The legislation for warning labeling on Neonicotinoid pesticides is a small step in the right direction. Just not far enough yet.
http://www.treehugger.com/clea...

Every small step is helpful.

I have only just learned about this. Please, do not buy ANY plant from a big box store (or anywhere else) unless someone can prove that Neonicotinoid has not been used while growing the plants.

Scary, scary, scary!
http://www.theguardian.com/env...

I think it's the BT corn that's doing em in...

Well, I think it's a combination of things, but that is certainly a very big cause.

Bt is a bacteria specific to lepidoptera, it won't have a direct/immediate effect on the bees. But most corn these days do use neonicotinoids. Neonicotinoids kill all insects and are 1000 times scarier because they are water soluble and long term persistent (best estimate is minimum 5 years before they break down one person told me could be over 15 but I'm not sure about the research, if any has been done).

Very scary thing is the plants we by specifically to feed the bees and butterflies may be killing them because they are overpowered with these chemicals.

Neonicotinoid residues were detected in seven out of thirteen samples (54 percent) of commercial nursery plants.

http://www.foe.org/news/news-r...

Page 10 with the image of the on the shelf neonicotide "ultimate bug killer" sold with a packet of "bee friendly seeds" shows how little the industry cares for their actions and how some gardeners are clueless...."lets attract some bees... so we can kill them"....maybe the pesticide company got the two demographics a bit mixed up?....you'd think somewhere down the line they would realize the conflict, but no.

I read the full document and here are some that hit me:

A single corn plant grown from an imidacloprid-treated seed will have access to 1.34 milligrams (mg) of imidacloprid from the soil it is grown in. In contrast, the recommended label application rate for a perennial nursery plant in a three-gallon pot is 300 mg of imidacloprid, an amount that is 220 times more imidacloprid per plant.

Plants treated with neonicotinoids continue exuding these pesticides in pollen and nectar for months to years after initial treatment.

While the majority of samples contained only one neonicotinoid, two samples (Salvia from DC and MN) tested positive for two residues, and a Gaillardia plant from MN showed measurable levels of three different neonicotinoids.

Guess I'll be growing my annual salvia from seed in future years....and here I use to laugh at the idea of "organic" flowers...not so much now!

Thank you for straightening that out, BrendaVR. Here's another link on bees and what ails them.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matte...

It says Australia has been left out of the honeybee collapse. I have noticed how rarely I see honeybees here over the last few years. Another friend on the island has noticed the same thing. But we also have periodic spraying by the local authority for sand flies and mosquitos which can voracious. Not surprising, a butterfly that breeds on mangroves is endangered along the coast.

I can't help but wonder what the neonicotinoids are doing to us when we eat say corn or anything with corn syrup that came from affected plants or honey or. soy, wheat, canola or......

I came home from work to find several dead honey bees, and even worse were the ones writhing on the ground dying in a slow agony I know it has to be from spray somewhere near my house. I thought since I am on 13 acres and don’t use ANY chemicals that my beautiful bees would be safe. I don’t know how to get the word out how devastating so many chemical sprays are. I morbidly took some video of the bees writhing on the ground hoping that I could use it to somehow broadcast what these chemicals are doing to the environment and ultimately us as well.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom...

I have to pollinate my milkweeds myself to be sure of seed. But can you imagine the cost of manually pollinating each flower of millions of acres of crops? We wouldn't be able to afford to eat much produced that way and farmers couldn't afford much seed!

Its basically hopeless. the big corprate pest control companies like orkin will keep doing what they do until its done and gone.
many places of bizness require that to be done.

and unless we as a nation make those kinds of chemicals illegal outright it will happen- the death of bees. We do it by refusing to buy in on such things- not planting native plants in the first place if we live in suitations that call for it- buying at sales like the friends school plant sale.... asking if areas of land get sprayed and then do it planting native flowers only if they say no .

if the bees die which they probably will in our lifetimes because of people then we have 4 years until all flowers die. The reality is bees are not well equipped to survive well in surberia they need many things that we have taken away from them. acres of wild meadows nesting places, no chemicals.

Many of mans crops are dependtant on bees if they die then.. man will have to in a few short decades come up with another way to pollonate crops by hand of he too will die or be greatly harmed .

Now some hopeful News! WELLAND ON, Canada - The Niagara Beeway is still buzzing — and George Scott wants to keep it that way. The Wainfleet apiarist has been keeping a watchful eye on the aptly named section of land that runs along the Welland Canal between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

http://www.niagarabeeway.com/v...
http://www.stcatharinesstandar...

Sadly, its not just bees, it seems that beetles and a great many other insects are under stress and getting wiped out. Still a partial solution beats no solution.

P.S. All my flowers come from harvesting seeds from the wild. I really need to have a talk with my nursery about my veggies! Especially, given, every flower was selected for bees, birds and butterflies. Milkweed may not look so great but it smells like granny's perfume, I love it. Though I keep it off to the side and hide it behind the cosmos.

@jenniferatemple
Maybe asking you before I do more diligent research is inappropriate
but, I can’t help but cringe at milkweed since I recently saw a documentary on how the milkweed is such a crazy attractant for honeybees that they can’t resist it but when they go to harvest its nectar and pollen they come back with this sticky substance that causes them to die a very slow death.... TERRIBLE
I wish I had written down who did the documentary (with pictures) but I was so appalled I didn’t think of it....
Do you have any experience with that?
I am always looking for wonderful things to plant for my honeybees and the butterflies but that one just scares me.

Toni, your post made me curious so I did a bit of Googling.....
http://www.registerstar.com/co...

https://eyeonnature.wordpress....

https://berkshirefarmsapiary.w...