GMO corn planting destroys Bees

[Beeman]

Originally Posted by hunted

Question for you as an actual bee keeper. Are you for or against a neonic ban?

I am undecided at the moment but leaning in favour of keeping them. Almost all the canola planted now has been seed treated and I know of no issues affecting the hundreds of thousand hive foraging on it in alberta. My understanding of the corn situation in Ontario is that the blame is being laid on the neonicotoid becoming airborne during seeding and solutions are being tested.

My thoughts are if a simple seed treatment can protect the plant for the entire crop year we won't see a return of crop dusting airplanes spraying poison directly onto my foraging bees. Even if it isn't sprayed directly on bloom it can still kill a lot of bees if the bees are flying over to the next field.

[connexion123]

Originally Posted by russ

It really needs to be pointed out that you're citing a newspaper article not a peer reviewed paper.

No I'm not, but that is all I posted at this time. As I said earlier, I will post up when I have more time.

[Peter Abelard]

Originally Posted by KegRiver

Not sure what Bees would be doing in a corn field. Corn is wind pollinated.
There is nothing in a corn field that a bee would want.

And there's the rub.

1) Place hives beside low quality forage.
2) Blame pesticides or GMO for hive failure.
3) Profit!

[Beeman]

Originally Posted by Peter Abelard

And there's the rub.

1) Place hives beside low quality forage.
2) Blame pesticides or GMO for hive failure.
3) Profit!

Bees often fly over two miles to forage. My bees routinely fly over a wheat or Barley field to reach canola or clover or alfalfa, sometimes even fly over a canola field to reach a clover field if it is yielding more nectar. Pretty hard to to keep bees more than two miles from any major crop in any area.

[tasco]

In my experience. I think I might have had some issues with neonics affecting some of my bee location's but not in the past couple of years. The major seed companies are developing better seed lubricants and coatings to minimize the neonic dust off during seeding. As a commercial beekeeper I believe that it's in my best interest to work with the seed companies. It's in thier best intrest that us beekeepers have healthy hives. If my hives die they won't get any pollination of thier canola seed, and then there won't be any canola for the farmers to grow. They are also the ones that provide us with a lot of the tools we use to keep our hives healthy.

This is a huge topic in the beekeeping industry. It's very hard to answer the questions properly so that we are all on the same page. I have over 30 years experience in the industry, and claim to know nothing.

[Matt L.]

Originally Posted by tasco

In my experience. I think I might have had some issues with neonics affecting some of my bee location's but not in the past couple of years. The major seed companies are developing better seed lubricants and coatings to minimize the neonic dust off during seeding. As a commercial beekeeper I believe that it's in my best interest to work with the seed companies. It's in thier best intrest that us beekeepers have healthy hives. If my hives die they won't get any pollination of thier canola seed, and then there won't be any canola for the farmers to grow. They are also the ones that provide us with a lot of the tools we use to keep our hives healthy.

This is a huge topic in the beekeeping industry. It's very hard to answer the questions properly so that we are all on the same page. I have over 30 years experience in the industry, and claim to know nothing.

Holy hell! Logic!

[hunted]

Very good fact based article from a reputable source. Send more money to Sierra Club

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe...service=mobile

[Kanonfodder]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...igh/?tid=sm_tw

[avb3]

Colonies, NOT number of bees. Dividing a colony in two does not double the number of bees.