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Senior Member
Thanks for the time to provide info / links AlexJ & Nellie - I have filled the book in question, unfinished.
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I'd say finish it and make your own mind up its not clear cut by any means. I've not personally read the book in question so don't have an opinion on it one way or another
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I'm afraid that I tend to read and then dismiss 'alarmist' articles that include lots of 'maybes' and 'could' in amongst the text, more especially if they're accompanied by poorly sourced photographs. The hectoring and, sometimes, threatening (with regard to the future), posts that are on various internet sites are also a turn off because they don't encourage discussion.
The trouble is that, although I do agree that we should be wary of some pesticides and even herbicides, research is always funded by somebody or other, and they set the parameters and also, sometimes, the outcome and the press releases.
The thing I don't fully understand is that if seed dressings etc are so dangerous why do so many British beekeepers take their bees to OSR for the honey, and pollen, crop and do it again year after year, with no apparent ill-effects.
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Now that is very good question indeed
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Senior Member
And it is that simple observation which blows away most of the scaremongering.
Borderbeeman and others are trying to claim that neonicotinoids on oil seed rape affect queen quality and induce early supersedure.
Well funny, I reared over 100 last year and I had 20 acres of oil seed rape within 400 yards of my mating apiary.
These queens are still going strong in my own colonies and in the colonies of members of our queen rearing group.
Mervyn who runs the neighbouring Dromore BKA queen rearing group brings all his colonies, a dozen or so, to about 100 acres of oil seed rape in April. He brings them back home at the end of May and starts grafting at that point. The reason he brings them to the OSR is to have big strong colonies for queen rearing. Go figure as the Americans like to say.
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