A group of beekeepers and environmentalists announced today that they are suing the Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to curb the use of insecticides they say are decimating bee populations and putting our nation’s food supply in jeopardy.
The four beekeepers and five environmental and consumer groups involved in the lawsuit, including the Pesticide Action Network, Center for Food Safety and Beyond Pesticides, say the link between neonicotinoids—a nicotine-like class of pesticides that include clothianidin and thiamethoxam—and bee die offs is crystal clear. And they claim the EPA acted outside the law when it allowed for “conditional registration” of their use. Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science are the primary manufacturers of clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
I can't see eggs without a lot of magnification. Eyesight is a limitation. Keeping a smoker lit is more of a learned skill. One has a chance of improving over time and one usually doesn't. Most magnification devices reduce the focal point to a point that is too close or even inside the veil. I have learned that seeing eggs is not necessary for beekeeping and I never had an issue with keeping my smoker lit.I feel about this like I feel about new beekeepers who say they can't see eggs or can't keep a smoker lit.
Maybe you would like to discuss what difference it makes where you drill a hole in a beam. If you haven't studied the subject you may never understand why it makes a difference no matter how much you try to understand it.If you are not opening up these studies and trying to make sense of them...and figuring out what you don't understand, you simply aren't trying.
Go read it again then, half way down the paragraph titled 'materials and methods'They used a range of levels of neonicitinoids from 20 MICRO-grams(ug) per kilogram concentrations up to 400ug/kg. The did not, as Randy Oliver accuses, change the protocol halfway through the study. Read the study yourself.
Guttation droplets are not a water source. They are a nectar source. They have the same molecular make-up of nectar - high in sugar, various enzymes, etc. And even if someone showed a THOUSAND videos of bees drinking from guttation (such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMhguEp7qN4) or a THOUSAND videos of bees collecting corn pollen (such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLsLnC8W5DI) the folks that, for some bizzare reason, actively want to ignore the fact that it's our own pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides causing these problems will continue to do so, making statements such as "bees ignore corn" while the sheep nod their heads in agreement. I'm done wasting my time here.In fact there is no evidence at all that they do collect water from guttation droplets as far as I know.
I imagine it is possible, perhaps when there is no alternate water source, but it is certainly not a habitual activity of bees. Anyway, bees tend to avoid a food or water source when it is contaminated due to the repellent effect of a pesticide at higher levels. Various researchers have noted this for Imidacloprid.
Someone posted a video on you tube of a bee collecting water from droplets but there was no evidence that the water droplets were even guttation droplets.
Guttation droplets can contain very high levels of systemic pesticide but if bees are not taking water from them there is not actually a problem for bees.
With corn, the problem for bees is planter dust clouds during seed drilling.
The Girolami experiment was a lab study which fed dehydrated caged bees syrup laced with pesticide via pipette.
ie it is another study which demonstrates that insecticide kills insects efficiently at high dosage but shows little else.
Not the case. Guttation fluids are low in sugars, usually under 5% whereas nectar is more like 30%Guttation droplets are not a water source. They are a nectar source. They have the same molecular make-up of nectar - high in sugar, various enzymes, etc.
USDA doc P70Guttation fluid is generally low in
sugar content, and thus not highly attractive for foraging
honey bees. However, water collecting in honey
bees is intensive in arid regions and it is unclear to
what degree ephemeral and rare sources such as guttation
would be used over more permanent water
These are massive doses and clearly they will kill bees.It was to prove that SUBLETHAL dosages over time could cause the pattern we call CCD. Which it did. Clearly.
Are agrochemicals present in High Fructose CornHFCS samples from Tate and Lyle, Archer Daniels Midland,
Roquette and Mann Lake were sent to the Carl Hayden Bee Research
Center in Tucson, AZ, USA in 2008. These companies are among the largest commercial suppliers of HFCS to beekeepers. The HFCS was used in a study to investigate the relationship between temperature and HMF formation (LeBlanc et al., 2009). A 50ml sample of HFCS from each supplier was shipped on ice to the USDA-AMS-National Science Lab in (NSL) Gastonia, NC for pesticide analysis. The HFCS samples were extracted for analysis of agrochemicals using an official pesticide extraction method (AOAC 2007.01, also known as the QuEChERS method), and analyzed by gas chromatography and liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry detection (GC/MS, GC/MS/MS, LC/MS/MS). Samples were analyzed for the presence of 174 different agrochemicals including 17 neonicotinoids and their metabolites (Table 1). Quantification was performed using external calibration standards prepared from certified standard reference
material. The National Science Laboratory is ISO 17025 accredited to perform pesticide residue analysis.
There were no pesticides detected in any of the HFCS samples.
Bees pay little if any attention to field corn.regarding bees feeding on guttation drops, a challenge was made on the other forum to produce a picture of a bee feeding on corn guttation. so far no pictures.
High concentrations of neonicotinoids in corn (as well as other moncrops) do not bother me a great deal, but I would be interested if they were found in: fetterbush, clethra, sumac, button bush, zenobia, gallberry and several other bay/swamp dwellers....This is the last I have to say on the subject. I promise. But the neonicotinoids (read: poisons we know for a fact kill bees) are not ONLY found in the guttation, but in the pollen and nectar in large amounts as well:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3338325/
Not me.You do realize that you are eating those neonics don't you?
Yes you will get ~63,000 google hits if you do this. You will also get 3.2 million hits if you google "flying saucers". The number of hits doesnt mean much.>
Try this search on google:
monsanto revolving door list
You'll get 63,000 results and many lists.