After reading varied articles and the following email from Victoria, looking at the links and other googled info, including stuff from Bayer itself, I really wonder if this is not the main cause of the problem with CCD. IMIDACLOPRID.. It's marketed under many differant trade names. It is used alot in corn from what I read, even the seeds come sprayed with it before the farmer even gets it.. Reading what this stuff does and how it works, it makes the "pests" forget if it does not kill them fast, forget where home is, sounds like it could explain alot of where the bee's go, No? they fly off to find pollen & nectar and forget how to get home, forget what they are doing, gives them jumpy and gittery, has to mess up the bee dance. What do most beekeepers feed there
bees.. a syrup of high frutose corn syrup..(I don't)  Does anyone know if this stuff transfers into that? the bees sure could be doubling up on the toxin if it does... Not to mention, Ok, I'll mention it.. , The water supply, a run off of the stuff the fields are sprayed with.
  Just another thought from a lowly bee keeper in a veil.
Could many bee keepers be making it worse with the chemical treatments for mites being added to this? I have not had any problem as of yet, knock on a wooden hive body.. I do everything organic and natural and have really stayed on top of the little mite issues that have come up. BUT I do ask that you look this stuff up and think about it, make up your own mind.

Thanks and TTFN,
Richard Waite.
Black Cat Honey & Products   603-392-0008
 Parker Street
 Winchester NH 03470
3/16/2007


RE:
From: Victoria MacPhail <vmacphai@uoguelph.ca>
To: pollinator@coevolution.org
Subject: [Pollinator] Is CCD really just starting in 2005/2006?
Previouswork on    imidacloprid?
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:58:05 -0400

I have been following the latest theme with interest, and had been wondering when imidacloprid would be raised.

When I was an undergraduate student in 2002, I worked with Dr. Jim Kemp and Dick Rogers in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick (Eastern Canada) investigating possible reasons (incl. diseases, food sources, pesticides, management practices, among others) behind the disappearance and overall decrease in honeybee populations in the Maritimes.  What had initated their research in the previous year (2001) was the concern that imidacloprid, trade name Admire, used in furrow in potato fields, persisted in the soil and came up in the clover flowers two years later, which then killed off the foraging bees.  I believe a similar concern with imidacloprid had been raised in France under the trade name Gaucho and used on sunflowers.

My understanding is that beekeepers in the Maritimes noticed in the late 1990s or early 2000s that bees were disappearing/dying and colonies crashing unexpectedly, with some beekeepers having limited losses and some having almost total losses.  They heard reports from France of the similar symptoms, said that that was their problem too, accused imidacloprid and the producer (Bayer), who then got Jim and Dick involved in the investigation.

I found an old newspaper article on-line saying essentially the same thing: May 25, 2002 - National Post, www.safe2use.com/ca-ipm/02-05-27.htm.  You could probably find
other sources too.
The background information I had heard and learned about in 2002, and in 2003 when I was only peripherally involved in the project, sounds just like what is supposedly only just happening this year in the US. Now, I am new to the field and may be way off base, but to me this
sounds like the same thing, so why are most of these reports saying this is a new phenomenon, happening either only this year or maybe last year too?  Are these two different problems/scenarios, or is the media just having a field day with it this year?

Anyway, just another thought to mull over.

Victoria MacPhail

MSc Candidate
Dept. of Environmental Biology
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON  N1G 2W1
vmacphai@uoguelph.ca
lab) 519-824-4120 ext. 56243
fax) 519-837-0442