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This article was published 19/9/2014 (2193 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The jury may still be out on neonicotinoids, but evidence pointing to their damaging effects is piling up, along with lots of dead honeybees around the world.

But experts and apiarists in Manitoba remain uncertain about the pesticides, saying hive losses in the province could be attributed to a host of other factors, notably our unforgiving climate and the type of crops we grow.

Jim Campbell says the Manitoba Beekeepers Association strives to maintain a positive relationship with farmers.

Neonicotinoids, or neonic pesticides, have been in use for about the last 20 years, were introduced in Canada in 2001 and are now the most widely used pesticides on Canada's corn, soybean and canola crops.

Derived from nicotine, they differ from other pest-control substances in that they do not just remain on the surface of plants, but are transported to all their parts -- leaves, flowers, roots and stems, and may remain active all growing season.

Three types were banned in Europe last December after years of heavy hive losses. Regulators in Canada and the United States are also responding to pressure. Health Canada tightened up seeding practices and called for warning labels on packages after Ontario beekeepers in corn-growing regions reported huge losses in 2012.

Study after study since 2006 in North America and Europe have pointed to them as posing a serious threat to bees, butterflies and even birds. One study out of Saskatchewan this year found neonicotinoids "contaminating" Prairie wetlands.

Bees and other creatures take in the pesticide through dust from farm seeding machinery or through pollen. The stuff weakens the immune system and makes bees vulnerable to deadly diseases, much the same way HIV/AIDS devastates people. One American scientist drew just such an analogy in a 2013 study of bees for National Geographic.

Just after Labour Day, another shoe dropped in Canada. Two of Ontario's largest honey producers filed suit for $400 million in damages against neonic manufacturers Bayer Cropscience Inc. and Syngenta Canada on behalf of all beekeepers in Canada.

In more temperate climates, scientists sound a sharper alarm on the role of pesticides as a lethal threat to the creatures that maintain plant life and food crops.

Canadian experts cannot be quite so categorical.

In Manitoba, there's been little focus on the pesticide. With our brutal winters and the way bees die -- losses roll wildly up and down from one year to the next -- it's easy to miss the pesticide threat.

Scientists with Health Canada's pesticide regulatory management agency are tramping through farm fields and neighbouring beehives in Ontario, the province with the biggest losses, as well as in Quebec and Manitoba.

Health Canada was unable to make any officials available for an interview on their progress, but farmers who've seen the scientists at work say there are two operations in Manitoba in the federal study.

One operation belongs to a beekeeper who reported heavy losses at least a year ago -- the only known operation where hive losses were blamed on neonicotinoids.

The other operation is run by Mark Friesen, whose family has made bees their livelihood since his dad set up hives 30 years ago in the Winkler area.

Both operations are near neonic-protected crops, but Friesen said he can't point to any neonic damage to his bees from nearby cornfields. And he can't explain the losses reported by other operator who still hasn't been publicly identified.

"I won't say they're immune," Friesen said of his bees. "But definitely there doesn't seem to me to be any negative effect from them being near corn."

The province's apiarist, Rheal Laterrière, says bee losses could be linked to numerous factors and Manitoba is waiting to see what Ottawa's study produces. Public consultations on its findings are slated for 2015-2016.

"I won't say it's the only reason we've had high losses but it's one of the reasons," Laterrière said.

"We had a very high loss last year, 46 per cent, and much of that loss was probably more related to weather than anything else. But when bees have to endure bad weather, if they are stressed by biological stresses like diseases or environmental stressors like chemicals, they will have a tougher time to deal with the poor weather. So pesticides are certainly a stress on bees right now."

In other words, neonics could be a tipping point, if all the other factors pile onto Manitoba's bees and make them vulnerable.

Bees are valuable. The province estimates the industry is worth close to $100 million to the agriculture sector every year -- a quarter of that is in the sale of honey and related products and the balance in bees' role as pollinators.

And they're under threat. The number of hives has dropped in the past five years from 85,000 to 75,000, provincial records say.

Beekeepers are equally cautious. "I have to admit we don't have near the corn and soybean crops of the other provinces," said Manitoba Beekeepers' Association president Allan Campbell, a beekeeper in Dauphin.

Campbell believes Manitoba was added to the federal study because of widespread neonics use in canola crops. He questions the science in the most alarming studies, saying they are likely based on caged bees fed high doses of pesticides.

"Bees are a really tricky subject to study, right? There's caged bees, but a hive is a sub-organism in itself. They have communal defences and communal ailments that caged bees don't have," Campbell said.

The association meets regularly with corn and canola growers and beekeepers clearly want a good relationship with farmers.

"We want to keep on the good side of farmers. That's been our position here,'" said Stonewall beekeeper Jim Campbell, the association's secretary.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca