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Remember that seed companies are, usually, only retaillers who buy their seed from wholesalers and breeders and often know less than you might think about their products. Unwins are owned by a leading international seed breeder so it is not surprising that they replied quickly as they will have technical experts on call. Seeds for garden use are hardly ever offered with seed treatments - more is the pity as the fungicide treatments are highly effective at boosting germination. But of course you have to handle the seed correctly and any garden pesticide product such as seed treatment has to be idiot-proof and proven to be so by a long and expensive process. Organic seeds are just that - grown without any synthetic chemical and therefore will be free of any pesticide whatsoever. As it is expensive to grow organic seed, low yields, higher losses to pests and diseases, quality issues leading to more rejected batches, it is no surprise that it costs more. It seems that in France and Germany treated maize seed was prepared without the glue that sticks the pesticide to the seed and so the insecticide ended up where bees could get at it. The seed drills used often use a blast of air to sort and separate the seeds so the insecticide could be blown out of the machine. The pest target, western corn rootworm, is so far confined to a limited area in Britain centreing on Heathrow and is being mainly controlled by long rotations between maize crops. As maize is a marginal crop in Britian and there are plenty of altenatives this is much more practical than in places where summers are hotter.
Another instance is where sunflower seeds (only for oil production in France) were treated and the hypothesis is that the insecticide spread through the plant and was still present at flowering where sublethal doses harmed bees. This use too has been withdrawn. There is apparently no scientific evidence to support this, but on the principle of better safe than sorry the treatment is supended. Beekeepers are naturally very concerned. Since gardeners depend on bees too one would assume that they would exercise sense and not spray anything in flower, spray at dusk when bees are not so mobile and remember that bees may lick up honeydew on plants that are suffering from aphids and scale insects, and use the lowest toxicity stuff they can find such as soap and oil, only progressing to more powerful insecticides if these fail to do the trick. The bogweevil, being a veg grower, and therefore largely unable to use synthetic pesticides, always has a sprayer of oil-based insecticide ready to go and knocks back any infestations as soon as they are seen.
Boggy
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
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