Some of you may have recieved the email link I sent out this morning...
BEES HARMED BY NEONICOTINOID PESTICIDES, STUDIES SHOW
The article prompted a great question from a new HCBA member, Roxie Pin. Roxie asked "Is there a list of pesticides somewhere that we should be avoiding? If we know a neighbor is going to spray ~ how are we to protect our bees again? We close up the hive for the day?"
I have very little experience with or knowlegde of pesticides. It was my understanding that if you know someone neighboring your hives is going to spray pesticides that you should screen your bees in the night before and keep them screened in until about 2 hours after the pesticides have been sprayed. Can anyone dispute or confirm this? Let's hear the club weigh in on pesticides and our experiences with them.
I also found this LIST on Wikipedia of some pesticides and their level of toxicity to bees.
Let's get a discussion going in the comment section of this post.
*UPDATE* 4/19/12
In response to this post I received a couple of related links via email. Here they are...
CONFIRMED: COMMON PESTICIDE CRASHING HONEYBEE POPULATIONS AROUND THE WORLD
NATURAL NEWS: HONEYBEE NEWS, ARTICLES AND INFORMATION
This NATURALNEWS.COM seems like another good online resource.
I wouldn't think there is much you can do. Remember, you'd have to prevent everyone for miles in each direction from spraying. I wouldn't let it bother you too much. Even the high fructose corn syrup that we eat and that some of us feed our bees has high enough levels of neonicatinoids to hurt the bees. So you are better of not fretting about it unless you bees are in a field where the sprayer goes right over your bees.
ReplyDeleteBill C