<div dir="ltr">I fully support Stephanie's conclusion and could hardly have put it better myself. One needs to actually measure bee keeper practices ( and one has to ask how reliable are self-reports? How consistent are the behaviour of beekeepers across seasons?), pesticide exposure, pathogen exposure, climatic variables, foraging resources available in the environment (pollen and nectar resource abundance, and their distribution across the landscape), perhaps even competition between different bee populations (managed, wild, and native), or predators, to parse out the effects of various factors that might contribute to honeybee health. What has been recently shown in both lab and field studies is that pesticides do negatively affect honeybee survival and foraging ability at concentrations experienced in nature. It is also consistently shown that loss of flowering plants has a negative effect on pollinators, including on pollinator health. Pesticides also can stress bees, interacting with other stressors like nutritional limitations, adverse weather, and pathogens. <div>Given that pesticides are known to affect other pollinators and insects, it is parsimonious to conclude that honeybees are also affected, whereas anecdotal reports of bad beekeeper management based on single examples that do not stand up to scientific rigour (replication, controls etc.) cannot be considered to be reliable.</div><div>Regards</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 10 September 2016 at 05:42, Stephanie Parreira <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:parreirastephanie@gmail.com" target="_blank">parreirastephanie@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div>This is a highly over-simplified opinion about the neonicotinoid problem. I would have further questions for the above person, such as, are there weather differences between the region where the colonies died and the place your colonies are (windy conditions can blow neonic-laden dust into colonies and onto foraging bees, so if one place is windier than the other, bee exposure and response may be different)? Is the area of planted corn significantly different from the area of corn in Ontario (more corn planted = more potential exposure to neonics and less alternative forage)? <br><br></div>Anecdotal evidence will do no one any good, whether that anecdotal evidence argues against neonicotinoid use or for it. We should take things like this with a grain of salt and understand that there are many factors at play that may increase the potential of pesticides to severely affect honey bee colonies. I am not saying that beekeeper practices cannot be improved to increase colony survival, but to blame beekeeping practices without any comparison or contrast between beekeeping practices, landscape and foraging environment, and pesticide exposure (in-hive or forager residues), it is irresponsible to jump to this conclusion.<br><br></div>(Furthermore, even if neonicotinoids are not the issue for honey bee colonies specifically, we should still be concerned about their many detrimental effects on native bee populations, which have been demonstrated in the scientific literature time and time again.)<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Laurie Adams <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:lda@pollinator.org" target="_blank">lda@pollinator.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br clear="all"></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">John Purdy</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:johnrpurdy@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnrpurdy@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 6:59 AM<br>Subject: Fwd: [New post] Honeybees and Corn 2016<br>To: Laurie Adams <<a href="mailto:LDA@pollinator.org" target="_blank">LDA@pollinator.org</a>><br><br><br><div dir="ltr">Here is an important observation from a beekeeper in western Canada. It helps to build confidence in what I found in my recent bee health study. perhaps it is worth posting. (a section is a mile square or 640 acres)<div><br></div><div>John<br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Alberta Buzzing</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:donotreply@wordpress.com" target="_blank">donotreply@wordpress.com</a>></span><br>Date: Sun, Sep 4, 2016 at 10:40 PM<br>Subject: [New post] Honeybees and Corn 2016<br>To: <a href="mailto:johnrpurdy@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnrpurdy@gmail.com</a><br><br><br><u></u>
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Lee Townsend posted: "I had a yard of 40 hives on a quarter section of treated corn this year, and it is interesting as I am not seeing any of the effects on the bees that groups like the Ontario Beekeepers Association claims to take place in this situation. My bees are of th" </span>
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New post on <strong>Alberta Buzzing</strong> </h2>
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<h2 style="margin:.4em 0 .3em;font-size:1.8em;font-size:1.6em;color:#555;margin:0;font-size:20px"><a href="http://albertabuzzing.com/2016/09/honeybees-and-corn-2016/" style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2;text-decoration:none!important" target="_blank">Honeybees and Corn 2016</a></h2>
<span style="color:#888">by <a href="http://albertabuzzing.com/?author=1" style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2;color:#888!important" target="_blank">Lee Townsend</a> </span>
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<p style="direction:ltr;font-size:14px;line-height:1.4em;color:#444;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;margin:0 0 1em">I had a yard of 40 hives on a quarter section of treated corn this year, and it is interesting as I am not seeing any of the effects on the bees that groups like the Ontario Beekeepers Association claims to take place in this situation. My bees are of the same species that are in Ontario, the corn is treated the same way as it is in Ontario, and the planting was done the same as in Ontario.</p>
<p style="direction:ltr;font-size:14px;line-height:1.4em;color:#444;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;margin:0 0 1em">Leads me to think the problem is not neonics, but beekeeper management. It is truly unfortunate that the Ontario Beekeepers Association and groups like it refuse to admit what exactly they are doing with their colonies, with proof to back up their claims.</p>
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<strong><a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="http://albertabuzzing.com/?author=1" target="_blank">Lee Townsend</a></strong> | September 4, 2016 at 8:40 pm | URL: <a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="http://wp.me/p5JjBC-1X" target="_blank">http://wp.me/p5JjBC-1X</a> </div>
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</font></span></font></span></div><span><font color="#888888"><span><font color="#888888"><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">John Purdy PhD<div>Environmental Scientist</div><div>Abacus Consulting Services Ltd</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:small">This message including any attachments is confidential to Abacus Consulting Services Limited. Any other recipient must destroy the message and immediately notify the sender.</span><br></div></div></div></div></div>
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