Over the past three years, we've contracted work dealing with pollination of several different highly hybridized, and sometimes GMO crops in the US and Canada. As an OLD farmer, who grew up growing several of these crops or if not as crops, in my mother's large garden; I've noticed an obvious reduction in the abundance of pollen, and we've seen scant nectar from crops I had expected to have copious amounts. I've seen enough cases now to begin to wonder how big a facter this is in colony condition. Breed plants for yield, size, color, etc. - forget to check to see what the impact is on pollen amount and quality, same for nectar. Also, years ago, we did some work on bees and cotton. Those external nectaries would be messy, if you were picking cotton. Jerry *********************************************** 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 Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm