For readers of Beesource following Stromnessbees outburst

[Jon]

Trog is a she, irrespective of any bellyache. Dodgy lot engineers.

The funny thing is, in my innocence when I explained to Doris that she had misinterpreted banter as conspiracy, probably not for the first or even the second time in her life, I thought she would apologize we would all forget about it, but even when the situation was clarified she went on to post the same conspiracy nonsense on the biobees site and god knows where else on the internet. Maybe it is just attention seeking. Sad really. Still time for an apology.

[Calum]

I feel I have to come cleam here, I am an engineer in the auto supply industry too.
I have been for 12 years now.
My wife tells friends I am a tax collector, and my family in scotland tell people I work as a sauna attendant on a cruise ship in south america.

I also have shares in Rolls Royce, BT, D-Telecom, and british and swiss banks. - Glad I have bees, they help forget the shame of my existance..

[Adam]

Calum. No shame.

Last year I couldn't spell engineer. Now I are one.
At least I don't hug donkeys.

[Jon]

I hug neither donkeys nor dolphins nor Doris until she apologizes! Anyway, that is not a hug. It is a push. And it is not my donkey - nor are those my bees.
That was a public spirited action to avoid a diplomatic incident and possible tabloid headlines involving dead donkeys and killer bees.

auto supply industry

cruise ship

tax collector

Secret code assimilated and understood.

In response I say 'capybara'

Wink wink nudge nudge. And you work in Germany you say. For a big multinational I bet.

[GRIZZLY]

Some of us engineers are quite good with the bees.At least we understand the nuts and bolts of the subject.As for pesticides,I can only recall one incidence of poisoning and that was in the 1970's when much more virulent poisons were sloshed on the land.Lets keep the discussion going and not degenerate into the meaningless and misinformed mumblings such as I read on other so called forums.

[Jon]

My word, all those engineers coming out of the woodwork!
Need to be careful or Roger Patterson will be back talking about his 'engineer's logic'

grizzly, the pesticide risk is difficult to calculate due to the language used in the published papers.
I was thinking about this the other day as those who fail to understand, or in some cases willfully misinterpret - present as evidence studies using concentrations 100 times greater than field realistic.

In my non engineers way, (Bsc Hons psychology, I hold my hand up to a wafflers degree) these are the factors I think you have to get your head around when reading a study about pesticides.

1. What is the dosage used in the study and is it field realistic? This will be measured in ppb (parts per billion) or µg/kg if fed to bees in sugar syrup. During the Harvard study 400 µg/kg was the upper limit, equivalent to 400 ppb. The lower limit they looked at after changing plans half way through the study was 20 µg/kg. The concentration of Imidacloprid in pollen and nectar has been typically measured as 1-5 ppb and it is usually at the lower end of that, ie 1-2 ppb. To use the drinking analogy suggested by Doris, a man can drink from 1-5 pints without serious harm, maybe a hangover the next day at the 5 pint level. Field realistic dosage. We then set up a study where student volunteers are forced to drink from 20 to 400 pints in a day and they all die. Maybe the odd hardy soul survives at the 20 pint level. We then present this as evidence that alcohol is so harmful it should be banned. In the Goulson bumblebee study, they looked at a field realistic level of pollen and sugar water containing 6μg kg–1 and 0.7μg kg–1 imidacloprid, representing the level found in seed-treated rape. That is why this study deserves to be taken seriously and the Harvard one does not.

2. What product is being tested? Imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam or others. The ppb which is dangerous to bees differs in each case so you need to relate that to the dosage used in the study as well. Clothianidin is much more toxic to bees than Imidacloprid for example.

3. How is the product applied? Is it applied as a seed dressing, a foliar drench or soil injection. Of these three, seed coating is the least risky to bees which is probably why we do not see problems with bees on oil seed rape. Some US beekeepers have reported problems with pumpkin pollination contracts as the plants receive a foliar drench before being planted out in the field.

4. Is the design of the study coherent? ie is it likely to relate to how bees forage in the field. Girolami's guttation water experiments involved firstly dehydrating bees in the lab then offering them water laced with pesticide via a pipette. The bees died. For this to be a valid model you need to demonstrate that bees will take water from guttation droplets in the field which are very toxic even though they have alternate clean water sources. Bees avoid toxins such as Imidacloprid when the concentration makes them easily detectable.

5. Are we talking lab studies or field studies? Lab studies often involve individual bees trapped inside glass tubes which are then fed different doses of toxin. Jurgen Tautz claims that to understand the honeybee you have to consider it as a superorganism rather than an individual bee. The colony has multiple individuals with a hugely differentiated series of tasks to undertake which change throughout an individual bee's lifetime. If studies look at honeybees at anything less than colony level are they valid?

[Calum]

Jon, put everything after I am a Bsc Hons psychology, I hold my hand up to a wafflers degree, on another thread far away before it all kicks of again .
Yes the south of Germany, very close to Austria. A big (american) international (not Monsanto before you ask).

I make 50% beekeeking income from selling colonies to beekeepers that can't keep their own alive.
In one specific area where one beekeeper looses 90% and another looses only 10% - you have to look at putting some blame on the beekeeper. Shifting or projecting the blame on pesticide producers is far far to easy.

[Jon]

I see that here too. Some people have huge losses every year and have to scrounge or purchase more colonies in spring. Some of them are people who consider themselves big cheeses in the local beekeeping world as well.
I hate giving bees or selling bees to anyone I think will not look after them properly.
The good beekeepers end up with extra colonies or nucs and poor beekeepers are always looking for more bees.
We all make mistakes from time to time but there are people who seem to make the same mistakes year in year out.

[Calum]

This is how I combat that. Will have to put my prices up though - going rate in my area is now 105 pounds for ten frames in March - April

[Jon]

Same Here Calum. I always have spare queens in apideas. I still have two spare in apideas which overwintered.
We have about 20 members in a queen rearing group I started last year which is run on a not profit basis.
group members chip in ten quid each at the first meeting to cover the cost of cell cups and the rest. For that you get as many queen cells as you want for your apideas, grafted off the best two or three queens. Just posted a bit about the new association apiary in the blog section.