Well if you are only at the beginning of your flowering cycle you might wanna really get on top of the thrips for sure. I don't have too much experience with bug problems unfortunately. I have heard of people growing successful crops with thrips, but most of them started to have a thrip problem towards the end of the budding so they just left it be until the cut their crop. I'm sure that if you don't keep them to a minimum it will cause a problem. Continue with the neem oil to help. And possibly prune back some of the leaves they are on and remove the actual bug itself gently. Pruning the leaves will allow more light to different parts of the plant. Sorry I can't help more at this point. Hopefully someone will post after with more info.