Was: For readers of Beesource following Stromnessbees outburst

[gavin]

Be patient, folks. I'm tidying up this thread to move the pesticide bits here. Must leave it now for a while ....

What you find in this thread are the pesticide-related posts that arose in the thread of the above name, started by me in the 'Everything and anything' area. The posts relating to Doris' behaviour are still here (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?841-For-readers-of-Beesource-following-Stromnessbees-outburst).

[Stromnessbees]

Jon, by Harvard study do you mean this one?


In situ replication of honey bee colony collapse disorder

Chensheng LU1, Kenneth M. WARCHOL2, Richard A. CALLAHAN3

Abstract

The concern of persistent loss of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies worldwide since 2006, a phenomenon referred to as colony collapse disorder (CCD), has led us to investigate the role of imidacloprid, one of the neonicotinoid insecticides, in the emergence of CCD. CCD is commonly characterized by the sudden disappearance of honey bees (specifically worker bees) from hives containing adequate food and various stages of brood in abandoned colonies that are not occupied by honey bees from other colonies.

This in situ study was designed to replicate CCD based on a plausible mechanistic hypothesis in which the occurrence of CCD since 2006 was resulted from the presence of imidacloprid, one of the neonicotinoid insecticides, in high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), fed to honey bees as an alternative to sucrose-based food. We used a replicated split-plot design consisting of 4 independent apiary sites. Each apiary consisted of 4 different imidacloprid-treated hives and a control hive. The dosages used in this study were determined to reflect imidacloprid residue levels reported in the environment previously.

All hives had no diseases of symptoms of parasitism during the 13-week dosing regime, and were alive 12 weeks afterward. However, 15 of 16 imidaclopridtreated hives (94%) were dead across 4 apiaries 23 weeks post imidacloprid dosing. Dead hives were remarkably empty except for stores of food and some pollen left, a resemblance of CCD.

Data from this in situ study provide convincing evidence that exposure to sub-lethal levels of imidacloprid in HFCS causes honey bees to exhibit symptoms consistent to CCD 23 weeks post imidacloprid dosing. The survival of the control hives managed alongside with the pesticide-treated hives unequivocally augments this conclusion. The observed delayed mortality in honey bees caused by imidacloprid in HFCS is a novel and plausible mechanism for CCD, and should be validated in future studies.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/chensheng-lu/files/in-situ-replication-of-honey-bee-colony-collapse-disorder.pdf

[Jon]

Yep. That's the one. There is a draft on the internet in Google documents but it is not due for publication until later in the year. I think it is the Bulletin of Insectology, a minor journal. That is the one I was referring to when I made the analogy about making someone drink 400 pints of beer as opposed to a normal amount.

[Stromnessbees]

Yep. That's the one. There is a draft on the internet in Google documents but it is not due for publication until later in the year. I think it is the Bulletin of Insectology, a minor journal. That is the one I was referring to when I made the analogy about making someone drink 400 pints of beer as opposed to a normal amount.

Drinking 400 pints of beer is not a good analogy as surely one would switch to a higher concentration (e.g. whisky) rather than fill up the bladder unnecessarily.


Anyway, in that study I cannot see a 400 fold increase in dosage in any treatment group. Actually, the increase is only 40 fold in 3 of the four groups.


Could it be that you were mistaken in your criticism?




Table 1. The weekly administration of imidacloprid in high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to honey bee hives1.

Imidacloprid dosages (μg/kg)

.................................................. .....1..............2........... 3............ 4............ 5

Initial dosage (4 weeks) ------------10.5------ 5.3 ------1.1------- 0.1----- Control
Amount of imidacloprid (μg) --------26------- 13 ------ 2.6------ 0.26------- 0
Follow-up dosage (9 weeks) -------400 ------200------ 40-------- 20 -----Control
Amount of imidacloprid (μg) -------1038----- 519 -----103.8----- 51.9 ------0

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/chensheng-lu/files/in-situ-replication-of-honey-bee-colony-collapse-disorder.pdf

[Jon]

Whiskey or beer, that is a lethal dose of ethanol!
The thing is Doris, the level in Nectar and pollen is usually 1-2 ppb, on occasion up to 5ppb, so basing the levels tested on 20-400 proves nothing.
Why do you think they changed from field realistic levels half way through, ie 0.1-10.5.

I suspect that no effects were noticed at field realistic levels so they massively increased the dose.
It is odd that a study moved the goalposts like this half way through.
There is no explanation given for the change.
This really is a poor study, possibly the worst of any I have read.

The other thing is, only half of one percent of US corn is treated with Imidacloprid so the central premise of the study that Imidacloprid is the cause of CCD is clearly erroneous.

Catch you later. Have to do some digging on my allotment.

[gavin]

You can see Dr Lu in his own words in the presentation here. The man (*) taping the presentation contributes to Bee-L and has made plain his embarassment at his club's association with the work. What you see is a man (Dr Lu of Harvard) determined to prove big Ag in the wrong, yet who understands little of bees and beekeeping (or indeed GMOs). Yet the audience are enthusiastic about it - they are uncritical, happy that 'at last' here is a scientist willing to champion their cause.

http://worcestercountybeekeepers.com/index.php/46-uncategorised/58-in-situ-replication-of-honeybee-colony-collapse-disorder

I've never seen such strong criticism of a piece of scientific research on Bee-L. They ridiculed the link to CCD, the way the study was conducted and the interpretations of the researcher. And the response was not any kind of conspiracy, it is what happens when thoughtful beekeepers were confronted by poor science in an area they've been thinking deeply about for years.

(*) Lest anyone start thinking of Dean as a 'Shill', do bear in mind that he is a host of this organic beekeeping conference:

http://www.bushfarms.com/organic_beekeeping_meeting.htm

[Stromnessbees]

Whiskey or beer, that is a lethal dose of ethanol!
The thing is Doris, the level in Nectar and pollen is usually 1-2 ppb, on occasion up to 5ppb, so basing the levels tested on 20-400 proves nothing.
Why do you think they changed from field realistic levels half way through, ie 0.1-10.5.

I suspect that no effects were noticed at field realistic levels so they massively increased the dose.
It is odd that a study moved the goalposts like this half way through.
There is no explanation given for the change.
This really is a poor study, possibly the worst of any I have read.

The other thing is, only half of one percent of US corn is treated with Imidacloprid so the central premise of the study that Imidacloprid is the cause of CCD is clearly erroneous.

Catch you later. Have to do some digging on my allotment.

Having been invoved in plenty of studies myself I would say that the way they proceeded was perfectly reasonable: For the first 4 weeks of the treatment they chose very small amounts of pesticide in reasonable increments, from 0.1 μg/kg to 10.5.

Obviously they wanted to establish if there would be any immediate reactions at these doses. It would be counterproductive to kill off all your hives at the beginning of the study.

After 4 weeks they went up to the next range of testing, from 20 μg/kg to 200. That way they can look for immediate reactions from 0.1 to 200 μg/kg with a minimum of effort, I think that was done quite elegantly.

What is sad is that you made an error of a factor of 10 (you said 400 instead of 40) when you interpreted the data and then rubbished a perfectly good study and declared it 'the joke of the internet'.


Also, as clearly stated in the abstract which I quoted earlier, this study has got nothing to do with nectar or pollen.

It's about imidacloprid that had recently been introduced to corn plants and was therefore for the first time present in HFCS, a popular feedstuff of commercial beekeepers in the US. This coincided with the first reported outbreak of CCD amongst commercial beekeepers.

The most important message from this study is that the treated colonies didn't die immediately but after a delay of about 6 months, there were 3 months between end of treatment and the first deaths.

94 % of the treated colonies died from CCD like symptoms and 1 out of the 4 control colonies died, but from different symptoms ('dysentery').


- Bad science or bad interpretation of perfectly good science?

[Stromnessbees]

Some of the science is poor (giving 200 - 400x the dose is one example)

Did you by chance make the same mistake as Jon?

[Stromnessbees]

You can see Dr Lu in his own words in the presentation here. The man (*) taping the presentation contributes to Bee-L and has made plain his embarassment at his club's association with the work. What you see is a man (Dr Lu of Harvard) determined to prove big Ag in the wrong, yet who understands little of bees and beekeeping (or indeed GMOs). Yet the audience are enthusiastic about it - they are uncritical, happy that 'at last' here is a scientist willing to champion their cause.

http://worcestercountybeekeepers.com/index.php/46-uncategorised/58-in-situ-replication-of-honeybee-colony-collapse-disorder

I've never seen such strong criticism of a piece of scientific research on Bee-L. They ridiculed the link to CCD, the way the study was conducted and the interpretations of the researcher. And the response was not any kind of conspiracy, it is what happens when thoughtful beekeepers were confronted by poor science in an area they've been thinking deeply about for years.

(*) Lest anyone start thinking of Dean as a 'Shill', do bear in mind that he is a host of this organic beekeeping conference:

http://www.bushfarms.com/organic_beekeeping_meeting.htm

What else was supposed to be wrong with the study?

[Stromnessbees]

Yes, they are neurotoxins just as most insecticides are. But they are well tested and don't affect bees at the levels they are exposed to normally, and the bees can and do metabolise it they so any effects are short-lived.


Gavin, bees don't metabolise it, the effects are long term, as proven in the study.


What you need to know is that once bees are finished nursing there is very little metabolising going on. They are not like mammals which replace more or less all their cells within a certain amount of time. They are more like little robots whose parts cannot be renewed.

If the pesticide isn't in rather high concentrations, as it was in Britain and France when the big die-offs happened, the adult bee is not really affected.

It's the developing brood that is affected, resultung in adult bees with damaged nerve system (unable to ward off varroa), immune system (susceptibility to nosema), hormonal system (Roger's queen problems) and reduced lifespan (CCD).


What the weakened colony finally succumbs to depends on other external circumstances.
- It's like having a colony with AIDS: any adverse conditions can finish it off.

[Rosie]

If the pesticide isn't in rather high concentrations, as it was in Britain and France when the big die-offs happened, the adult bee is not really affected.

I wonder where I was when that is supposed to have happened. No-one told my bees either that they were supposed to have died and similarly the BBKA couldn't convince them that they only had 10 years left to live. They are probably the strongest they have been since the introduction of varroa.

My own view is that, although I believe in and consume organic food, the threat to bees isn't Bayer but the people who move bees around the world, spreading disease, parasites and poorly adapted behavioural traits. They also divert public money and effort into fruitless research by exaggerated scare-mongering.

I can't say that I have time to pour over every paper that is published but when Dee Lusby even admits to having CCD when she operates in a natural desert and American researchers failed to find a link between losses and pesticide use then I think we should be looking elsewhere for the problem, if indeed a problem exists at all.

Gavin, please continue exactly as you have been doing as far as the forum management is concerned, and don't be persuaded otherwise. I wouldn't object to your advancing with utmost care though when it comes to introducing GM genetics to the environment - but that's a completely different topic.

And apologies to Trog for assuming she was cursed with the y chromosome. That's worse than being an engineer.

Rosie

[Trog]

Rosie, I don't mind what chromosomes folk think I have. One of the reasons I use what I gather folk like to call 'gender-neutral' names on message boards is so that my posts are taken at face value, rather than 'he/she would say that because ...'. Oh, and I might well have been an engineer had I not hated the chemistry teacher (yes, there is a sensible explanation for that sentence)!

[Jon]

It's about imidacloprid that had recently been introduced to corn plants and was therefore for the first time present in HFCS, a popular feedstuff of commercial beekeepers in the US. This coincided with the first reported outbreak of CCD amongst commercial beekeepers.

That is just incorrect. Imidacloprid was introduced about 17-18 years ago in the US, about 1994 or 1995. Hardly recent. This does not coincide with CCD which was first reported around 2005-2006.
How do you explain the 10 year gap?

Doris. This study is hopelessly flawed. If you have even a basic level of scientific training that is obvious. It is not 'elegant' It is completely ill conceived.
Why are you trying to cherry pick stuff from it?
1. If only half of one percent of US corn is treated with Imidacloprid, how could Imidacloprid contamination of corn syrup be the cause of ccd
Think about it. Half of one percent.
2. Corn syrup is routinely tested for all sorts of residue and it does not contain Imidacloprid.
3. The low dose was increased by a factor of 200 and the high dose by 40. This is between 200-400 times field realistic at the highest level. Sorry for the claim of 400 rather than 40 from part one to part two of the study. I should have said 200-400 times field realistic. Changes nothing though as the levels used were massively above what bees encounter in the field.

There is a good review here (http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1204&L=BEE-L&F=&S=&P=78269). Please refrain from the slur that Randy Oliver is a 'shill' or somehow part of the evil empire of Bayer. Just read the review and try and assimilate some of the basic design flaws of this study.
There are some studies which cast doubt on the safety of neonicotinoids with regard to bees. This in not one of them.

[Rosie]

Rosie, I don't mind what chromosomes folk think I have. One of the reasons I use what I gather folk like to call 'gender-neutral' names on message boards is so that my posts are taken at face value, rather than 'he/she would say that because ...'. !

That's a bit like the reason I called myself "Rosie" although I was found out in the first 5 minutes by Jon and then Gavin who told the world about my moustache. I didn't mind though, unlike the time I outed Borderbeeman who called me "despicable" for extracting his real identity. The problem with the anti-insecticide lobby is the personalities it attracts. It's always a good idea to choose your friends carefully because eventually you become like them.

I once gave myself a female name on another forum (it was Nellie who unknowingly gave me the idea) and found myself receiving long and detailed explanations from an importer of bees from NZ. I am sure he would never have opened up to a male and I was able to see the rubbish behind his thinking.

All the best
Rosie (Steve)

Rosie

[Stromnessbees]

I'm horrified by what we are doing to the planet in so many ways, but these insecticides are not the evil that is often portrayed. Older insecticides were much worse. When over-used, neonics may pollute waterways, groundwater and soil, so minimal use when necessary for the protection of food production is something I support.

Gavin, can you please explain what you mean by minimal use of neonicotinoids?

In maize they are used in the seed dressing every year, by default.

This means that they end up in the plant, whether there are any pests present or not. The field where they are applied turns into a dead zone, as anything that tries to take a bite out of the plant is killed, be it a crop pest or not.

The poisoning of the soil aound the roots is another issue, especially as in these conditions pesticides take a very long time to break down and prevent healthy soil life for many years after use.

With the old fashioned pesticides the farmer had the option to use 'integrated pest management' - he would only spray when and where a certain level of infestation was reached, and there might be several years in which no pest control was needed, giving all the little critters valuable time to build up at least small populations which then feed other wildlife like birds and small mammals.


Neonicotionoid seed dressigns are not designed for 'minimal use', they are made for persistent use with all the negative side effects that come with this sort of practice.

Does this change your mind at all?

[Stromnessbees]

3. The low dose was increased by a factor of 200 and the high dose by 40. This is between 200-400 times field realistic at the highest level. Sorry for the claim of 400 rather than 40 from part one to part two of the study. I should have said 200-400 times field realistic.


Your term 'field realistic' does not apply as this is about feeding the bees.

If anything the dosing in the experiment was rather conservative, as the bees would have collected most of their food themselves and therefore diluted the effect of the imidacloprod in the feed.


Don't you think you should reassess your opinion about the study now that you have realized that you made a major mistake in judging the data?

[Stromnessbees]

You can see Dr Lu in his own words in the presentation here. The man (*) taping the presentation contributes to Bee-L and has made plain his embarassment at his club's association with the work. What you see is a man (Dr Lu of Harvard) determined to prove big Ag in the wrong, yet who understands little of bees and beekeeping (or indeed GMOs). Yet the audience are enthusiastic about it - they are uncritical, happy that 'at last' here is a scientist willing to champion their cause.

http://worcestercountybeekeepers.com/index.php/46-uncategorised/58-in-situ-replication-of-honeybee-colony-collapse-disorder



This video is very good as the scientist explains his study very well to the beekeepers, he gives the reasons why he did it and he shows the shocking outcome.


What concerns me, Gavin, is your disparaging comment about the beekeepers in the audience, especially as they contribute very well to the discussion, they look like a very decent bunch to me.


I would encourage everybody to watch this video and make up his/her own mind!

[Jon]

Don't you think you should reassess your opinion about the study now that you have realized that you made a major mistake in judging the data?

Doris I still cannot believe you think there is anything in this study which supports your case - and I have not made a 'major mistake' in judging the data.
If Imidacloprid is so toxic to bees as some people claim, what difference does it make whether the dosage comes from pollen,nectar or corn syrup fed by the beekeeper. In this study they added imidacloprid to the corn syrup to create the different levels of contamination. Corn syrup does not normally contain Imidacloprid. It is routinely tested, as are all food products.

You still haven't addressed the point that as only half one one percent of US corn is treated with Imidacloprid, how could Imidacloprid in corn syrup be the cause of CCD. How does it get in to the syrup? maybe I should bold the previous sentence.

Reading back through your last 3 or 4 posts, chunks of them are copied from garbage posted by borderbeeman in the last year or so on other bee forums. 'Dead zones' etc. Good luck with that one if you think there is anything worth copying.

If systemic pesticides work like this why are the bees which feed on oil seed rape not dead? They spend 4 weeks bringing in both pollen and nectar. A large colony can fill 4 supers with honey in this time. I see seed coating as less risky than spraying.

Would be interested to hear you thoughts on Randy Oliver's critique on Bee-L.

[gavin]

What concerns me greatly, Doris, is that you accuse me of making disparaging comments about the audience when what I said was this:


Yet the audience are enthusiastic about it - they are uncritical, happy that 'at last' here is a scientist willing to champion their cause.


I am not being disparaging, I am not blaming them, I am just stating that it is so easy to believe what you want to believe if you are in an uncritical frame of mind. With your scientific training you should be alert for that, but you seem to have fallen asleep at the wheel.

[Trog]

Given that this thread is unlikely to go anywhere except round in circles, is it time it succumbed to whatever it is that kills threads? Threadicide, perhaps? TCD?

[Neils]

I've got another bag of OSR for tea, there's always a chance I'll succumb to quantities too small to measure!!!!one!11!!

[Calum]

Bang on the money Trog, while it is riveting reading, at some point everyone will have to agree that they have different viewpoints, which may or may not have merit, but noone is going to back down. So change the subject already, or muskets at dawn.

So another topic, top bar hives - ignoring more than a hundred years of progress in beekeeping, or the future ?

[gavin]

Closing threads is not something to do lightly. I saw another forum close a thread yesterday at the request of one person and I think that it was the wrong thing to do.

Tonight I'll shift the pesticide discussion out of this thread into a new one in the place down below where such discussion belongs and leave links in place to show where to go to continue if you wish to do so. Nearly did it over breakfast but ran out of time.

It will not be a conspiracy or a hostile act, just proper management of the forum.

In general, this often heated, often repetitive stand-off can be a turn-off for some people, but I'll bet you'll all be reading the thread in its new place just to see how outrageous or funny people have been!

[Jon]

Your term 'field realistic' does not apply as this is about feeding the bees.


Doris, I think you are misunderstanding what field realistic means. Field realistic does not mean that bees have to encounter the pesticide in the field itself. It means a level of pesticide used in a study which corresponds to the level of pesticide which bees are likely to encounter in the field, ie the 1-5 ppb for pollen and nectar with regard to Imidacloprid.

[Neils]

Closing threads is not something to do lightly. I saw another forum close a thread yesterday at the request of one person and I think that it was the wrong thing to do.

Tonight I'll shift the pesticide discussion out of this thread into a new one in the place down below where such discussion belongs and leave links in place to show where to go to continue if you wish to do so. Nearly did it over breakfast but ran out of time.

It will not be a conspiracy or a hostile act, just proper management of the forum.

In general, this often heated, often repetitive stand-off can be a turn-off for some people, but I'll bet you'll all be reading the thread in its new place just to see how outrageous or funny people have been!

I think you're better off leaving the thread as it is to be honest, creating yet another split thread out of this just ends up making it even more confusing unless you just want to leave the original post in place?

I agree with you around closing threads, I seem to recall I was against the idea of time limited windows to edit a post as well, but I've started to believe that it's actually not a bad idea.



It seems shepherds have even more stamina than shills. Must be the euro subsidies. night night.......
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

[gavin]

Oh dear! I had thought that it was a good idea (just the Harvard study bit of this discussion, post #29 onwards) but now I'm - ahem - shilly-shallying! But less is more in forum management, that I agree with.

Cue as many Shill-related puns as you can by the time I finish work today?

[Neils]

That almost sounds like a challenge!

[Stromnessbees]

Oh dear! I had thought that it was a good idea (just the Harvard study bit of this discussion, post #29 onwards) but now I'm - ahem - shilly-shallying! But less is more in forum management, that I agree with.

Cue as many Shill-related puns as you can by the time I finish work today?

Hi Gavin

I am happy for you to move all those posts (29 to 67) to another thread, as long as we can continue our discussion on pesticides, as I still have lots of questions.
At least then we can keep out off-topic posts.

I'm working on my apology btw, will try to have time for it tonight.

[Neils]

Knock any sensible debate out of the thread?

I asked a perfectly sensible question, granted asked somewhat tongue in cheek and deliberately parodying the style of discussion thrown in my direction up until that point.

Still no-one will answer the simple question:

If Neonicotinoids are banned tomorrow, what replaces them?

Let's forget for a moment whether or not there is any compelling evidence, it's been suggested that since there is some doubt that they're 100% safe to honeybees (why just honeybees?) that they should be banned as a precautionary measure.

To a point, I don't have a problem with that position. Then I started to look at OSR in particular because there's a lot of it about at the moment to see what the alternatives are. Most of the non-neonicotinoid treatments appear to be pyrethoid based and in most cases, they're excellent at killing bees, other non target insects and fish (and cats with permethrin) but not quite as good at killing whatever they're targeting, whether pollen beetle or aphids as they're quite happily resistant in substantial numbers as we've seen before with other pyrethoid targetted gribblies like, well, varroa for starters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypermethrin
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/l_cyhalogen.pdf
Primicarb also still seems to be recommended as a treatment. But I can't find a huge amount of information out about it at Th.e moment.

So this is where I start to wonder what the aim of banning neonicotinoids actually is. We have some, inconclusive, studies that suggest there might be issues in lab studies with Honeybees and now bumblebees (which I think is perhaps more where we should be looking than at honeybees, but I digress) but a lack so far of replicating those Lab studies out in the field. But the obvious replacements in the event of a ban are absolutely known to be lethal to bees, other non targets insects AND fish and other species besides.

yet whenever I ask what happens when neonicotinoids are banned I get called names and I'm the one derailing sensible discussion?

[lindsay s]

Just when I thought that Doris was going to give up on pesticides here she goes again. It's a pity I used some beet sugar last week to boost a colony that was low on stores, those bees are doomed! A lot beekeepers up here are beginners so Doris's word is gospel.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orkneybeekeepers/message/416

[Jon]

Good luck to you on Orkney Lindsay!!
That stuff about beet sugar having neonicotinoids in it is complete gibberish, as I am sure you already know. But why let facts get in the way of another conspiracy. The beet sugar/cane sugar debate has been going for about 60 years now. The products are identical. They are routinely tested for contaminants like any food product.

[Neils]

You don't tend to get stories likethese ("http://www.childlabour.net/documents/ruralproject/Rural%20CL_Bolivia%20Zafra_Laura_final.pdf) around UK beet sugar though, but never mind, it's all about the pesticides.

[gavin]

When Chandler's supposition about beet sugar was doing the rounds I wrote to Tate & Lyle (or was it British Sugar) and got a nice reply from Richard Ali about their testing regime and its findings. Nothing, at a level of detection of 1ppb I think. I posted all this on the BBKA forum but goodness knows how you'll find it on there now after the changes. Pure fantasy, utterly debunked, and it is still being propagated.

[Jon]

This is what gets me about conspiracy theories.
1. No evidence will ever be presented for this claim about contamination of beet sugar, as there is no evidence - other than rambling by conspiracy theorists on the internet.
2. Does anyone really believe that a ubiquitous product such as sugar which is consumed in large quantities by humans is not routinely screened and tested for contaminants?
3. Just confirms that it is the giant lizards in control of the forum.
4. If your bees need to be fed, give them some sugar syrup from whatever source.

[lindsay s]

I'm not worried about my bees Jon just Doris.

[gavin]

I see that she posted the sugar conspiracy one at 3:24am, maybe there is a pattern emerging here?

Lots of bolding and even some with italics at the same time.

[Jon]

Not talking about Doris here, but the bee world, especially the internet bee world is full of gurus and some of them are PP beekeepers as in the way the Americans talk about PPB.
Phil Chandler, on his own forum, mentioned that he had been 'wiped out' three times in the past ten years.
This is nothing to do with pesticides and everything to do with lack of adequate varroa control.
If you live in a varroa area, the key to successful beekeeping is managing varroa and to some extent nosema imho.
Swarm control and other management techniques also apply in what makes up a successful beekeeper.
In spite of this poor success rate, Uncle Phil is a guru to many who chose to follow his methods.
How can anyone who has such a poor beekeeping record set himself up as an example to follow.
One of the mysteries of the universe.

[Stromnessbees]

Just when I thought that Doris was going to give up on pesticides here she goes again. It's a pity I used some beet sugar last week to boost a colony that was low on stores, those bees are doomed! A lot beekeepers up here are beginners so Doris's word is gospel.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orkneybeekeepers/message/416

Hi Lindsay

According to Steve Sunderland, the Scottish Lead Bee Inspector, it's now not advisable to feed bees on sugar anymore, apparently it brings on nosema. He recommends switching to readymade beefoods.

I have always fed sugar: beet sugar in Austria and cane sugar since starting to keep bees in Orkney. I have never had an outbreak of nosema.

I'll stick to cane sugar in the meantime, you are free to use beet sugar if you so desire.

[gavin]

It is hard to know what to say but I'm going to break my silence on this. The forum has a reputation for challenge, for getting at the truth, for fun, poking fun, and generally not being unpleasant. We happily poke fun at Borderbeeman and his posts elsewhere, we say it like it is when the UK press go off the rails, several of us are happy to make it plain what we think of a closed mind forum elsewhere. Garbage posted on another Scottish forum shouldn't be sacrosanct. So thanks for mentioning it Lindsay, I know that occasionally other Orkney beekeepers pass by and maybe exposing Doris' post here helped folk in some small way. I think that it was a good thing. Nellie worried that we were ganging up on Doris and taking it too far. Maybe, not sure. But I am sure that no-one posting was doing it to be unpleasant to Doris.

I joined in because I care about the truth. I invested time in finding the truth when Mr Chandler first raised the spectre of neonic contamination in beet sugar. It was nonsense then and it is nonsense now. Doris was on the BBKA forum at that time so she had the chance to understand the topic. There aren't neonics in beet sugar and they do test routinely. It isn't an issue.

I find it hard to believe that Steve Sunderland is saying that it isn't advisable to feed bees on sugar. I'll ask him when I next see him, but that sounds like bollocks to me. Doris, I also feed my bees sugar, usually beet sugar and sometimes I just don't know what it is. I've never found Nosema in my own stocks. They are currently hoovering in oilseed rape (just ask the improvers class that came to see them on Saturday if you don't believe me) and that rape will be from neonic-dressed seed as most of it is these days. No issues, no problem, no unexplained winter deaths, no Nosema, no nothing.

So you stick to the high carbon footprint cane sugar if you want to Doris. You stick to using a product that probably comes from a farming system that is currently despoiling more of South America's natural vegetation. I actually seek out locally (well, European) sugar when I can. Perhaps I can claim that I care more about the planet than you do, and care not one jot for the nonsense passed round by the campaigners :p

[Stromnessbees]

I find it hard to believe that Steve Sunderland is saying that it isn't advisable to feed bees on sugar. I'll ask him when I next see him, but that sounds like bollocks to me. Doris, I also feed my bees sugar, usually beet sugar and sometimes I just don't know what it is. I've never found Nosema in my own stocks.

Steve mentioned it to me in a phone conversation about 3 or 4 weeks ago.
Yes, you could ask him. I didn't get much detail but I'm sure that he recommended invert sugar instead of regular sugar.


Btw, Gavin, the etiquette on this forum is still deteriorating and I had to report your use of foul language to the moderator.

[gavin]

Hi Doris


it's now not advisable to feed bees on sugar anymore, apparently it brings on nosema. He recommends switching to readymade beefoods.

It has been known for a long time that bees prefer invert sugar (Apisuc, Api-Invert, Ambrosia) to plain sucrose. It stores better (can be left in the feeder) and the bees can process it more easily. But plain sucrose is still a fine bee food and I'd be very surprised if Steve said that it is not advisable to feed them plain sugar anymore.

[Rosie]

There's nowt up wi' sugar. Perhaps we should be on guard for shills who recommend overpriced proprietary products.

Before I get into trouble I apologise to those who recommend overpriced proprietary products.

Rosie

[gavin]

I vote Rosie for poster of the week (if there was such a thing). That man has a jolly fine twinkle in his eye.

[Stromnessbees]

I'll also add that, for what it's worth there was no co-ordination, going on. We do talk outside this forum and we tend to agree on a lot of things, unusual in beekeeping circles I know.

The discussion is there to be had from my point of view. If spamming this and other forums about what a git I am is the worst that I can expect then I'm doing better than elsewhere :) but I still don't think that it does much to drive the discussion. For the most part I enjoy your input to the forum. I don't agree with everything you say (obviously) and especially not around this subject, if you're going to cite the Harvard study seemingly because it appears to confirm what you want to believe while dismissing completely numbers you don't want to see or subjects you aren't interested in then I think you're out of luck.

I raised Otters specifically because a) I'm interested in them and b) the Environment Agency specifically cited reduction in pesticides use as the primary cause for their return (with general reduction in pollution and improvement in habitat also cited as important). I left out the qualifier that the major blamed pesticides in question were banned in the 70's and ignored your, perfectly valid in some respects, points simply to use your own line of reasoning against you, i.e. if it doesn't fit what I want to hear then I'm going to discount it.


Nellie, as you are refusing to look at evidence that neonics kill bees, how about looking at evidence that neonics can harm the environment that otters depend on?

This EPA memorandum about clothianidin should set your alarmbells ringing:

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/cleared_reviews/csr_PC-044309_2-Nov-10_b.pdf

United States Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, D. C. 20460

Memorandum

Clothianidin registration of Prosper T400 Seed Treatment on Mustard Seed (Oilseed and Condiment) and Poncho/Votivo Seed Treatment on Cotton.

Nov 2nd, 2010


It states that

... Aquatic ecosystems potentially at risk from a stressor include water bodies adjacent to, or down stream from the treated field and might include impounded bodies such as ponds, lakes, and reservoirs, or flowing waterways such as streams or rivers, for uses in coastal areas, aquatic habitat also included marine ecosystems, including estuaries.

For clothianidin, the terrestrial ecosystem primarily at risk is the rhizoshpere zone in which treated seeds are planted on the crop field, through contaminated nectar and/or pollen, or due to the seed left (accidental spillage or otherwise) on the soil surface at the time of planting. Seedbound clothianidin may pose risk to aquatic ecosystems through leaching, runoff, or erosion from the crop field. It is noted that for soil incorporated chemicals, or seed treatments, drift is usually a minor component.


p. 21:
The major endpoints related to aquatic environments at issue are:
(a). Direct effects to aquatic invertebrates in the water column via acute toxicity.
(b). Direct effects to benthic aquatic organisms dwelling in the sediment and/or pore water via acute and/or chronic toxicity

p.40:
The data showed that clothianidin significantly reduced survival of mysid shrimp at 0.051 ppm, categorizing the compound as very highly toxic. ...

p. 50:
A comparison of EECs, both pore water and sediment bound residues, with the LC50 (mortality) and the NOAEC (sublethal) reveals that the proposed uses have the possibility of acute toxic risk to non-endangered and endangered freshwater and estuarine/marine benthic invertebrates, via runoff especially if repeated uses occur. The acute risk, based on both lethal and sublethal effects, to estuarine/marine benthic invertebrates was independent of the region and the incorporation efficiency when exposure occurs via sediment bound concentrations. Chronic risk to this taxa also shows a similar result. ...

[Neils]

After three years of asking the same question and despite knowing your fondness for ignoring it in favour of chucking insults I'll ask it again anyway.

If neonicotinoids are banned, what happens next?

Point still remains that on current evidence I still believe that Neonics are less harmful to bees and the wider environment than the classes of pesticides they largely replaced. And none of the studies that I've seen so far have convincingly suggested otherwise.

No one who likes to scream "won't someone think of the bees!!!11one!!1" has ever spelled out what the next stage is if they get their way and ultimately I don't think it matters to them.

But it does to me, I don't in principle have a problem with removing approval for something on a precautionary basis but I want to know what the effect of that will be.

There's no silver bullet replacement as far as I can see and no plan past "ban this stuff" so the simple assumption has to be a return to previous pesticides and absolutely bees and much else besides being poisoned directly in quantity again.

I've said and asked this time and time again over the past 3 years and been threatened, slandered and insulted for my trouble so unless you actually want a discussion rather than an excuse to throw more insults I'm done discussing anything related to this with you on this forum or any other.

[Stromnessbees]

After three years of asking the same question and despite knowing your fondness for ignoring it in favour of chucking insults I'll ask it again anyway.

If neonicotinoids are banned, what happens next?

Point still remains that on current evidence I still believe that Neonics are less harmful to bees and the wider environment than the classes of pesticides they largely replaced. And none of the studies that I've seen so far have convincingly suggested otherwise.

No one who likes to scream "won't someone think of the bees!!!11one!!1" has ever spelled out what the next stage is if they get their way and ultimately I don't think it matters to them.

But it does to me, I don't in principle have a problem with removing approval for something on a precautionary basis but I want to know what the effect of that will be.

There's no silver bullet replacement as far as I can see and no plan past "ban this stuff" so the simple assumption has to be a return to previous pesticides and absolutely bees and much else besides being poisoned directly in quantity again.

I've said and asked this time and time again over the past 3 years and been threatened, slandered and insulted for my trouble so unless you actually want a discussion rather than an excuse to throw more insults I'm done discussing anything related to this with you on this forum or any other.

The answer is Integrated Pest Mangagement (IPM) or organic farming.

IPM works on the principle that you only use insecticides where and when needed and that the spraying is done under controlled conditions with minimal damage to beneficial insects like pollinators.

This way people have produced food for decades, and as long as farmers act responsibly, the damage is way smaller than when systemic pesticides are applied.

Systemic pesticides are the Kill-All method, they leave nothing alive in the field, while in IPM there can be several years without treatment, therefore lots of wildlife can thrive around and even in those fields. Only at times of increased threats from crop pests will sprays be applied, and not on every field.

Annual prophylactic seed treatments destroy agricultural ecosystems, while IPM and of course organic farming allow crops and wildlife to live side by side.

[chris]

Doris, what sort of time scale do you have in mind for implementing your proposal? (education of farmers included)?

Nellie, could you put this thread in the environment section where it now seems to belong, as I for one like to see beekeeping posts heading this subforum?

[gavin]

I was mulling over doing that but I don't have much time today. I'd like to see the discussion on Doris' appalling behaviour elsewhere on the internet, and her inadequate apology, and the response to that, stay here. The rest of it is the heated, pointless stuff that comes from the clash of a mind slammed shut and people who want to know what is really happening. That can go to the naughty corner. I'll do it myself tonight, or Nellie can do it if he likes.

The next step for Doris, who sadly seems to have turned most unpleasant and must be making those poor Orcadian beekeepers watching cringe in embarassment, is for her posts to be queued until one of us has the time to read them and decide to let them through, or not. I'll have a chat with Santa's little helpers this evening to see whether we have actually reached that point, or are just very close.

In case anyone was wondering, the decision was that this forum remains remarkably tolerant. Doris is just very close. But I will persist in trying to tidy up these threads that wandered once again into pesticide territory. It is just that I've been distracted by a large amount of work as a spin-off of the World Potato Congress this week. Spuds even trump bees sometimes. Great to chat to people from so many different backgrounds. I even argued today with one who thought that the bees were all dying due to neonics.

[Stromnessbees]

I was mulling over doing that but I don't have much time today. I'd like to see the discussion on Doris' appalling behaviour elsewhere on the internet, and her inadequate apology, and the response to that, stay here. The rest of it is the heated, pointless stuff that comes from the clash of a mind slammed shut and people who want to know what is really happening. That can go to the naughty corner. I'll do it myself tonight, or Nellie can do it if he likes.

The next step for Doris, who sadly seems to have turned most unpleasant and must be making those poor Orcadian beekeepers watching cringe in embarassment, is for her posts to be queued until one of us has the time to read them and decide to let them through, or not. I'll have a chat with Santa's little helpers this evening to see whether we have actually reached that point, or are just very close.

Gavin, has this anything to do with what I wrote here?
That would be the thread I closed earlier and for a reason. Please don't try to bring closed discussions into a new thread it is closed. Full stop.

Nellie

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe you want to explain yourself, rather than just gagging me because I point things out that are maybe a bit uncomfortable?

There are also lots of good discussions to come yet, on the Harvard study and others, which I'll not do on this forum if my posts need to be approved first.

The choice is yours, but gagging me won't look good!
[/INDENT]

[Stromnessbees]

Doris, what sort of time scale do you have in mind for implementing your proposal? (education of farmers included)?


The time to do it is now.
Farmers have done Integrated Pest Management before, they just need to return to what they were doing, with strict controls for adequate use of all chemical substances.

Then we will see the fading away of CCD and lots of other bee problems that are caused by the weakened immune system after neonic contamination.