[red-indian]

I grow a lot of crops that require pollination, vegetables for market, and I have several small fruit orchards. After European bee colony collapse in my area the european honey bees disappeared. Within one season they were replaced with native pollinators, including literally dozens of species of bees I'd never seen before (because the alien european bees were starving them out), as well as a panoply of wasp species which I hadn't realized were major pollinators. Some of the wasps that moved in have done things like eliminate the Japanese Beetles that were ruining my grape and berry crops. Losing the european honey bees was the best thing ever to happen to me. And these other bees don't seem to get mixed up in the problems with the neonicotinoids. I use neonicotinoids myself for my dogs and cats and for termite control and they are the least toxic solutions for both of these uses. I do not support the use of neonicotinoids as applied directly to flowering crops or lawns with clover etc and consider such use to be highly misguided if not fairly insane.

Loss of European honey bees means expensive honey. It doesn't mean a loss of pollinators despite various misguided claims to the contrary that have been promoted for years, some making completely hysterical and unfounded claims of global starvation and the end of humanity. To the contrary in my experience the result is greater pollination and yields following the loss of the alien bee species.

[yawz]

It's naive and misinformed to think that only European honey bees suffer from it. Many European countries have banned the Neonics, but in the US there's a significant resistance to it.

[BostonEnginerd]

The European Honey Bee is a species of bee which has been transplanted around the world. I don't believe the parent poster was referring specifically to bees who happen to be in Europe.

[tptacek]

The first sentence in this comment seems to have nothing to do with the second.

[sten]

Does the use of neonicotinoids not also affect the native pollinators? I was under the impression that the issue is not solely honey bees but all insects. (Honey bees being a useful public face on the problem)