# Newly published Harvard study on neonics



## deknow

There is a link in the article to the actual study.

A quick first scan.... it looks like they make significant claims about pathogens, yet the only pathogen tests appear to be two mite counts (alcohol washes), and didn't even test the control colony that died for nosema.... which they claim it died from.

You can't really make conclusions about pathogens in general based only on mite counts...especially of a substance that is known to affect the immune system.

Barry, I think it show how neonics can harm bees....it's hard to assume they are harming bees without data on the real world exposure.


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## Barry Digman

I'm not clear on your last sentence Dean, but yes, it will take a little time to digest the study.


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## camero7

My quick first scan is that there is not much to this "study" I concur w/ Dean's statements. They also don't describe what the dead hives looked like except to show a bottom board with a few dead bees. I have lots of those after this winter. 

What are "CCD like symptoms." From the description is sounds like the bees dwindled and froze. It does, again, prove that if you feed an insecticide to insects they die. I do not believe the dosage of the neonics are realistic for bees - even around neonic treated crops. The canola experiment in Canada with millions of hives is much more instructive than half a dozen hives fed poison.


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## WLC

I had heard that Alex Lu was doing a new study on neonics and Honeybees.

Looks like it has finally been published.

It'll take some time for me to read and digest it too.


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## nschomer

deknow said:


> There is a link in the article to the actual study.
> 
> A quick first scan.... it looks like they make significant claims about pathogens, yet the only pathogen tests appear to be two mite counts (alcohol washes).


They do reference an examination of the total RNA pools " In addition, a recent re-analysis of genomic data previously generated from RNA pools of CCD colonies has also excluded the association of pathogen infection and CCD"

If there were particularly high levels of a pathogen, its RNA should show up in tests - provided they are done properly and you know what to look for. They reference the following article, which seems to be ruling out a particular virus of interest:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0021844


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## WLC

Its a repeat of Lu's previous study with the addition of clothiadinin.

They fed the bees syrup dosed with neonics, and there was overwinter colony mortality with colonies showing 'CCD like' symptoms.

It offers an explanation for winter losses, IMHO.

"...why do honey bees vanish from neonicotinoid-treated colonies during the winter?"

That is the question.


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## Oldtimer

Nice work. You feed the bees syrup laced with poison for winter, and they die. CCD like.

Brilliant.


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## camero7

> They do reference an examination of the total RNA pools


They didn't test THESE HIVES. That is old data. There is no testing of the dead colonies for nosema, tracheal mites or virus. All those tests are easily performed. I still wait to hear what "resembling CCD" symptoms are. And what are nosema like symptoms. Surely they could find a microscope at Harvard to look at bees from all the dead hives. 

And the bees were not dosed with field realistic levels of neonics. Feed them poison and they will die, nothing new about that.


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## WLC

It's a delayed response experiment.

Frankly, I would ask, "Why didn't you kill those colonies outright when you fed them neonic laced syrup?"

It's an interesting find, IMHO.

However, as far as experimental design goes, the same issues exist as in the first study.


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## Oldtimer

Prolly cos as they eat the stored syrup with poison added they get more poisoned till they die?


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## Birdman

Sound like a Jim Jones type experiment.


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## jonathan

Convincingly demonstrates that insecticide kills insects when added in large amounts to sugar syrup.


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## deknow

A couple of other thoughts.

1. There looks to be some circular references....for instance, he seems to reference his last paper for a definition of ccd. This leads to a weird circle where the symptoms of pesticide poisoning are defined as ccd in one paper, and the symptoms of pesticide poisoning are diagnosed as ccd in the next...all without looking at a single ccd colony that hasn't been fed neonics in a feeder on purpose...a disease that isn't always associated with neonic exposure and has been a "mystery" since 2007.

2. The text is unclear when it talks about testing the sucrose syrup and hfcs.... the text states that they found "non-detectable residues" of neonics in the plain feed. If this were the case, there would be big problems with the experiment. I'm quite sure he means "no detectable"...I would tend to think of this as a typo/wordo (Lu's English is quite good, but not quite a native speaker), except that implying that neonic residues are in everyone's feed seems to be what he claimed in the last study and part of his thesis that ccd is simply neonic poisoning.


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## Phoebee

This is a small study on one apiary with a low number of hives. That's not evil or anything ... the results are what they are but they're not sufficient to reach any conclusions sufficient to shut down an industry.

What they do justify is application of the approach, with more rigor, multiple study sites, and a lot more colonies, to see if the results hold. On a small scale like this it could also be that the hives with high mortality had something else in common.

I've seen some of Bayer's data. I think they're pretty good at knowing immediate toxicity levels. They may have developed some skill at asking questions they know the answer to and like the answer. They might avoid questions where they don't like the answer. This could turn out to be one of those, but the results must be replicated on a larger scale. We've had a lot of small-scale studies that thought they had found the answer to CCD that wouldn't replicate.

This doesn't change my personal approach to pesticides. Our bees are far away from agricultural fields, and we're glad of it. The only pesticides we use are Bti mosquito dunks in our rain barrels and a touch of foaming insecticide down into carpenter bee holes.


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## camero7

> What they do justify is application of the approach, with more rigor, multiple study sites, and a lot more colonies, to see if the results hold. On a small scale like this it could also be that the hives with high mortality had something else in common.


I think it's pretty clear that these bees were poisoned. the dosage of Imidacloprid approached the LD50 for those bees. However, it's a poor study for other reasons, like not checking dead bees for other pathogens. They say nosema like symptoms. What are those symptom? Were there other problems. They also didn't treat the hives for mites until most of the winter bees had been raised. Just another terrible study from these guys.


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## Michael Bush

>except that implying that neonic residues are in everyone's feed seems to be what he claimed in the last study and part of his thesis that ccd is simply neonic poisoning. 

They are using neonics on corn (->corn syrup) and on sugar beets (->beet sugar) but as far as I've heard, not on sugar cane (->cane sugar) and those would be the typical feeds. I'd be curious to see a study just on the neonic content of those three sources of bee feed. After those numbers are established, we could move on to other questions...


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## nschomer

I fail to see why people are concentrating on the lack of nosema testing for his one dead control hive - who cares? He had one reported fatality in a control hive, it either was nosema or it wasn't, either way it has no bearing on the findings with respect to the neonic. treated hives. This is an (admittedly small) statistical look at hives, with one single factor changed and most others well controlled for - and shows that sub-lethal doses of neonic. laced syrup cause "CCD-like" death of the colonies.
It might be that this acute exposure is greater than most instances of systemic chronic exposure, but that might not be what is causing the collapse - brood wax is a bioaccumulator of insecticides, perhaps the acute exposure pretty much built up brood wax levels to the same levels that chronic exposure of lower doses might achieve over time. More experiments would need to be done to establish or rule out this possibility, but I don't think that the experiment as run was lacking merit.


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## camero7

> I'd be curious to see a study just on the neonic content of those three sources of bee feed. After those numbers are established, we could move on to other questions...


Interestingly the authors of this paper tested HFCS for neonics and could not detect any. Further, HFCS is tested for insecticides by the govt. and it has been undetectable for years.

Not sure about sugar.


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## camero7

nschomer said:


> I fail to see why people are concentrating on the lack of nosema testing for his one dead control hive - who cares? He had one reported fatality in a control hive, it either was nosema or it wasn't, either way it has no bearing on the findings with respect to the neonic. treated hives. This is an (admittedly small) statistical look at hives, with one single factor changed and most others well controlled for - and shows that sub-lethal doses of neonic. laced syrup cause "CCD-like" death of the colonies.
> It might be that this acute exposure is greater than most instances of systemic chronic exposure, but that might not be what is causing the collapse - brood wax is a bioaccumulator of insecticides, perhaps the acute exposure pretty much built up brood wax levels to the same levels that chronic exposure of lower doses might achieve over time. More experiments would need to be done to establish or rule out this possibility, but I don't think that the experiment as run was lacking merit.


It shows a lack of dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Like not testing all the hives for pathogens. I contend that the results of the Canadian experiment in the canola fields with millions of hives over the last many years and the results from Australia where there is no varroa, but there are neonics, have not demonstrated any detrimental effects to hives. Further, any tests of field relevant doses of neonics have not demonstrated results approaching this paper. Interestingly, one of the authors of the paper lost a large portion of his hives in that winter. He didn't feed them neonics. He admits he does not know what the cause of this large loss was. I had bad winter losses this year. Didn't feed neonics and two yards are not near neonic treated crops. Some years bee losses are worse than others. If my bees had been fed neonic syrup last fall I'm sure all would be dead. They don't call it an insecticide for nothing.


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## BayHighlandBees

from scientific beekeeping:








also worth noting that Randy Oliver poked more than a few holes in the earlier Harvard study


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## wildbranch2007

also Randy olivers comments on bee-l on the new trial.
http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1405&L=BEE-L&F=&S=&P=33421

Hey, I feel that we should commend Dr. Lu and his collaborators for
stepping up their game--this time they at least took the time to monitor
varroa and to treat against nosema.

Still hard to imagine that anyone actually reviewed this paper. For
example, their total description of the alcohol wash was "The Varroa mite
counts were assessed twice using the common alcohol wash method." Only
later do we learn that they washed only 150 bees per sample, with no
explanation of from where the bees were collected in the hive (from a brood
frame?). Nor did they specify the concentration of the syrup solutions.
Such omissions are normally caught by at least one reviewer.

Nonetheless, their results are of interest. As Jim calculated, the dosage
that they use in the fed syrup, 135 ppb (w:v, or slightly less on a w:w
basis), is far above the level that Bayer recently found to cause colony
morbidity (50 ppb, as reported by Bayer's Dr. David Fischer at a recent bee
conference). So as Johnathan points out, the only surprising thing is that
the Lu team did not notice such summer morbidity in their trial.

Of interest were the mite counts in mid August, which were 7-8 per 100
bees, a level at which viruses start to go epidemic. The treatment with
formic dropped the mite counts, which then raises the question as to
whether the apparent adverse effect of the neonics on the colonies was due
to suppression of the bee antiviral mechanisms.

What would have been of interest is if the researchers had measured the
residue levels in the honey of the overwintering colonies. If they had, we
might have learned the mechanism by which summer exposure to high
concentrations of neonicotinoids might affect the spring buildup of
colonies.


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## peterloringborst

This is an example of the shabbiest sort of work. These researchers take their theory: neonics cause CCD, and try to make a case by poisoning bee hives. The symptoms they produce are consistent with bee poisoning, but not actual CCD. In the field, CCD appears to be contagious, like a virus.

Meanwhile, researchers in Israel studied actual collapsing colonies in the field and found very high levels of IAPV. This virus was also consistently found in colonies in the USA that collapsed with CCD symptoms.

Dr. Lu et al are trying to make a case by poisoning bees. There are innumerable ways to poison bees, but that does not indicate that these are the causes CCD. The continual reference to CCD simply shows that Dr. Lu is completely out of touch with the real beekeeping world.

This is a significant fact that they fail to note: There have been hardly any verifiable cases of CCD in the past few years, CCD has never been widespread, and the number of bee colonies in the US is actually rising.


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## Barry Digman

I'm curious now. In poking around it seems that the "Bulletin of Insectology" may not be as strict in their standards as other scientific journals. However, Harvard is a pretty solid institution. 

Isn't there a review process within the institution that one is working for that gives some sort of imprimatur before their staff/faculty/students publish something that's linked with said institution?


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## peterloringborst

This is not Harvard, we are talking about.



> Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) began as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, founded in 1913 as the first professional training program of public health in America. The partnership offered courses in preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School, sanitary engineering at Harvard University and allied subjects at MIT. In 1946, no longer affiliated with the medical school, HSPH became an independent, degree-granting body.


http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/history-of-the-school/


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## Barry Digman

But it is Harvard. It's one of their grad schools, like Law or Business or Medicine.


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## WLC

Since Alex Lu's latest experiments included both imidacloprid and clothiadinin, and colonies fed lethal doses didn't succumb until they were overwintering, the inference is that the 30% overwintering losses here in the U.S. are a result of the use of those pesticides.

No matter the flaws, it's still a significant find.


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## Oldtimer

WLC reaching that conclusion is a huge leap.

Anyone of us could repeat this experiment at home using any random poison and get similar results. The bees store the poisoned syrup for later consumption and die once they have consumed enough. To expect any different result would be unrealistic and I think the only way someone could design and run such an experiment and then reach the conclusions he reached is if he has already decided neonicitinoids cause CCD and sets out to try to prove that.


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## deknow

Also note that the issues that didn't pass the smell test the first time are repeated.

Strong hives early in the season, full of comb and bees and food are fed half a gallon of syrup every week, all summer (and had access to courage...they were free flying).

Where did the honey go? These bees never needed a super or any kind
of swarm management? If the bees died from contaminated stores, what honey was left and what was taken is important.

Deknow


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## camero7

The word around here is that Lu, who knows nothing about bees, is really interested in neonics and humans and is using the bees to start his proof that neonics are bad for humans. I'm about 10 miles from one of the yards and have been in it before. That yard also had an AFB problem last summer.


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## Barry Digman

Well that's interesting. His academic background doesn't indicate much work with bugs. Actually, I don't see anything related to insects.




> https://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-wu/35/614/477
> 
> Experience
> 
> Harvard School of Public Health
> Doctoral Student
> Harvard School of Public Health
> August 2013 – Present (10 months)Boston
> 
> Epidemiologist, Environmental Epidemiology Program
> Utah Department of Health
> October 2011 – July 2013 (1 year 10 months)Greater Salt Lake City Area
> Epidemiologist
> •	ATSDR's Partnership to Promote Localized Efforts to Reduce Environmental Exposure (APPLETREE) Program Assessor
> •	Data analysis management/analysis using SAS and ArcGIS
> 
> Epidemiologist
> Utah Department of Health
> October 2011 – December 2011 (3 months)Greater Salt Lake City Area
> National Toxic Substance Incidents Program (NTSIP) Coordinator
> •	Coordinated community outreach program
> •	Data management/analysis using SAS and ArcGIS
> 
> Intern
> Utah Department of Health
> July 2011 – October 2011 (4 months)Greater Salt Lake City Area
> Tobacco Prevention and Control Program
> •	Assist program epidemiologists with data collection, analysis, report preparation, data dissemination, and prepare required documents for legislative reports and documents. Data analysis using SPSS and SAS.
> 
> 
> Intern
> Utah Department of Health
> April 2011 – June 2011 (3 months)Greater Salt Lake City Area
> Cancer Control Program
> •	Collaborated with program members and developed and created a needs assessment survey to determine the unmet needs of cancer survivors
> •	Disseminated and collected surveys for the annual Utah Cancer Action Network (UCAN) Cancer Survivorship Conference
> 
> Lab Technician
> Brigham Young University
> January 2011 – June 2011 (6 months)Provo, Utah Area
> Risk Management and Safety
> •	Researched, organized, and developed the revised Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry’s Chemical Hygiene Plan via collaborating with interdepartmental staff and faculty
> •	Edited Standard Operating Procedures and Laboratory Inspection Methods department and Risk Management use
> •	Conducted laboratory inspections, developed training materials, and prepared emergency response kits
> 
> Intern
> World Health Organization
> May 2010 – July 2010 (3 months)Geneva Area, Switzerland
> Unit of Surveillance and Population-based Prevention, Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion, Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health Cluster
> •	Collected and entered epidemiological data from country reports and literature
> •	Delivered presentation on WHO Global Infobase, a WHO geographic information system, to Headquarter data managers
> •	Created departmental reports and factsheets for over 40 countries
> 
> Research Assistant
> Brigham Young University
> January 2010 – April 2010 (4 months)Provo, Utah Area
> Epidemiological study of motor vehicle crashes and safety
> •	Coauthored “Epidemiology of Motor Vehicle Crashes in Utah” in the Journal of Traffic Injury Prevention with Drs. Ray Merrill and Steve Thygerson
> 
> Harvard School of Public Health
> Doctor of Science, Environmental Health
> 2013 – 2018 (expected)
> 
> Brigham Young University
> MPH, Global Health Promotion
> 2009 – 2011
> 
> Brigham Young University
> BS, Neuroscience
> 2000 – 2007


edit to add:

The bio stuff on the Harvard site differs from the Linkedin info. Perhaps his doctorate and the other Masters are entomology related:



> Ph.D., 1996, University of Washington, Seattle WA
> 
> M.S., 1990, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ
> 
> http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/chensheng-lu/


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## Nabber86

nschomer said:


> I brood wax is a bioaccumulator of insecticides, perhaps the acute exposure pretty much built up brood wax levels to the same levels that chronic exposure of lower doses might achieve over time. More experiments would need to be done to establish or rule out this possibility, but I don't think that the experiment as run was lacking merit.


Bioaccumulation occurs in living organisms not inanimate objects such as brood wax. Also, bees really don’t live long enough to bioaccumulate anything approaching chronic exposure. 




deknow said:


> The text is unclear when it talks about testing the sucrose syrup and hfcs.... the text states that they found "non-detectable residues" of neonics in the plain feed. If this were the case, there would be big problems with the experiment. I'm quite sure he means "no detectable"...I would tend to think of this as a typo/wordo (Lu's English is quite good, but not quite a native speaker), except that implying that neonic residues are in everyone's feed seems to be what he claimed in the last study and part of his thesis that ccd is simply neonic poisoning.


Lab results are flagged ND (*n*ot *d*etected above method detection limits) if the results are below the detection range of the instrument or method. When reporting the lab results, the terms not detected, non-detect, non-detectable tend to be used interchangeably. "No dectable levels" is usually not used because it is unclear. 

Every lab method has detection limits that are associated with the process. Problems arise when a lab reports a high detection level for an analyte such as ND (500 µg/kg). This means the compound was not found above 500 µg/kg, but the actual level could be 499 µg/kg. This is bad if you are talking about potential exposures at the 10 µ/kg level. You cant tell without looking at the actual lab reports.


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## BlueDiamond

Bayer has evaluated the study and posted it's response here:
http://www.bayercropscience.us/news/press-releases/2014/05122014-bee-care-harvard-statement

Excerpts:

a) Feeding honey bees levels of neonicotinoids greater than 10 times what they would normally encounter is more than unrealistic – it is deceptive and represents 
a disservice to genuine scientific investigation related to honey bee health.

b) Given the artificially high levels tested over 13 consecutive weeks, the colony failure rates observed are completely expected. 

c) Unfortunately, this latest study conducted by Dr. Lu repeats the fundamental flaws seen in his previous research and provides no meaningful information regarding honey bee risk assessment.


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## nschomer

@Nabber
"Bioaccumulation occurs in living organisms not inanimate objects such as brood wax."

Seeing brood wax as a simple inanimate object is a rather simplistic way of looking at it. Many people consider a single beehive to act similarly to a single organism, with the brood wax thus being analogous to the ovaries of the superorganism. In any case, it's not like I plucked this outta my backside:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0014720 (amongst others)

A more useful definition of bioaccumulation puts it simply as when the rate of pesticide intake is greater than the sum total of pesticide expulsion and/or remediation (rendering it non-toxic). This certainly happens in the brood wax, as subsequent generations of brood are fed from contaminated stores, or additional contaminants are brought in. And the paper above illustrates that this can certainly have a net negative effect on colony health.


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## camero7

Pretty good study here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3338325/

Neonicotinoids in bees: a review on concentrations, side-effects and risk assessment
From the conclusions:
Via the plant sap transport neonicotinoids are translocated to different plant parts. In general, the few reported residue levels of neonicotinoids in nectar (average of 2 μg kg[SUP]−1[/SUP]) and pollen (average of 3 μg kg[SUP]−1[/SUP]) were below the acute and chronic toxicity levels; however, there is a lack of reliable data as analyses are performed near the detection limit. Similarly, also the levels in bee-collected pollen, in bees and bee products were low.


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## deknow

Getting to the bottom of what a field realistic dose is something that has been avoided.

The low single digits are what we usually hear about.

The presence in beebread as reported by the usda pollen survey is shocking.....I've posted it several times.

The other issue is that the presence in nectar/pollen is usually averaged but individual data points are all over the place.


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## peterloringborst

> the brood wax thus being analogous to the ovaries of the superorganism.

Ovaries may be a bit of a stretch, but it is certainly correct to regard the colony as an organism, and the brood combs as an organ of that entity. And to refer to substances in the comb as "bio-accumulation." On the other hand, many beneficial substances also bio-accumulate, such as natural antibiotics, microorganisms, pheromones, and various enzymes produced by the bees.


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## camero7

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-05-14/bad-science-doesn-t-help-bees

In the new study, researchers didn't waste time with a low initial dose. They began right away with syrup containing 136 micrograms of insect-killer per liter. Eventually, six of the 12 colonies fed the spiked syrup failed. Calling the researchers' credibility into further question, the second study, like the first, ascribes colony failure to colony collapse disorder, a malady with characteristics not evident in either trial.


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## WLC

With all the flaws in the Lu studies, they still produced one important finding.

A beekeeper won't have any clue that their colonies have been poisoned until after they've failed to overwinter.

In other words, there won't be any obvious signs of insect poisoning.

You'll find an empty hive on the other side of winter.

While it's not an orthodox definition of CCD, it's close enough for most folks.

IMHO, it's a remarkable observation.


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## camero7

Yeah, if you feed them poison. They will never accumulate that level of neonics from the field. Worthless study.


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## deknow

It is impossible to know if the beekeeper would notice anything. Certainly the write up makes it seem that all colonies looked the same.

The problem is, anyone that had managed a number of hives knows that they don't all look the same. Generally one does a fair amount of management to keep colonies of equal strength.

And again, are we really suppose to believe that strong full hives of 20 . that are fed weekly never try to swarm, never run out of room and need superstition or combs spun out.

There simply isn't enough detail provided to make one think that the descriptions of the management is accurate.


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## WLC

Never say never. We already know about neonic contaminated guttation drops and planter dust.

It's possible to get high neonic contamination levels in a hive.

No one has made the link between neonics and overwinter mortality till Lu did the studies.


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## deknow

Again the usda pollen survey. 
Imidacloprid 1 9.1 30.8 3.5-216 
That is a limit if detection of 1 ppb, found in 9.1% of the colonies surveyed, an average concentration of 30.8ppb with samples ranging from 3.5 to 216 ppb.


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## deknow

I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that guttation is a real world problem. Planter start certainly is. Probably some specific crops are a problem....certainly a good percentage of the small sample in the usda survey are exposed, and bee bread with over 200 ppb is obviously a problem.


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## camero7

> I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that guttation is a real world problem.


Seems like we would experience problems next to corn if it was. And the canola fields in Canada would really cause problems if the bees took the sap back to their hives. There's just no evidence that it is a problem.


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## BernhardHeuvel

deknow said:


> I haven't seen anything that makes me believe that guttation is a real world problem.


You are lucky enough to live in a country that has a lot of space and thus wilderness. So you do not see what we experience here. In our real world our bees cannot avoid pesticides by using other crops because there are no other pollen and nectar sources other than the poisoned ones. You told me you do not see any bees on corn while I was showing you pics with bees taking the guttation water and pollen of corn plants. I showed you lab results where pollen and honey was contaminated, your hive products do not. Obviously your world is not our world, sure, but that doesn't mean it is not real. Isn't it?!


deknow said:


> That is a limit if detection of 1 ppb,..


Is that accurate enough?

"_We demonstrate, however, that a daily exposure 1/100th concentration of the LD50 significantly affects the mortality rate of N. ceranae-infected honeybees._"
from: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0021550

1 ppb = 1 µg/kg

You also should know how fast the stuff breaks down. They found that bees poisoned with Imidacloprid, soon after they died, the Imidacloprid breaks down. After one hour (1 hr!) only 30 % of the Imidacloprid could be found. After 48 hours only 5 % of the Imidacloprid could be found. In the bees that died. (Study by Annely Brandt, Kirchhain, reported at: http://www.deutscherimkerbund.de/phpwcms_ftp/aktuell2014-2.pdf)

So to find out the real amount of pesticide that poisoned your bees, you need to sample bees that are poisoned but still alive. You need to freeze those bees immediately.

So it remains difficult to see the real world through lab findings of either bees or pollen or anything. When oldtimer beekeepers report there is something wrong with their bees you should better do not dismiss this too easily. The biggest problem for us folks, that struggle to keep them bees alive, are other beekeepers pointing at us. Naysayers and apologists. I know your intentions are good, but all the scepticism costs us other less lucky fellows a lot of time and hives. 

I am sure you would discuss the topic different if our troubles would be your troubles. I met a lot of sceptic beekeepers in the past, all denying that pesticides are causing trouble. They all became either very silent during the last decade or they became very loud - because of their losses. 

It all depends much on your location - especially when it comes to water contamination. If you got a lot of fresh water sources you do not see so much trouble. 

Bees are not dumb. If they can, they smell and avoid pesticides. If they are forced to consume pesticides, they get ill one way or the other.


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## deknow

Bernard, please do not imply what you cannot demonstrate.

What data can you supply (private data or published reports) that shows bees picking up any/significant neonics in corn guttation. One where the corn plants are not in containers, where guttation is happening instead of being forced when other moisture isn't available.

I think you are a smart guy, and I take data (and anecdotes) you provide seriously. If you have something more concrete I'd be very interested in hearing it.


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## nschomer

Even if my hypothesis about "bioaccumulation" in the brood comb is not accurate, I still think an overreliance on testing only properly administered "field level" neonic may be missing the point. Neonic insecticides are available both commercially and to the casual suburban insectophobe. Many of the beekeepers here are not pollinating commercial crops, but are dealing with a large area of suburbia in which people may or may not be applying these insecticides in the proper manner. Yes it is technically a crime to use these products in a manner not consistent with their labeling, but when was the last time you saw Joe Johnson from down the street being hauled away for failing to follow labeling instructions?
My immediate neighbors know that I keep bees, and I would hope that they would be restrained in their use of potentially harmful insecticides, but the foraging range of my bees encompasses a great many homes, parks, and other managed areas that could have a wide variety of insecticide levels. Establishing that exposures in the range of about one order of magnitude below the LD50 causes CCD-like overwinter death of colonies is a worthy finding - and quite a different one from the hyper-controlled canola trial.


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## BernhardHeuvel

I have some pictures showing honeybees collecting guttation water under field conditions. You can see this quite regularily. A well known German bees scientist looked into it (among others), some details he shows here in this document: 

http://www.bv-besigheim.de/mitglieder/material/WallnerGuttation2012_02_11.pdf (in German, with pictures and charts.)

It says that the level of neonicotinoid pesticides in the guttation water in corn is critical for four weeks after the corn sprouted. (Seed coated with neonicotinoids.) Critical means it will have effects on the bees immediately. The studies also showed that the guttation water of corn (and canola and other crops) contain the neonicotinoids throughout the season, but in smaller doses. 

Corn is especially interesting as a water source, since the leaf pits provide guttation water all day long.


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## camero7

> I have some pictures showing honeybees collecting guttation water under field conditions. You can see this quite regularily. A well known German bees scientist looked into it (among others), some details he shows here in this document:
> 
> http://www.bv-besigheim.de/mitgliede...2012_02_11.pdf (in German, with pictures and charts.)


Seems to be several photos of the same bee at the same spot. One bee does not make a problem. 



> Corn is especially interesting as a water source, since the leaf pits provide guttation water all day long.


I don't believe the leaf pits are really guttation but accumulated rain water and dew. Has anyone every taken samples and analyzed them. Further, I don't see my bees in the cornfield next to me so I really doubt they are using it anyway.



> "_We demonstrate, however, that a daily exposure 1/100th concentration of the LD50 significantly affects the mortality rate of N. ceranae-infected honeybees._"
> from: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0021550


I don't believe that fipronil is a neonic. I agree that it is a deadly poison for bees.


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## camero7

From Randy Oliver's Scientific Beekeeping:

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/news-and-blogs-page/


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## D Coates

camero7 said:


> I have no idea as to why a study like Lu’s gets so much more attention.





camero7 said:


> Lu’s papers become the darlings of advocacy groups to support their misguided agendas to ban a particular pesticide outright.


You've already answered your 1st excellent statement fully with your 2nd excellent statement. The truth that many claim to be seeking is not what they are actually looking for.


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## BlueDiamond

nschomer said:


> Neonic insecticides are available both commercially and to the casual suburban insectophobe. Many of the beekeepers here are not pollinating commercial crops, but are dealing with a large area of suburbia in which people may or may not be applying these insecticides in the proper manner.


Why should it matter if neonics in suburbia are sometimes misapplied? Honeybees are so abundant in the most urbanized area of the nation - Los Angeles- that pest control companies there advertise their swarm removal services: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK95K3aLwZ0 Also consider that the garden centers in suburbia do not stock enough neonics to treat even 1% of the flowering plants in any given area each year. So even if neonics are sometimes overapplied by home gardeners, only a vanishingly small percentage of bees are going to be exposed - far more bees in suburbia likely get killed everyday via collisions with cars and trucks.


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## Barry Digman

D Coates said:


> You've already answered your 1st excellent statement fully with your 2nd excellent statement. The truth that many claim to be seeking is not what they are actually looking for.


They're actually Randy Oliver's statements contained within his article. Proper quoting and attribution with appropriate links are important, especially in the context of a discussion like this.


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## Oldtimer

D Coates said:


> The truth that many claim to be seeking is not what they are actually looking for.


Much wisdom in that statement also, and does not only apply to beekeepers.


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## WLC

I don't think that there's a beekeeper anywhere in the world who has shown more bias against Dr. Lu's work than Randy.

I certainly wouldn't give his opinions on the matter any weight.

Once again, another mediocre study from Dr. Lu with an astonishing observation.

Those bees should have been poisoned immediately, but they didn't succumb until they overwintered.


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## squarepeg

WLC said:


> I don't think that there's a beekeeper anywhere in the world who has shown more bias against Dr. Lu's work than Randy.


bias is the opposite of objectivity. i think you've got it backwards in this case wlc.



WLC said:


> I certainly wouldn't give his opinions on the matter any weight.


you don't have to, but these opinions are in line with those held many well respected bee scientists.



WLC said:


> Once again, another mediocre study from Dr. Lu with an astonishing observation.
> 
> Those bees should have been poisoned immediately, but they didn't succumb until they overwintered.


agreed. perhaps they were storing the tainted syrup more than utilizing it at the time, and when field forage became unavailable it was all they had for food.

deknow's points about management are right on the money. 

cam's point about calling this dwindling 'ccd' is also spot on.

lu's statement from the study that his findings "reinforce the conclusion that sub-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids is likely the main culprit for the occurrence of CCD" is, well, ........

shameful science no two ways about it.


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## WLC

Let's forget everything else except the delayed lethality observation for a moment.

One interpretation could be that pesticides need to be tested for this type of effect before approval.

Currently, that's not the case.


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## squarepeg

the lethality is already known. my guess is that the delay was because the insecticide got concentrated as the syrup got processed and stored, and then became a problem as the bees started to consume it.


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## BlueDiamond

WLC said:


> Let's forget everything else except the delayed lethality observation for a moment. One interpretation could be that pesticides need to be tested for this type of effect before approval. Currently, that's not the case.


How would such testing benefit bee health given that CCD doesn't hardly exist in the first place in the regions (e.g. Iowa, Illinois) where neonics are most intensively used (60-70% of the entire landmass of those states is covered with crops grown from neonic coated seed). And given that they only way Lu could demonstrate delayed lethality was by feeding the bees "levels of neonicotinoids greater than 10 times what they would normally encounter" http://bayercropscience.us/news/press-releases/2014/05122014-bee-care-harvard-statement


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## Oldtimer

WLC said:


> Those bees should have been poisoned immediately, but they didn't succumb until they overwintered.


No they should not have died immediately.

The poison was at a concentration lower than the LD50 for bees, a dose carefully calculated NOT to kill them immediately, but kill them later once natural nectar was not coming in and the bees were eating the stored syrup daily.

The experiment was likely carefully thought out to get a result were bees were not killed outright but would inevitably get killed eventually, and that's what happened.


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## WLC

I wouldn't use the term 'carefully' to describe the experimental design of the study.

There's too much room for 'improvement'.


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## camero7

> I don't think that there's a beekeeper anywhere in the world who has shown more bias against Dr. Lu's work than Randy.
> 
> I certainly wouldn't give his opinions on the matter any weight.


Instead of attacks, why not point out where he errors in his analysis.


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## nschomer

While I have immense respect for Randy, and have read his information almost religiously, I do have one small problem with his panning of this particular study. One of the main points of his critique is that the number of hives in the study is too low for statistical significance, which is just not the case. While bees specifically (as invertebrates) are not covered by the Animal Welfare Act, the common mantra amongst animal experimenters is "Reduce, Refine, Replace" - in other words, if you don't have to use animals, don't. Failing that, use the fewest number possible to aquire useful data, in this case a clear difference between the cohorts, even at N=6, provides statistically useful data.
Personally, I don't think I would have the stomach to knowingly feed colonies something I suspected would kill them, and then observe them slowly dying over the course of months of study. This is a better designed study than Dr. Lu's first, however, and I imagine that if he continues with this line of research, the studies will improve further with time. The dosage should certainly be lowered (under the 50 ppb level that Bayer found toxic), honey and comb from the overwintered hive should be tested for neonic levels, and additional confounding infections should be screened for more aggressively. But to suggest that, should other variables be adequately controlled, cohorts of 6 are too small to yield statistically significant data is simply false.


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## FollowtheHoney

I read an evaluation today where it was stated that the dosage was also based on a strong hive with lots of forage diluting the level to a more appropriate level, it is understood that in a test to ID the LD50 the test subject is intended to reach high levels of mortality in a certain period. there is a certain level of absurdity to this method as the long term effects of lower doses appear more relevant. 
I worked in a toxicology lab for five years, and while it was hardly Harvard, Dr. Lu's test design seems pretty standard. If that is 'bad science" as Many have stated or implied then there is an awful lot of it going around.

At least two of the pesticides I worked with have since been banned, Parathion, and Diazinon.

Give it time and insects will develop resistance to neonics and they will also be banned. Pesticides kill. Period. Either use them or don't. I choose to grow my own veggies and buy locally grown meat. I don't even use 'organic' pesticides. It is simply a different set of goals.
Do I want to kill the pest or grow healthy plants that pests ignore. 

I am hoping this translates in beekeeping as well. It sounds similar to what I can glean from natural beekeepers.


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## camero7

> If that is 'bad science" as Many have stated or implied then there is an awful lot of it going around.


there sure is


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## Oldtimer

FollowtheHoney said:


> I worked in a toxicology lab for five years, and while it was hardly Harvard, Dr. Lu's test design seems pretty standard. If that is 'bad science" as Many have stated or implied then there is an awful lot of it going around.


FollowtheHoney I fully respect your understanding of the subject having worked in the field for 5 years.

However in this instance you have missed the point. Implying that the dose rate used etc was not bad science is if you are thinking the idea is to show that these pesticides can kill bees after a given time frame.
But the claimed aim of the experiment was not that. It was to show that these pesticides are the cause of CCD. Despite claiming to have proved that, in fact it did not. It simply proved that administering pesticides in this manner can kill bees as they eat their winter stores.

In normal circumstances these pesticides are not administered in this manner or anything like this concentration.

The other Elephant in the room is that CCD was non existent in the US last year. So Lu is trying to chase down something that no longer exists, and that is despite that neonicitinoids were still being used same as ever. If it existed in his experimental hives, he has proved he had the only CCD in the US.


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## squarepeg

you said it better than i could ot.

it would have been easy enough to test the stored 'honey' to see if the insecticide became even more concentrated after the processing of the syrup.

i don't have a problem with the statistical analysis although the omission of error bars on the graphs as is standard in scientific publications makes one wonder.

the conclusions drawn? laughable.


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## FollowtheHoney

Oldtimer said:


> FollowtheHoney I fully respect your understanding of the subject having worked in the field for 5 years.
> 
> However in this instance you have missed the point. Implying that the dose rate used etc was not bad science is if you are thinking the idea is to show that these pesticides can kill bees after a given time frame.
> But the claimed aim of the experiment was not that. It was to show that these pesticides are the cause of CCD. Despite claiming to have proved that, in fact it did not. It simply proved that administering pesticides in this manner can kill bees as they eat their winter stores.
> 
> In normal circumstances these pesticides are not administered in this manner or anything like this concentration.
> 
> The other Elephant in the room is that CCD was non existent in the US last year. So Lu is trying to chase down something that no longer exists, and that is despite that neonicitinoids were still being used same as ever. If it existed in his experimental hives, he has proved he had the only CCD in the US.


I don't disagree as far as A connection to CCD goes I should have referred to the OP.


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## BayHighlandBees

I honestly don't think Dr. Lu has bad intent. The problem is that he's a toxin specialist who is trying to simulate an societal collapse with insects. You really need someone with an Entomology background and I don't see that Dr. Lu has that. But that's why the studies are poorly run. He's simply administering poison directly to the bees at levels he knows is lethal (rates that are 3x the lethal levels) and documenting the results.

If he were to bring in experts that understand bees (I recommend the folks at UC Davis who do lots of pesticide testing for the State of California) then he would get the tests setup and executed in a more competent manner.


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## BayHighlandBees

doing test with bees in the field to test a societal collapse is a much different type of study then say using lab rats to test toxic levels of chemicals for humans. That's why I think Dr Lu struggles with his bee tests.


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## camero7

BayHighlandBees said:


> I honestly don't think Dr. Lu has bad intent. The problem is that he's a toxin specialist who is trying to simulate an societal collapse with insects. You really need someone with an Entomology background and I don't see that Dr. Lu has that. But that's why the studies are poorly run. He's simply administering poison directly to the bees at levels he knows is lethal (rates that are 3x the lethal levels) and documenting the results.


As I've posted before, the word around here is that he's really not interested in bees. He wants to extrapolate his results to humans. An even bigger stretch.


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## melliferal

So it turns out that feeding bees insecticide is more likely to kill them than not feeding them insecticide. Fascinating I guess, although I don't see this information as anything new or particularly useful.

If I were to propose my own study, I think it would be more useful to study neonicotinoid concentration in honey prior to winter, followed by winter/spring loss rates of the same hives and looking for a statistically-significant correlation. Feeding the insecticide to the bees is right out; rather, placement of colonies in a variety of locations, including some in proximity to operations using neonicotinoids normally, should do the trick.


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## squarepeg

http://www.vox.com/2014/5/23/5742398/are-pesticides-killing-the-honeybees-its-complicated

fair and balanced.


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## BernhardHeuvel

When we are talking about a billion dollar business nothing is going to be fair. That article is just another smoke screen.

"Principle of precaution"? "Better safe than sorry"? Europe? Are you joking?

Beekeepers were protesting massively and there is enough scientific material to ban the stuff. After > 10 years of protests. That's the whole story. Looking at time and effort it took, one can't speak of precaution.


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## wildbranch2007

squarepeg said:


> http://www.vox.com/2014/5/23/5742398/are-pesticides-killing-the-honeybees-its-complicated
> 
> fair and balanced.


I agree and written so most people can understand it.


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## WLC

The article missed the point: syrup laced w/ lethal doses of neonics showed delayed lethality.


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## Oldtimer

No. That was not Lus point.

Lus point was that neonics cause CCD. 

But he didn't prove that. He proved that syrup poisoned at a slightly lower level than it would take to kill the hive immediately, can kill the hive later as they continue to eat poisoned food stores through winter and the cumulative effect does them in.

It would be like a medical researcher trying to prove that the modern ailment of people dying of heart attacks is caused by salt. To prove it he feeds his subjects high levels of salt, just below lethal dose, until they die of a heart attack. To him, he has proved it. Everybody else knows that heart attacks are caused by too much fat, obesity, lack of physical activity, a whole range of causes. but the researcher in his mind, has proved they are caused by salt. Just like Lu, in his mind, has proved that CCD is caused by poison laced syrup.

That's ignoring that heart attacks, as a cause of death, exist. CCD, apparently, no longer does. Except in Lus hives.


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## Rader Sidetrack

WLC said:


> The article missed the point: syrup laced w/ lethal doses of neonics showed delayed lethality.


You mean that deliberately feeding poisoned syrup to bees kills them? :s Who knew? And you think that is a revelation? :scratch: Is that _your _idea of the _Scientific Method_?


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## WLC

The only finding worth replicating is the delayed lethality of syrup containing lethal doses of neonics.

The rest of the paper is peripheral.


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## Oldtimer

Worth replicating? To what purpose?

You feed them poisoned syrup. They eat it through winter and die.

What is replication worthy about that?

I could design and run such an experiment myself using any insecticide. WLC you want me to prove that CCD is caused by DDT? I can do it.


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## WLC

It has nothing to do with CCD.

We want to know why Honeybees were resistant to lethal doses of neonics, and exactly why they failed to overwinter.


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## Rader Sidetrack

> and exactly why they failed to overwinter

Because they were poisoned? How many _degrees _does it take to see that? :lookout:


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## WLC

Rader Sidetrack said:


> > and exactly why they failed to overwinter
> 
> Because they were poisoned? How many _degrees _does it take to see that? :lookout:


While Lu reported empty hives, the key issue is the 30% overwinter colony losses beekeepers have reported.

It doesn't look like pesticide poisoning, but resembles CCD.

That's the issue. No piles of dead bees.


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## Rader Sidetrack

WLC said:


> It doesn't look like pesticide poisoning, but resembles CCD.
> 
> That's the issue. No piles of dead bees.


But ... but ... but you yourself just said it doesn't resemble CCD ....


WLC said:


> It has nothing to do with CCD.


:ws: :lpf:


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## WLC

The mechanism by which delayed mortality occurs is the key.

It needs to be investigated.


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## Oldtimer

They eat poisoned stores till they die. What's to investigate?


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## Rader Sidetrack

WLC said:


> The mechanism by which delayed mortality occurs is the key.


They spend the winter eating the stored syrup/faux 'honey' that they put aside from the poisoned syrup you earlier fed them.

The '_*key*_' seems clear to me ....


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## BlueDiamond

Bayer's Dr. Julian Little explains in plain english why the study was so deeply flawed: http://beecare.bayer.com/media-cent...us-flaws-in-recent-us-study-on-neonicotinoids http://beecare.bayer.com/media-cent...us-flaws-in-recent-us-study-on-neonicotinoids

"Dosages are far removed from the reality in the field. The researchers were feeding honeybees with dose rates at 10, possibly nearer 100, times what they would normally encounter in the field. Not only were the doses really high, they were also given over 13 consecutive weeks – far longer than the 1 to 3 week exposure seen following normal agricultural uses, explained Julian Little. And to try to link their results to CCD is frankly bizarre since the symptoms they describe in their study do not resemble CCD in the US in the slightest".


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## WLC

Bluediamond:

You hit on a key point: how pesticides are tested on Honeybees.

Lu treated those bees with higher than field normal doses of the neonics, yet they didn't die immediately.

Clearly, there's something wrong with how we test pesticides to determine their LD50/allowable field concentrations.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Perhaps Lu's control of measurement/dosage of the neonics was as _sloppy _as the rest of the study ... 





> Clearly, there's something wrong


Well, at least you got _that part_ correct.


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## deknow

I'm pretty sure it has to do with what a colony does with a half gallon of syrup.

There seems to be the assumption that the syrup is distributed evenly to each of the 60,000 assumed bees in the hive....spaced out over the amount of time between feedings evenly.

This is not what happens...the syrup is probably consumed in less than 24 hours and much of it is likely stored.

We have no accounting of the surplus.....colonies such as these would generally produce a surplus of honey or swarm during the season. Werevsypers places on these hives? Were broodframes spun out? The stored honey is clearly the mode of action (in the last study, the one dosed colony that survived was a small cluster on stores inside a feeder....that were stored before the dosing began).

Without knowing what happened to the surplus (honey and/or bees ) and what was in the surplus, it is impossible to know what happened.


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## jonathan

BernhardHeuvel said:


> When we are talking about a billion dollar business nothing is going to be fair. That article is just another smoke screen.


Which claim in the article do you challenge and consider to be a smoke screen?


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## melliferal

WLC said:


> Bluediamond:
> 
> You hit on a key point: how pesticides are tested on Honeybees.
> 
> Lu treated those bees with higher than field normal doses of the neonics, yet they didn't die immediately.
> 
> Clearly, there's something wrong with how we test pesticides to determine their LD50/allowable field concentrations.


I don't get the logic here.

It's true that field doses are much lower than LD50 when it comes to neonics. But why does this constitute a problem? It could be that farmers simply don't need anywhere near an LD50 level of pesticide saturation on their crops for it to be effective for their purposes.

The federally-mandated maximum exposure limit for radiation workers is _significantly_ lower than than the known lethal dose. Surely you don't expect them to allow people to walk around absorbing radiation that is just under that dosage?

The same thing goes for insects. A sublethal dose of insecticide at this moment is sublethal, sure, but it could _become_ a lethal dose if the bees eat that sublethal dose day after day. Let's say (purely making some numbers up for demonstration) that Insecticide A's lethal dose is 100ppm, and you begin feeding bees daily doses of 10ppm. Let's say that the bees' bodies metabolize the insecticide at a rate of 6ppm per day. That means that after the end of the day, a bee that was fed 10ppm will still have 4ppm of residue inside them. The next day you feed them 10ppm, but they'll actually then have 14ppm inside them. After another day, 6 more ppm is metabolized, leaving 8ppm inside them. Feed them another 10ppm, that gives them 18ppm - so the bees are actually carrying around almost double your intended dose, and that's only on the _third day_ of the experiment.

Let's see how this plays out:

Day 1: 10-6=4
Day 2: 4+10-6=8
Day 3: 8+10-6=12
Day 4: 12+10-6=16
Day 5: 16+10-6=20 (After day 5, the bees will never have less than 2x your daily dose in them at any time)

Day 15: 48+10-6=52 (After day 13, less than two weeks into the experiment, the bees will never have less than 5x your daily dose in them at any time)

Day 27: 96+10-6=100 (Lethal dose)

So with these numbers, it takes a couple of days shy of a month of eating the insecticide at 10% of the lethal dose, to achieve the lethal dose in all bees.

Now again, these are made up numbers - however, the sole idea is to demonstrate the _principle_ in action.

Now, how do we come to the problem of the delayed reaction? If it only takes a month (in this case) to reach a lethal concentration, why didn't the bees die until winter?

Question: you _are_ a beekeeper, right?

Bees don't eat nectar given the option. At the time that the poison was being fed to them, the bees were likely actually eating stored honey, and the poisoned nectar was simply brought back to the hive and deposited in the comb, minimizing the exposure to the bees. The poisoned nectar was dried per standard procedure, evaporating water (and causing the poison to become concentrated further in the meantime), and capped until needed. The bees died over winter likely because it was during winter that they opened and began feeding on the poisoned honey in earnest.


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## WLC

O.K., I see that some of you think that insects have to actually digest neonic spiked syrup rather than simply ingest it.

All that I can say is if they're moving the spiked syrup around the hive, they're exposed to the neonics.

It should have killed them.

If they make honey out of it, it should have killed them.

Now if they then also eat the honey....


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## melliferal

WLC said:


> O.K., I see that some of you think that insects have to actually digest neonic spiked syrup rather than simply ingest it.
> 
> All that I can say is if they're moving the spiked syrup around the hive, they're exposed to the neonics.
> 
> It should have killed them.
> 
> If they make honey out of it, it should have killed them.
> 
> Now if they then also eat the honey....


And so it did. It did kill them. I still don't see what the problem is.


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## WLC

Neonicotinoids are systemic, water soluble pesticides.

As soon as the bees ingest the neonic, it will affect them because it's water soluble and systemic.

So, it shouldn't take months for them to succumb.


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## melliferal

Did you read the part of my post where I discuss humans and radiation exposure?

There is a lethal dose. This lethal dose can be reached all at once, or can also be attained cumulatively after several separate exposures.

The neonicotinoid experiment was similar. The dose given was sublethal for a single dose, but evidently after a long time of consuming it the bees attained the lethal dose cumulatively.


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## Stromnessbees

WLC said:


> The mechanism by which delayed mortality occurs is the key.
> 
> It needs to be investigated.


WLC, I have been thinking about the delayed mortality for a long time already. This is one theory that could exlain the mechanism of how neonics consumed in summer could cause CCD in winter:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...sible-explanation-for-CCD&p=896912#post896912


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## BayHighlandBees

I don't understand the focus of this study on CCD. CCD hit in 2006 and peaked 4 or 5 years ago. It's not what's currently killing the bee's these days.

Given how CCD hit hard and then went away, I'd suspect that it was caused by a virus that bees quickly built up resistance too. My other theory is that 2006 was a year when the buildup of 1st generation mite control pesticides inside dark comb hit toxic levels for a lot of hives. Once cycling out old dark comb became a common practice and / or that many apiarists moved on to newer less-harsh forms of mite control, CCD began to diminish.

Not sure we'll find the answer to the mystery but I just don't believe it to be neonic-related. It's been thoroughly tested and if it were the cause, CCD would still be ramping up as neonic pesticides continue to become more widely used and the bees would have probably died off by now.


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