Oh, East is East and West is West

摘要

THE August Scottish Beekeeper carried two articles on winter loss rates showing apparent differences between East and West Scotland, or differences in reported exposure to oilseed rape. The articles concluded "this finding supports the hypothesis thatneonicotinoid-treated OSR may be contributing to the honeybee decline in the UK', and 'these results appear to lend further weight to the contention that the use of neonicotinoid seed dressing on this particular crop may have an adverse effect". Dividing data sets according to geography or cropping patterns which correlate with geography is going to throw up associations which are not cause and effect. In addition, common sense argues against oilseed rape pesticides affecting winter survival. Such a hypothesis would require a rather unlikely series of events. Bees exposed to oilseed rape usually in April and May behave normally, waggle dance and recruit their colleagues normally, and build from small overwintered stocks to booming colonies on this diet every year. Mine do, and other people's bees do. Then the bees use other forage in June, July, Au gust and September, replace their worker populations twice or three times over the summer, and show normal colony vigour according to the forage available and the weather.