>Randy, if you do a search in the bee-l archives you will find that the

> Suchail study that shows that imi metabolizes quickly is "widely cited" by
> YOU.
>

Correct Stan.  But the study that is widely cited by others is the one in
which they claimed that IMD killed bees at a minuscle dose.  No other
researcher has ever been able to replicate their results, which should say
something to you.

>
> >If their other study had problems, then please be careful calling the same
> researchers who you widely cite "completely bogus".
>

I would never refer to the researchers as being "bogus."  They are careful
and meticulous, and produced a body of excellent research.  But they did
misinterpret the results of one trial, and unfortunately never retracted it
nor replicated it;.

>
> >A review by Richard Schmuck, Bayer's researcher, is suspect in my mind.
>

Stan, it is not about who is doing the reviewing.  The scrutiny of a study
by any scientist with long experience in determining the toxicity of a
certain chemical to honey bees  would be worth reviewing oneself, no matter
who their employer was.  However, I had come to the same conclusion as
Schmuck before I found his review.  His review merely confirmed my own
conclusions.

Stan, please review the Suchail paper yourself--I'm sure that you will come
to the same conclusion.  Look at the mortality graphs (which don't differ
for each chemical, despite several orders of known toxicity for those
chemicals), and at the amount of sugar syrup consumed by each cage of
bees--she inadvertently starved the bees and blamed it on the applied
chemicals!  Cresswell  refers to the Suchail results as "anomalous data'
(see his figure 1B to show how far off Suchail was).

Stan, any researcher can make an honest mistake.  There are a few
well-known researchers who voluntarily send me papers for peer review prior
to publication.  Yesterday, one thanked me for pointing out (in his words)
a "glaring error" that had escaped the notice of four other peer reviewers.
 Anyone can make a mistake.  The better researchers admit their errors.

>What has Suchail himself or herself said about said about the study
> you criticize?


I have been unable to find a response by her to Schmuck's critique.

 > You obviously respect their work enough to widely cite the facts they
found about metabolization.  Did the team acknowledge problems or mistakes?
 Isn't that the way that science is supposed to work?

Yes, in an ideal world.  But note that even Lu (from Harvard School of
Public Health) has not yet retracted his completely discredited study that
claimed that IMD in HFCS was the cause of CCD.

Stan, PLEASE don't take my word for any of the above.  PLEASE review the
papers yourself and tell us whether you can accept Suchail's conclusions.
 I am not an apologist for any pesticide.  What I do want is for us all to
be informed about actual, verifiable facts.

Suchail S, Guez D, Belzunces LP (2001) Discrepancy between acute and
chronic toxicity induced by imidacloprid and its metabolites  in Apis
mellifera. Environ Toxicol Chem 20:2482–2486

R. Schmuck (2004)  Effects of a Chronic Dietary Exposure of the Honeybee
Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) to Imidacloprid. Arch. Environ.
Contam. Toxicol. 47, 471–478

Cresswell (2010) A meta-analysis of experiments testing the effects of a
neonicotinoid insecticide (imidacloprid) on honey bees)

>
>
-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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