The latest concoction of inaccuracies from Alison Benjamin in today's Guardian.
Presumably the article was triggered by a press release issued from the below mentioned Mr Roddick (activist and campaigner)

Roddick said: "These neonicotinoid pesticides penetrate the plant and indiscriminately attack the nervous system of insects that feed off them, disorientating bees, impairing their foraging ability and weakening their immune system, causing bee Aids. On current evidence, Italy, Germany and Slovenia have banned some varieties. In the UK, it's up to the people to show the government that if there is any doubt that they are contributing to bee deaths, we need to ban them."
We may as well scrap all the research now that Mr Roddick (obviously has an all seeing eye and knows more than a scientist) has told us for sure what is causing bee decline. Great to be certain.

I wonder has he read all those field studies which looked at Neonicotinoids and failed to find a link with bee decline, but hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a healthy prejudice. Let's keep up this farce with the British public that bee decline (actually a 3 fold increase in uk colony numbers in the past 3 years) is caused either by Neonicotinoid pesticides or mobile phones. Good on yer, and I see there is another worthy petition headed our way. That will fix things good and proper.

The article is headlined

Experts puzzled by big decline in honeybees over winter
yet winter losses were much lower in 2010-2011 than for several years.

Full article here

I despair of Alison Benjamin but at least this article was not illustrated with a photo of a hoverfly like many of her previous ones.