While I stick as close to organic as possible I know enough about bees and plants to know that this colony collapse syndrome and it impact on our food supply was blown way out of proportion. Honey bees were imported and the plants did fine with all the other pollinating insect the bees replaced.

6b Steve

Interesting indeed. The post title says "perspective of a Scientist" and yet there is no reference to anything to that effect. And the way the whole passage above is written seems so haphazard that it seems like a spoof.

Small print: In my case I have not found a compelling reason to use systemic pesticides and I have not researched them very well.

Tropic.... We don't care. Take it or leave it, it is offered for free. It is worse than that.. do you actually have something to contribute or do you only have criticism???

Reports/surveys over the last year in New Zealand say overall honey bee populations have increased here, mainly because the number of hives have more than doubled in the last 15 years (manuka honey is good business). The wild/feral populations are down, attributed to varroa mite, but it's suspected that some wild hives are not succumbing, and they want us to keep an eye out for them so they can study why.

Hive losses still occur, but at a lower rate than a lot of countries. Losses thought to be from three main reasons : queen bee failure, starvation and wasps. So making sure there's a continuous food supply and killing the wasps helps, but does anyone know what "queen bee failure" is? Drone-laying queen bees? Why that happens? Is this where the sprays get blamed? Apparently queen bees need to be replaced every 2 years now instead of lasting up to 5 years.

Robin. Is this wasp the Giant Asian Hornet by chance. I hear that 12 hornets can take on a hive of 300,000 bees and defeat the entire colony and might lose only one of its own in the attach.

6b Steve

I have not found one scientific paper (other then sponsored from big chemistry companies) that reports that pesticides are not harmful to bees. Everybody with a good brain function would admit that a poison that kills insects will ultimately harm bees too. They are insects after all. And if you read labels, they have to write it down that is is harmful to bees and aquatics.

And Johnmerr if you can not handle opposed comments, don't open the can of worms ;)

johnmerr: Apologies. Did not know that one cannot criticize a scientific viewpoint. Carry on.

Let me wade in here as I feel like I'm missing all the fun.

I am also going to claim the perspective of a scientist but you will have to take my word for that since the forums are really not in a good format to post resumes, publication references, and job experience qualifications. Pretty much everything here is posted as a user's perspective and is, at worst, an uneducated guess at a vaguely understood concept, or, at best, a well written commentary off the top of the poster's head of a very well understood topic. The information is provided as a gift and seldom will we find references.

I know very little about the bee colony collapse and all the hype that went with it but I have seen similar scientific/biological issues which are taken up by political parties and used solely for political gain and the news media is only too happy to jump on board and go with the political gain hype perspective. Seldom is there a media writer who knows enough about scientific topics to provide more than a knee-jerk emotionally motivated perspective and then that is "smushed" into a hype that will sell news media.

Oops, there are TWO Tropic...somethings here. I'm getting confused!

At any rate, I notice Johnmerr got jumped on pretty heavily and his response seemed reasonable for a guy who just got pounced on and criticized for providing a free perspective off the top of his head.

Susanne, at the risk of peeling the lid back off a little more from that can of worms, and I comment on general concepts, not the specifics of this issue. Generally, pesticides are delivered in such a way as to target the pest with a lethal dose. I think it's accepted that the pesticide is going to be detectable in other areas but hopefully at a level that isn't toxic. We could use the mosquito plane that sprays my area as an example. I really hate when that plane comes over and I go inside since I don't want a dose of malathion but I do still have dragonflies, lightening bugs, and even mosquitoes...and I haven't passed yet either. Caffeine, arsenic, mercury, nicotine, and imidacloprid are all toxic at some level but we do fine consuming them in very low doses. I think the key question in the imidacloprid example is, are bees getting a high enough dose from nectar and pollen to be harmful? I don't know the details or the answer but I do know it's difficult to generalize. Is there data to demonstrate that plants deposit imidacloprid in the nectar and pollen at the same rate as in the leaves?

My disclaimer: I also try to avoid using all sorts of products and I even avoid routine dental X-rays because I don't think we know the long-term effects and I just hate it when I get cancer....but I do sparingly use those products from time-to-time because sometimes I don't like the other options I have available.

John I agree with you. Sometimes we have to choose the lesser evil to prevent bigger harm. But we have to be aware of the consequences and not taking it lightly. For the CLM other options are available. I can see that everything needs to be done to help get the citrus greening under control even if I do not agree with everything. What I never accept is bullying in any form.

I'm all ears for other options to successfully control CLM. Other than pheromone traps which aren't practical in my case and other than squishing the larvae, I'm not aware of any other control methods. My trees are in-ground and too big to address by hand. I use some dormant oils and they wipe out scale but haven't helped my CLM issue.

I just don't have the time to do a lot of research on the imidacloprid topic as citrus is one of many hobbies but in my professional work I have encountered a LOT of other examples of the point Johnmerr made about political activism overriding good science and available data so, while I still choose to avoid imidacloprid as much as possible, I very much appreciate his frustration and I know he has researched the issue a LOT more than I have and I assume he still has a healthy bee population around his orchards but, I don't know that for a fact.

There is an Indian saying "A bird has two wings". Unfortunately and not for the greater goods, political parties have used science to proof their point. Sadly not every result they came up with can be trusted. But I can trust my own observations and so can you. In our busy life it is easy to overlook the signs. Maybe I have too much time on my hand? Not really but I'm a naturalist. I see the changes in the weather, the extremes from flooding, drought, heat and icy cold. And I believe that there is a correlation between nature and man made causes. I miss the abandon varieties of butterflies from my childhood. The bumblebees that we trapped between rose leaves and then hold on our ears to listen to their sound. Now we could discuss that this is all part of evolution and nothing to do how we take care of our environment. But the two wings are so hardened up that they can not fly in harmony anymore :(

Btw, I'm in Michigan and do not have the leaf miner. In my limited experience I would look for beneficial insects to release in my yard. CLM does not really kill a tree. just looks not so nice. Sometimes it helps to sit on our hands and wait for the balance to return. (not talking about greening as this is already too late)

Here is a photo I posted recently in another topic. It's a good example of the damage CLM does and it also shows how imidacloprid solved it. In my case, I could have probably skipped the imidacloprid and just let them Duke it out but in a commercial application, I can see how the wrinkled up leaves could significantly cut production. My mature trees are way over my head and most of this years leaves are just as wrinkled as the ones in the photo below.

The top leaves are after beginning treatments with imidacloprid.

Imidacloprid is one of the new neo-nicotinamides invented by Bayer Agri, one of the most ecologically conscious companies I have known. The patent has run its length and you can now get generics; they are good; but they are not Bayer Crop Science originals. I use the generics in the field; but for my garden trees I only use the original. Imidacloprid is both topical and systemic after it enters the plant; for that reason we never spray when flowers/bees are present. Once inside the plant, it kills only those things that suck on or chew on the leaf, while leaving the beneficials to do their work. In the case of CLM the imidacloprid kills it, unlike most topicals that cannot get it; because it is inside the leaf. The important thing is the systemic prevents the critter from reproducing; so instead of increasing each cycle the population decreases. I still get a little damage from CLM; because it comes from outside my groves.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/honeybee-colonies-increase-after-years-of-decline/2017/08/02/fc79eea6-73ba-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.c5838a518873

This is the original story I saw talking about bee colony increases in the US.

"Tim May, a beekeeper in Harvard, Illinois, and the vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, says he thinks that it’s difficult to point out specific factors causing the loss of honeybees.

“It’s really tricky,” May said. “Maybe it’s pesticides, maybe it’s not. But when I eliminate everything else, it’s a distinct possibility."

The only somewhat credible possibility could be several different chemicals used together but that is all guesses at this point. I haven't seen any peer reviewed papers proving this point. That being said I haven't used the chemcials in my garden yet.

This is the survey I believed they mentioned in the article from the USDA.

http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/Hone/Hone-03-22-2017.pdf

Edit: lets all also remember we all love citrus and all want to do the best thing for our plants. :)

Steve, thankfully no hornets here. The main culprits are two european wasps, the German wasp and the Common wasp. Very aggressive and thrive in our native bush where it's hard to get to them. Also have less aggressive paper wasps, who nest more in the open. We get them around us, but can deal to them at dusk, when they return to their nest, by doing a spray-and-run with fly spray. Would get professionals in for the European ones.

Any thoughts, anyone, re the cause of "queen bee failure"? It's a vague phrase.