Quote Originally Posted by Calum View Post
Hi Doris,
the problem is that at this time the bees are not dying in the fields.
Exactly:

When this pesticide is applied at high levels, it acts as a nerve poison that paralyses the bee. Those who are not killed outright become disorientated and cannot find their way back to the hive.

At lower concentrations, so called sublethal doses, the pesticide is carried into the hive with nectar and pollen, where it affects the colony on many levels:

It affects communication within the colony, suppresses grooming and cleaning behaviour and interferes with the normal development of worker and queen larvae.

The colony as a whole will become a lot more susceptible to other challenges like varroa and nosema, affected queens will be superceded more often and affected winter bees will die early, leaving behind an empty hive – a classic symptom of CCD.

For anybody who doubts the delayed effects of this neonicotinoid on the colony I recommend to look at adverts for Premise 75, which is the same chemical aimed at killing termites, a group of insects related to bees which also live in colonies:

The intent is not to kill the individual termite on contact, but to cause the collapse of the whole colony due to secondary infections as the pesticide is distributed by the workers.
Please also notice the deliberate long lasting effectiveness in the soil, as these chemicals are very persistent and will affect insect live for a long time wherever they have been applied, or they get moved into ground water and streams, thus contaminating drinking water and killing invertebrates that are at the basis of a whole ecosystem.
http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/pr...ide-p-316.html


CCD remians an american problem, it does not suprise me at all that they have an issue.
Not true:

I have seen CCD with my own eyes in Austria, where neonic contaminated pollen has caused all my friend's colonies to collapse, nearly all the adult bees had left the colony and only a handfull were left behind with the queen amongst them, the stores were left untouched.

My mother's fruit trees depend on these bees for pollination, and I told her that if she doesn't want to get ladder and paintbrush for doing the pollination herself in future, she'd better help to get these pesticides banned.