>some farmers, including one of my cousins, have ordered untreated corn
seeds to be planted next spring.

This raising of grower awareness is wonderful!  I'm currently in
correspondence with a U.S. agricultural extension agent who tells me that
for growers who plant Bt corn, neonic seed treatment is generally uncalled
for and a waste of money, not to mention adding to the unnecessary
contamination of the environment.

However, the seed companies have not had enough pressure from their
customers (the growers) to supply untreated seed.  If we beekeepers can
help to educate growers to stop applying unnecessary pesticides, that will
be a big win for the bees and the environment as a whole.

> Hopefully, researchers will approach these farmers to test soils and
surface water for residues before spring planting and at 2014 season end.
These data will, hopefully, help farmers, beekeepers, researchers and even
bureaucrats understand what is going on.

Why don't the Ontario beekeepers stop hoping, and instead put up a little
money and simply pay a university researcher to collect that data?  We
could really use it, since as far as I can tell, publicly available data is
largely lacking.

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

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