I doubt we will find that corn is a problem, the majority of corn is grown in IN, IA, IL southern Mn, 
Eastern NE and northern MO. Here in Mn the corn will be tasselling in early July to the 3rd week, 
right when we have our major flow for basswood and sweet clover. Why would our bees here at 
least be scrounging for pollen in a corn field when its prime time flow season? 

The corn belt has had few CCD reports too so I just don't buy the corn seed treatment idea thats 
causing CCD.

BTW I grow apples 1800 trees and keep my bees in my orchards year around. I use fungicides in 
the spring, and some limited insecticides during the summer which are from the organophosphate 
class. Its very easy to grow apples here with out the use of heavy chems, my bees in the orchards 
look just as good as anywhere else and make the same honey crop. I have no clover or other 
plants in bloom on my orchard floor just grass.

Provado the Imidicloprid version for apple spray is very expensive and only used if leafhoppers or 
other leaf sucking insects move in usually in later summer. Its hard to see how a one time 
treatment would contaminate the soil or be in the tree next spring during apple bloom, unless the 
applicator over -uses the material. I typically use less then half the label rate on most chems and 
get good results. I'm not looking for 100 % perfect fruit either.  

So depending on the orchard grower, apples can be no more dangerous to have your bees near 
then say corn.....Maybe the question is corn tasselling during a dearth of nectar or pollen, could 
that be the case further south of here? 

I had some SARE funding a few years ago to buy a microscope and have a grad student do some 
pollen identification analysis to see what floral sources our bees were visiting. She analyzed pollen 
from traps and from honey residues. We found very small quantities of corn pollen in the traps. 

To me Imidacloprid is more of a possible concern in FL for oranges and the new pest they have 
moving in there, on sunflowers, canola, cotton, and other crops which are more heavily visited by 
honeybees then corn.  Also if other flowering plants like clover are found below or by some of 
these crops when sprayed with Imidacloprid then obviously that would be of concern too. 

My sense if that sunflowers and canola and cotton would be of greatest concern to beek's if the 
seeds were coated with Imidacloprid since these plants are more attractive to bees then corn or 
fruit trees after bloom. 

On fruit like apples the material will still be absorbed by the leaves but this is different since the 
applications on fruit is most likely done long after the bloom. With no fruit on a plant before or 
during bloom fruit growers have less of a reason to spray for insects.  

So what I'm trying to say is Imidacloprid can be found in a honeybees environment in different 
ways at different times of the growing season. I'm not sure that all uses of that chemical are of 
concern to us beekeepers. 

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