> I'm presuming that continued research will 
> show that accumulations of sub-lethal doses 
> cause more harm than was first thought to 
> Honey bees and native pollinators.  The question 
> in my mind is what's the end result look like?  

The inevitable accumulation of tiny doses into a serious problem is a horror
unique to organophosphates, such as Check-Mite.
The bad news is that the farmworkers will be the ones to suffer the most, as
they had the most exposure.  (Note that most all other segments of
agriculture have backpedaled away from organophosphates.  As I remember, USA
use was cut in half between 2004 and 2007.  The systemics were supposed to
replace the neurotoxins.)

To my knowledge, this build-up issue is not a proven bee health or behavior
issue at "field relevant doses" of systemics over the lifespan of a bee.
But the claims made by the pesticide companies that honey bees "completely
metabolized" low doses of systemics like Imidacloprid have been pretty
clearly shown to be false and/or deliberately disingenuous by Christina, who
educated us all about the issue of "irreversible" vs "reversible" binding.
I think the best summation was Christina's statement of May 29, 2013:

"In my opinion, they are being misleading when they say that the binding is
fully reversible.  In the lab, yes.  In nature???  Not likely, given that
the displacement kinetics are completely unnatural.  Those metabolites
aren't going to be found in a normal synapse, and there isn't anything else
except ACh in there to compete with IMI."

So, we are left with the thorny issue of "sublethal effects".  Do bees live
long enough for a realistic dose to cause detectable problems?

On one end of the spectrum, we have Tennekes, who keeps claiming dire
results from very tiny doses, but not with results that vary with doses
administered, or that can be replicated. 

In the middle, we have a whole bunch of people, including Harvard's Dr. Lu,
who administer known fatal doses, and call them "sublethal" because the bees
do not immediately drop dead.  But these are dying bees, make no mistake.
So, their results are not surprising to anyone, and the only argument is
over how they chose to interpret their results in light of their doses.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have those who still point to the data
of the pesticide companies as gospel. While one must admit that their work
seems to be of better quality than the work that is presented in attempt
refutation, their results seem to be of more value in setting "acute dose"
pesticide limits than addressing the sublethal issues.

The only contribution of any value that I can offer is that if there is a
sublethal dose at which bees suffer measurable tangible effects, then one
should be able to dial back the dose to a point where there is no
measureable tangible effect, and then turn up the dose to the point where
the measureable tangible effect shows up sooner.   And this simple
"dose-response curve" is what we should demand from those who want to ban or
restrict these pesticides, because the general trend has been toward less
toxic stuff as technology marches forward.  

So, if you want to claim that the new stuff is so bad that everyone should
go back to using organophosphates and other non-systemics, you need to show
the world a direct relationship between a dose and an effect.  If you can't
show a clear dose-response curve, then you are likely looking at the impact
of your methodology, rather than with the pesticide at issue.

I keep a few dozen hives of bees in a very non-agricultural area, and my
hives have no fewer problems than the hives of multi-crop migratory
pollinators even though analysis of honey, pollen, wax, and sampled bees
have come back pesticide free (to the limit of detection) over and over
again, year after year.  My hives, and the hives of many other "urban
beekeepers" stand in mute witness as the ultimate "control colonies" in the
pesticide debacle.   

If the problem was pesticides, we'd be doing far better.  We aren't, so it
isn't.

As for the various factions, and even moreso those who presume to attempt to
sit in judgement of everyone else's work, I can only quote Oscar Gamble of
the NY Yankees: "They don't think it be like it is, but it do".


 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html