poisoning in its various degrees is a separate topic and an
> important one, but one which people insist in confusing with collapse. They
> are not the same.

There are a lot of people that are convinced that pesticides ARE causing colony collapse. There has to be a concerted effort to inform people. In the absence of a plausible explanation, the paranoid fringe moves on in. 

Ratnieks & Carreck recently wrote:

> Neonicotinoid systemic insecticides have been blamed for extensive colony collapse, and this has caused much debate. In France, the neonicotinoid compound imidacloprid was banned as a treatment on sunflowers and maize because of concerns that it could contaminate nectar or pollen and thus kill bees, but colony losses continued. After 10 years of research, it seems unlikely that imidacloprid was responsible for the French bee deaths, but it is conjectured that subtle, sublethal effects of either the compound or its metabolites may occur, perhaps making bees more susceptible to disease. 

Clarity on Honey Bee Collapse? -- Francis L. W. Ratnieks and Norman L. Carreck

However, as I said, nobody has produced any support for the idea that neonics have a significant role and to the contrary, the latest research indicates that they do not. Also, it appears that fungicides and beekeeper applied miticides should be of far greater concern. 

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