Another plethora of neonicotinoid articles today...

[Jon]

...which means that the (lazy) journalists were all primed with press releases yesterday by the usual suspect(s)

Richard Black BBC environment correspondent interchanges facts about bumblebees and honey bees without seemingly being aware of it and throws stuff about ccd into the mix as well. I do agree with Dave Goulson of Stirling University when he states that all insecticides should be banned in gardens. Hardly mission critical for our food supply. I wish they were banned on allotments as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17535769

Alison Benjamin clearly wants to leave the Guardian and seek a career with News International.
Tabloid headline of the day:

Toxic pollen and the mad bee disease disaster

I didn't make that up.
Here's the link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ad-bee-disease
Didn't she write the World without Bees book which ended up in everyone's Christmas stocking!

Her colleague Damian also churns out the same old chestnut about honeybee decline in the UK even though the bbka reports that colony numbers have tripled in the last 3 years or so. He also get mixed up between bumbles and honeybees.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ine?intcmp=239

When will these folk start to check some of their facts.
The studies mentioned have some interesting stuff in them but the reporting from a broadsheet like the Guardian is of a dire standard.

[Bumble]

And in amongst the Guardian's comments somebody has managed to include Einstein's non-quote. They have been corrected, but the correction is getting fewer recommendations. What was that about numpties?

[Jon]

Numptie is the default position out and about. You even get them amongst award winning journalists!

The thing about the research is that you have to find the studies and read them yourself as the journalists have a very superficial grasp of the issues. I cannot believe the dross that the Guardian publishes about bees and pesticides and I actually buy the paper every day.

This study published in January 2012 uses the same transmitter technology to study sub lethal effects. It drew some different conclusions but got no publicity.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...one.0030023#s1

[chris]

We had the same reports on the tv last night. As the anchor man said that at last the total disappearance of French bees had definately been pinned down to the use of "Cruiser", my wife looked at me and said "Don't you dare".

[Jon]

There are a number of threads on Bee-Line discussing a possible neonicotinoid ban and the consequences for bees of a return of the older more dangerous pesticides such as organo-phosphates.

[gavin]

So, we have a paper that suggests honeybees don't return as often as they should ... but there was another paper earlier that looked and didn't find that effect. Which one is right? Where is the discussion in the media of the earlier one?

And we have a paper which looks like good science that says that bumble bee colonies usually fail to make queens when exposed to imidacloprid ... yet bumble bee populations around here (where there is plenty of imidacloprid-laced OSR for them) are quite high and there are a lot of prospecting queens out there of the species used in the Stirling study.

Am I allowed to say that I'm confused?

Graham White is stirring it as usual elsewhere and now says that his OSR-fed queens are superceding later in the summer ... but we've discussed poor queen mating here too and came to the conclusion that we've had a run of poor summers with poor queen mating that was just as bad in areas of the country far away from arable agriculture.

Still, the hysteria and selective quoting will continue no matter what we say here ....

[Neils]

I think you also need to factor in Gavin's point as well, once bees are no longer being exposed to neonicotinoids they metabolise it fairly rapidly. Once, in this case, the OSR finishes, what are they foraging on next? A hypothesis is that larvae may be better than adult bees at metabolising alkaloids generally.

Given that surpluses are stored and concentrated in the form of honey, has anyone actually looked at what level of neonicotinoids are present in honey? Is it greater, the same or less than that found in nectar/pollen?

[Jon]

Certainly any food product would be routinely monitored for pesticide residues.
Didn't some of those studies by Engelsdorp et al and some of Marla Spivak's work look at pesticides found in the hive.
The most prevalent ones were those put there by beekeepers for varroa control.

http://othes.univie.ac.at/9119/

[Neils]

Depends what they're looking for, if they're looking for levels that would be relevant from human consumption then I doubt they're looking at levels that would be relevant to Honey bees.

Would neonicotinoids be found in wax anyway?

[Jon]

I think pesticides of any flavour are more likely to be in the wax than the honey and again there are loads of studies measuring the levels and the effect on developing brood. One good reason for changing old comb I suppose.

This was a good Engelsdorp paper from 2009

This is another about pesticide in comb