Honey Bee World

Part I: Bee Deaths Mystery Solved? Neonicotinoids (Neonics) May Actually Help Bee Health

Reports that honey bees are dying in unusually high numbers has concerned many scientists, farmers and beekeepers, and gripped the public. There have been thousands of stories ricocheting across the web, citing one study or another as the definitive explanation for a mystery that most mainstream experts say is complex and not easily reducible to the kind of simplistic narrative that appeals to advocacy groups.

This is part one of a two-part series that will examine this phenomenon: how complex science is reduced to ideology, how scientists and journalists often facilitate that--and its problematic impact on public policy, the environment and in this case the wondrous honey bee...

Continue reading at the link below.

http://www.science20.com/jon_entine_the ... lth-149615

Excellent paper. Just says what some of us have been thinking for a while, only in more detail. Too bad the mainstream media doesn't pick up on it.

Yes. The "Harvard" "study' is about as bad as it gets and used to fuel a lot of rhetoric.

I'm not about to give the current neonic practices a free pass, though, as neonics are most often used prophetically and excessively, rather than in IPM. Neonics as they are currently applied also are hard on a lot of non-target organisms.

I don't know of any pesticide that deserves a free pass. IMO the neonics are better than the organophosphates that they attempt to replace [although not completely].

Here is part two.
Part II: Bee Deaths And CCD - Flawed Chensheng Lu Harvard Studies Endanger Bees
http://www.science20.com/jon_entine/par ... 49799/feed

The province said on Tuesday it wants to reduce the acreage planted with neonic-treated seeds by 80 per cent within two years.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o ... e21747328/