New research on colony collapse disorder

[Neils]

They didn't study the long term effects, they only gave "field realistic" levels for 4 weeks before ramping up the quantities to, relatively, massive levels seemingly for the only reason that nothing adverse was observed.

They didn't treat for varroa until far too late in the year and when they did treat they used a pyrethoid treatment that is known to be ineffective in most parts of the USA. They also by most accepted evidence didn't "Succumb to CCD" neither the symptoms nor result was consistent with most accepted indications of CCD. No evidence of the brood combs is presented in the study and there is no indication that they tested for nosema either so to claim that it's pesticide induced CCD is stretching the data, to put it mildly. What evidence is presented for varroa is minimal and hand waved away when it is presented.

Ignoring completely the pesticides, I'm relatively impressed that they 'only' killed 25% of their control group.

We have to be talking about different harvard studies I'm talking about the one by Dr Lu which one are you referring to?

Specifically with regards to the German incident, yes they did encounter high levels that killed the bees directly because the seed coating was incorrectly applied, the dose was too high and the original equipment used to plant the seed blew any residual dust (of which there was lots because the coating wasn't right) straight up into the air. So in that specific case you have a set of extenuating circumstances. my understanding is that steps were subsequently taken to address some points and minimise the impact of others. Ie the planters now deposit dust on the ground rather than blowing it up into the air where it can go anywhere.

[Stromnessbees]

Regarding the dosing rates and the death of one control colony let me repeat:

Having been invoved in plenty of studies myself I would say that the way they proceeded was perfectly reasonable: For the first 4 weeks of the treatment they chose very small amounts of pesticide in reasonable increments, from 0.1 μg/kg to 10.5.

Obviously they wanted to establish if there would be any immediate reactions at these doses. It would be counterproductive to kill off all your hives at the beginning of the study.

After 4 weeks they went up to the next range of testing, from 20 μg/kg to 200. That way they can look for immediate reactions from 0.1 to 200 μg/kg with a minimum of effort, I think that was done quite elegantly.
...

94 % of the treated colonies died from CCD like symptoms and 1 out of the 4 control colonies died, but from different symptoms ('dysentery').


- Bad science or bad interpretation of perfectly good science?

Even if neonic-affected colonies eventually succumb to varroa or nosema due to their reduced abilities to ward off parasistes and diseases, the underlying rason is still the previous contamination of the brood food with neonics, which leads to underdeveloped winter bees.

[Neils]

Sorry, but that's rubbish. If they'd continued at the original doses for the entire duration of the experiment then I'd agree that it might be a causing factor to your underlined conclusion.

Here's mine:

Insufficient and ineffective Varroa IPM for the duration of the experiment lead to underdeveloped or sick winter bees which directly contributed to the loss of the colonies, the application of varying levels of pesticides, way above "field realistic" levels simply finished off colonies already severely weakened by Varroasis

Can't say anything about any other potential disease conditions in the colonies because they either didn't look for them or, if they did, they decided not to mention it.

If you follow their beekeeping regime, ignoring everything else, you can expect to lose around 25% of your colonies in the first year is mainly what I get from the results of their study. Once you start artificially dosing bees over and above what they might be foraging of their own accord you can effectively finish the job off.

[Stromnessbees]

And here you can watch what happened in France:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9boue...feature=relmfu

part two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM2Ag...feature=relmfu

part three

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC9fW...feature=relmfu

part four

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okA8p...feature=relmfu

[Neils]

I will watch them because I don't think I've seen them before, but I can't do it at work.

[The Drone Ranger]

a decapitating parasite that turns its victims into zombies
l:

I Searched BIBBA on wikipedia and I'm sure it didn't give that definition leastwise I don't remember the decapitating part ?

[Stromnessbees]

And here you can watch what happened in France:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9boue...feature=relmfu

part two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM2Ag...feature=relmfu

part three

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC9fW...feature=relmfu

part four

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okA8p...feature=relmfu

Has anybody watched these videos yet, they are very relevant to the ongoing discussion. You can even see bees dying on a sunflower, from 'field level' neonicotinoid poisoning.

[Stromnessbees]

Still no reply?

Is this a boycott or do you not like the information presented there?

[Neils]

What's there to say Doris? I will watch it at some point when I have some time but is it going to add anything new to the debate that other documentaries haven't already? Is it going to reveal some conclusive new research that I haven't heard of? Is anything I opine about it likely to lead to anything other than another tirade or grand conspiracy about hiding "the truth" (I don't have much truck with that headline since a certain newspaper used it in 1989 on an article containing anything but).

[Neils]

What if I make the point that it's a 10 year old documentary reporting largely on stuff that happened 10 years before that i.e. its reporting on things nearly 20 years ago?

There are so many general points that just don't stack up that it's not even funny. If sunflowers don't need pesticides why are farmers buying pesticides treated seed? That's never addressed. It's a he said, she said argument in this but to use a borderbeeman tactic I still don't fundamentally think that neonicotinoids are worse than what was used before (and will come back into widespread use if we ban neonicotinoids)