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Thread: Rather good, Dan!

  1. #11
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ruary View Post
    are you expecting him to have to log on twice, once as administrator and then also as a member???
    I was wondering if he would rather that I was not the Administrator, simply because I had objections to a project he got himself involved with. Or perhaps he expects me not to comment on it at all because I am the Administrator. Neither is going to happen, but all reasonable views will be tolerated here. It is, of course, impossible for me to log in as an ordinary member (unless I adopt my alter ego as the East of Scotland Apiary guy, but that would be seen as being deceptive ... )

    PS Welcome, Ruary!
    Last edited by gavin; 28-09-2011 at 09:21 AM.

  2. #12
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post

    PS Welcome, Ruary!
    Have you brought your microscope with you?

    Re the hypothesis of neonicotinoids causing current bee problems:

    Most Oil Seed Rape seed is pre treated with neonicotinoid pesticide these days.
    Why then do colonies build up really well on it in April and May.

    Why do commercial beekeepers move their colonies to oil seed rape fields if it is so dangerous?
    They say turkeys do not vote for Christmas.

    Why have colony numbers tripled in the uk from 40,000 to 120,000 in the past 3 years if bees are having so many problems? (BBKA figures)
    I just don't see this bee holocaust which the UK press bang on about. It's all in the US, which is usually where you find Dan Rather as well.

    Where is the field study evidence that neonicotinoids are harmful to bees?
    Dozens of researchers in many different countries have looked at this and found no linkage.
    Incidents such as the notorious case in Germany a couple of years back were due to problems with the seed drilling process which released clouds of contaminated dust in an area foraged over by bees.
    All the studies showing harm such as the guttation water work of Girolami have been lab based with bees being housed individually in little glass tubes. Other stresses come into play which renders the data questionable.

    Like a lot of people, I started out assuming that neonicotinoids were the main cause of bee problems but once I stopped listening to the ranters who have their own agenda, I came to a different conclusion. There are a lot of science papers to read and the vast majority of them fail to show any linkage between neonicotinoids and bee problems. The problem is that a lot of people are driven by the crap they read in the UK press or in poorly researched books such as 'world without bees' which make the same sensationalist claims.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    I gave two responses in two different posts. One was to your post on the Dan Rather programme Alvearium, and the other was to Trog's comments which I took, possibly mistakenly, to be an oblique reference to the Dundee University-SBA survey. I happen to believe that the latter is naive and so I disagreed that it was likely to tell us anything useful about the differences between beekeeping in arable and non-arable areas. Bee performance is dominated by issues of the state of the forage (and that includes weather), beekeeper management, and queen mating. As Marion said, I am simply participating in a discussion and describing my response as 'over control' is not right. This place is for discussion, and the only control exercised is applied when folk get out of order which has only happened once.

    And Trog, open-mindedness is, in my view, an absolute prerequisite for good science. Totally. That means no jumping to conclusions, no diving ahead without considering the existing evidence, no listening to campaigners ahead of paying attention to the existing science. Essentially no wishful thinking, as that is the road to poor science, and even to seeking and collecting data that back up your existing assumptions. It means stepping back from your preconceptions, thinking broadly, designing work that makes no assumptions about the answer, then proceeding to collect and analyse data that can help decide between alternatives, or refute a hypothesis. A lot of science gets one or more of these wrong, sometimes badly.

    In the case of the Dundee-SBA survey you could argue that the approach used is neutral. As originally conceived, it was an attempt to prove that pesticides were harming bee colonies having started with an assumption that they were. Now it is including a couple of the other factors (Nosema and Varroa, and I don't know how well they are being assessed as it takes professional time and effort to get that right) but if anyone really wants to understand what kills (or weakens) bee colonies you need to take a holistic approach that looks at all the important factors. You can find that approach in some of the other studies on this internationally.

    Nice to have at least some debate on this anyway - I hope that there is a lot more to come.

    best wishes

    Gavin
    Hoist by your own petard, Gavin. You're being just as dogmatic in your views as those you seek to rubbish at every opportunity.

    IF all the other research used both varroa-infested bees and those currently free of it; IF all the other research used bees from a wide variety of backgrounds and forage conditions; IF all the other research took into account weather and available forage over a long period, THEN you MIGHT have a point.

  4. #14
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trog View Post
    Hoist by your own petard, Gavin. You're being just as dogmatic in your views as those you seek to rubbish at every opportunity.
    Sorry Trog, I can't agree at all. My position on pesticides has shifted in exactly the same way Jon explained from deep suspicion of pesticides to deep suspicion of those who jump on bandwagons without studying the large accumulating pool of scientific data on the topic. That is because I look at the available evidence and reconsider. It isn't dogma that makes me criticise the project, it is because that is what scientists do - criticise and argue. The process makes science better, or at least it should. Maybe the Dundee project is now shifting from utter naivety to a position that is more easily justified - I just don't know. No-one is explaining what the changes in its approach are.

    The other studies didn't use Varroa infested and Varroa-free colonies but some of them did assess a wide range of threats to colony health, including Varroa. In several studies there was no association between bee ill-health or mortality and pesticide residues or presumed exposure from assessing the surrounding environment, but there were associations with other factors including pests and diseases.

    all the best

    Gavin

  5. #15

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    The question I would ask is

    Has anyone on this forum lost a bee colony where the cause was pesticides?

    I think SASA would have data on bees sent to them for pesticide testing which proved positive.

    Meanwhile "don't panic Captain Mainwaring"

    Re the study in Dundee Uni. I feel that's a lot of money £1.8M to investigate a theory
    Personally I would use that cash to either fix chalkbrood or start a Scottish bee breeding initiative.
    How about plotting drone congregation areas.
    OR Collecting dead bees from the floors of every beekeeper in Scotland during this Winter and checking their genetic makeup.

    There are so many things screaming out for proper research and so little cash to go round I hope something useful comes out of the study

  6. #16
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Why would you want to know the genetic makeup of every beekeeper in Scotland.

    I am with you though DR. The neonic issue re. bees has been researched extensively all over the world and the data is all tending to point away from neonics being the big problem.
    Last edited by Jon; 28-09-2011 at 11:11 PM.

  7. #17
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    This recent study from Spain looks to be very relevant to the work at Dundee.
    Higes in particular has been very involved in looking at links between N Ceranae and pesticides with regard to colony losses in Spain.

    It coincides with the study by Mullin et al in that it notes that the main pesticides found in bee colonies were put there by the beekeeper as part of varroa control.

    Overview of Pesticide Residues in Stored Pollen and Their Potential
    Effect on Bee Colony (Apis mellifera) Losses in Spain
    J. BERNAL,1,2 E. GARRIDO-BAILO´ N,3 M. J. DEL NOZAL,1 A. V. GONZA´ LEZ-PORTO,3
    R. MARTI´N-HERNA´ NDEZ,3 J. C. DIEGO,1 J. J. JIME´ NEZ,1 J. L. BERNAL,1 AND M. HIGES3

    ABSTRACT In the last decade, an increase in honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colony losses has been
    reported in several countries. The causes of this decline are still not clear. This study was set out to
    evaluate the pesticide residues in stored pollen from honey bee colonies and their possible impact on
    honey bee losses in Spain. In total, 1,021 professional apiaries were randomly selected. All pollen
    samples were subjected to multiresidue analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (MS) and
    liquid chromatography-MS; moreover, speciÞc methods were applied for neonicotinoids and Þpronil.
    A palynological analysis also was carried out to conÞrm the type of foraging crop. Pesticide residues
    were detected in 42% of samples collected in spring, and only in 31% of samples collected in autumn.
    Fluvalinate and chlorfenvinphos were the most frequently detected pesticides in the analyzed
    samples. Fipronil was detected in 3.7% of all the spring samples but never in autumn samples, and
    neonicotinoid residues were not detected. More than 47.8% of stored pollen samples belonged to wild
    vegetation, and sunßower (Heliantus spp.) pollen was only detected in 10.4% of the samples. A direct
    relation between pesticide residues found in stored pollen samples and colony losses was not evident
    accordingly to the obtained results. Further studies are necessary to determine the possible role of
    the most frequent and abundant pesticides (such as acaricides) and the synergism among them and
    with other pathogens more prevalent in Spain.

    http://docserver.ingentaconnect.com/...773B84251B456F
    Last edited by Jon; 03-10-2011 at 04:35 PM.

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    Doesn't that pave the way for the now infamous line "...in quantities too small to be detected"?

    Remind me too try that one out next time I come back skint from the pub:

    "there was cash in my wallet when I entered The Ship, so it must still be there..."

  9. #19
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nellie View Post
    ..in quantities too small to be detected"?
    Yes Physicists call it the Chandler particle.
    Apparently they are firing bees around the Hadron collider as we speak and looking for Imidacloprid residue from the resulting collisions.

    From the discussion in the above paper:

    The toxicity of imidacloprid and its metabolites to
    honey bees has been addressed previously (Faucon et
    al. 2005), although to date, no association between its
    appearance in pollen and the mortality of honey bee
    colonies has been demonstrated in the field (Chauzat
    et al. 2009, Nguyen et al. 2009). Imidacloprid is authorized
    in Spain for use in maize and sunflower crops,
    fruit trees and vegetable crops and there is a great
    concern about its implication in bee disappearance. In
    this survey, pollen from maize or sunflower was only
    detected in the 9.4 and 10.4% of the stored pollen
    samples, respectively, and never as the main taxa.
    Hence, from the examination of these results, if pesticides
    such as fipronil or imidacloprid present in these
    crops could lead to intoxication problems in honey bee
    colonies, they would be relatively isolated events and
    not a widespread problem in our country.
    Last edited by Jon; 03-10-2011 at 04:38 PM.

  10. #20
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    Well we know that reaching that conclusion has to mean we can only reach one ourselves, that they're in the pocket of Bayer.

    All jokes aside those two points are where I start to question what the actual aim of the anti-neonicotinoid crowd actually is.

    I had a bunch of extra waffle tacked on, but frankly it didn't say anything that I haven't said umpteen times already.

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