[ExI] Neonicotinoid pesticides 'damage brains of bees' reports

[spike]

Thanks Billk.

>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: [ExI] Neonicotinoid pesticides 'damage brains of bees' reports

>From the BBC
Quote:
>...Scientists have found that two types of chemicals called neonicotinoids
and coumaphos are interfering with the insect's ability to learn and
remember...

>...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21958547

>...BillK
_______________________________________________

Thanks BillK.  Are you the one who posted about a month ago from a beekeeper
friend?  He commented that he hadn't heard of any reports of major bee
shortages.  The question is, what forum would such reports be seen?  The
beekeepers I know of do not hang out on the internet.

Another thought occurred to me: if a fruit season produces way lower than
normal, this works to the benefit of the beekeeper.  The low production year
sends the price of fruit skyward, and reminds the groveman he needs plenty
of pollinators, so the price of hives goes skyward too.  The beekeeper is
able to rent her bees at a higher price the next season.  So it stands to
reason that if a beekeeper is losing a lot of hives, the strategy is to
quietly spend the spring splitting swarms and building up new colonies.  So
it isn't clear how we could hear about it if these neonics were causing
colony collapse.

Observations since I last posted on this topic: the local trees are
definitely way under-beed this season, waaay less bee-ey than normal.  I
estimate the delta at more than an order of magnitude less than that to
which we are fondly accustomed.  My backyard blossoms are nearly deserted.
I estimate the beeiety of the best metric to be down by somewhere between
one and one and a half orders of magnitude.  I do not know what is the right
forum to collect these observations, now that our online group has suffered
colony collapse from losing one critically important member.