> Nobody seems at all interested in assessing the effect 
> on bee colonies in field realistic situations. 
> With the exception of studies like that done by Jody Johnson, 
> where she put actual hives into the NYC environment to 
> discover the impact of imidacloprid which was being used to 
> control Asian Longhorn Beetle.

I disagree with the presumption that using "actual hives" implies a "field
realistic" situation.  In the cited study, the bees seemed to be nothing but
an attempt at misdirection.  I listened to Jeff Pettis' talk about that
specific Jody Johnson study when he spoke up in Worchester MA this last
winter. I have the audio of his talk if anyone wants to listen to it.

The study had severe design problems that rendered it utterly useless, in my
view.  It failed to gauge the actual impact on bees of the trunk injection
and soil injection methods used in attempting to kill Asian Longhorn Beetle.
This appeared to have been done with deliberate intent, as it would have
been far easier to take the more accurate approach of directly collecting
blooms for analysis.

Hives were placed near treated trees, and samples were taken of what
foragers brought into the hive.  The bees "diluted" the observed pesticide
dose considerably, but by an unknown factor.  The bees foraged on much more
than the treated trees, obviously.

The more accurate approach would have been to simply collect blooms from the
injected and the soil-drenched trees, and have the nectar and pollen
analyzed to determine the actual levels found in nectar and pollen.  This
would yield a fair comparison to the well-studied levels that result from
seed treatments.

In this case, the use of the bees seemed a disingenuous way to "publish
data" that dodged the essential questions being asked by beekeepers, as the
one thing we know about bees is that they will always hedge their bets, and
never forage on any single source for long.  But hives in the midst of many
treated trees could well end up trying to raise spring brood on a diet of
nothing but nectar and pollen from treated trees.  The study was done where
only a few trees were treated.

My take-away was that the USDA-APHIS people were already well-aware of the
Imidacloprid levels in treated trees, and chose this approach as a way to
allow them to publish a far lower number.  Why Jeff ever agreed to this
methodology is beyond me.

So, in this case, "field realistic" would have been collect blooms, and send
them off to be analyzed.  No need for bees.

Mets: 1, Marlins: 1 - Top of the 14th inning

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