What happened during the ban on neonicotinoids?

What will farmers do if the ban on neonicotinoids is made permanent? What happened to crop production levels and the health of bees during the ban? In the UK, and I suspect in most heavily farmed EU countries, neonics used to be applied to ~30% of cropped land. The best guess we can make is that during the ban,  farmers probably turned to the alternative compounds that are currently licensed for use. The problem of course is that the alternatives also have their downsides. Thus, in many ways we