Close to Spring planting so be aware... Neonicotinoids

mattp

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Go to Neonicotinoid - Wikipedia
And read the section on "Bees". It's nowhere near as conclusive as the above claim. They are banning this mostly out of caution, which may be warranted...But, AFAIK it is not the "number one cause of colony collapse". If they claimed the varroa mite was the cause, I'd probably agree. But, it is not these pesticides.
 

mattp

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I started smiling and shaking my head as soon as I saw the word, "Wikipedia". I'll check CNN next... :p
I'm pretty sure those poisons are not responsible for the colony collapse problem.

On one side you have the chemical companies with a vested interest in selling their poisons. On the other side you have the people who raise money by claiming the sky is falling. Read the info at the website with a discerning eye. They state things like "can harm bees". And, if the poison isn't used correctly it can kill bees...Really? If they had concrete evidence they'd state it that way, but it's a bunch of wishy-washy stuff stoking at peoples emotions.

It's difficult to figure out where the truth is on this. I looked into it a few years ago and there didn't seem to be a concrete link between deleterious effects on bees from these neonicotinoids if used properly. (if the bees are directly interacting with the poison, obviously there's problems...But that's not what is happening, usually). That may have changed (though the link you posted references studies from the early to mid 2010's).
My belief is that they are having negative effects, but quantifying what those effects are is incredibly difficult. It's a very complicated situation. If you've ever been involved in beekeeping, you may understand some of the confounding variables.

Regarding wikipedia, yeah it's politicized but if you want a quick overview, sometimes it's worth a look. If you want to do a deep dive on this go to beesource.com and sign up. Then you can burn some hours there reading about this, and there does seem to be new information, but again who funds the research? was it performed correctly? As with most forums most of the posts there will be anecdotal experiences from random people. You have to wade through and figure out what's what...Very time consuming, kinda like finding information here...
 
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