Oil Seed Rape and neonicotinoid seed coatings

[Jon]

Apparently almost all the oil seed rape in the UK is now seed coated with neonicotinoid.

I have about 20 acres of OSR near my bees at least every other year and have never seen a problem with it. In fact my bees build up really well on it due to the abundance of nectar and high quality pollen.
Has anyone really noticed a problem with oil seed rape?
I note today that the usual suspects have started up the annual anti neonic campaign and the Herald has a ridiculous article today penned by a journalist spoon fed by billy bonkers.

Headline -

Scientists link mass death of British bees to farm pesticides

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/e...des.1326596745

Wow, mass death of British bees, must have missed that, and so has the bbka as they published figures last year stating the colony numbers in the UK had increased from 40,000 to 120,000 over a 3 year period. The figure of 120,000 is a year old now and may well be higher now given all the new beekeepers taking up the craft.

The issue here is to sift the truth from the propaganda and the usual bone idle lazy journalism.
Beekeepers need to be aware of problems caused by pesticides but talking about 'mass deaths' when there has been a huge increase in colony numbers is journalism at its laziest.
There are big problems with beekeeping in the US but thankfully beekeeping seems to be doing very well in the UK as long as you keep on top of varroa.

There are problems with neonicotinoids when they are misapplied such as the colonies killed in Germany in 2008 but thankfully these events seem to be quite rare.

This is the paper the current media storm is based upon.