Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => Beekeeping 101 => Topic started by: hamptor on August 17, 2015, 03:33:48 pm
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I've been doing some reading about Roundup and honeybees. I've read several articles on the internet that indicate that although it may not be toxic to honeybees, it may affect their sensitivity to nectar and ability to eat/digest it, and impair their learning ability among other things. These studies seem to be done with large fields of crops, including some Monsanto GMO corn crops, etc. I'm curious about this because we have used Roundup for years at our house on the weeds in our natural areas and around the yard. I don't want to do anything to hurt my bees, so I'm trying to figure out if this is a "Don't use it at all" thing or if it won't affect them if used in small quantities on plants they don't pollinate or attend to.
Anyone else use Roundup or have knowledge about research on use of Roundup in smaller quantities/areas?
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My younger brother (who sells ag. chemicals) told me I was better off drinking a glass of roundup instead of a glass of vinegar. We no longer discuss anything bee or ag. related after that little discussion. >:(
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It MAY affect their ability to learn, and then again, it MAY not. Don't you wonder how a honey bee's IQ is tested? I too use some roundup, and I have no clue if it adversely affects the bees. The weeds I spray with it adversely affect my ranch.
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I have about 50 hives right now sitting on fields of soybeans, cotton, corn, sunflower, etc. There s hardly a weed on the ground around these crops and these hives are all thriving.
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there are lots of things that will negatively impact a beehive (for some reason a 'new beekeeper' is the first thing that come to mind???) but there are two principles I think folks need to think about when it comes to this kind of question.... 1) there are lots of thing that negatively impact a honeybee either as an individual or collectively poses a much larger risk than roundup (ie how harmful is this item in a relative sense) and 2) try to worry about those things that you can do something about and no so much about the things you cannot.
not so understandable is.... invariable I find folks that worry about issues like this have never raised a darn thing to put in their month or to sustain their family and without these things which they seem to worry endlessly about they would (collectively) likely starve.
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So Yankee 11, if you've got 50 thriving hives on fields without weeks, that's a pretty good testimony.
However, Perry - I'm with you - not drinking a glass of Roundup!
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Roundup only kills what it touches, that is why they use it in no till farming, in other words you can kill weeds, grass, sprouts, ect. and plant at the same time. Corn is wind pollinated the bees only work the tossel for pollen. Anything that kills can't be a good thing, but there are things alot worse than roundup out there. Jack
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I've been doing some reading about Roundup and honeybees. I've read several articles on the internet that indicate that although it may not be toxic to honeybees, it may affect their sensitivity to nectar and ability to eat/digest it, and impair their learning ability among other things. These studies seem to be done with large fields of crops, including some Monsanto GMO corn crops, etc. I'm curious about this because we have used Roundup for years at our house on the weeds in our natural areas and around the yard. I don't want to do anything to hurt my bees, so I'm trying to figure out if this is a "Don't use it at all" thing or if it won't affect them if used in small quantities on plants they don't pollinate or attend to.
Anyone else use Roundup or have knowledge about research on use of Roundup in smaller quantities/areas?
I think the bottom line is that we have too few studies now to say much about impacts on honeybees with any degree of certainty. That said, we do know that roundup causes immunosuppresion, hermaphroditism, sex reversal, and outright mortality in some vertebrate animals (google R. Relyea and his papers on amphibians and other animals) and we're starting to see some reputable papers on negative impacts on insects. These impacts extend far beyond just the plant and how it reacts to Roundup. We have a paper in review that demonstrated immunosuppresion and higher mortality in honeybees from high-intensity row crop agricultural areas versus areas with less ag (e.g., pastures). Don't know why so subsequent studies will be required but the findings mirror those published for other animals (e.g., spade foot toads in the southern Great Plains). Sadly, our contemporary landscape is changing so fast that implementing enough scientific investigations to evaluate all the potential impacts just isn't feasible. For all the bad things that CCD did, it bring to public consciousness the plight of bees and has pumped some much-needed funds into bee research. We're much farther along in our thinking than we were a decade ago.
Yep, Roundup is just one of many things we have little control over but we don't have to like it nor do we have to use on our personal properties. I suspect that you have a very good idea which plant species attract bees and which ones do not. I use it but very carefully and not broadcast over large areas. Somehow, turning a leopard frog into a hermaphrodite doesn't appeal to me!!
Good question by the way!
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My younger brother (who sells ag. chemicals) told me I was better off drinking a glass of roundup instead of a glass of vinegar. We no longer discuss anything bee or ag. related after that little discussion. >:(
I'd take a glass of a good cabernet over Roundup or vinegar :laugh:
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I have been served some home brews that would make the roundup and vinegar taste good.
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Apis, when i was a youngster i remember seeing men walking erratically down our gravel road once in a while.One day i ask grandpa why they walked that way? He called them Jake legs, caused by bad liquor. (Moonshine)? Anybody else ever hear that terminology??? Jack
PS. Maybe that's what would happen if a person drank Roundup, if they didn't die first. :-\
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I have been served some home brews that would make the roundup and vinegar taste good.
I've had a few of those myself! I used to brew years ago and substituted honey for about half the malt in a few of my recipes. Still have fond memories of a honey porter I used to brew. Still not very good at retirement but once I get it perfected, maybe I'll find time to brew again 8)
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Apis, when i was a youngster i remember seeing men walking erratically down our gravel road once in a while.One day i ask grandpa why they walked that way? He called them Jake legs, caused by bad liquor. (Moonshine)? Anybody else ever hear that terminology??? Jack
PS. Maybe that's what would happen if a person drank Roundup, if they didn't die first. :-\
When I was a kid, I remember the old folks calling those who had a bit too much to drink Jake Legs. Grew up in Virginia in a county where the primary occupations were: 1) making moonshine and 2) delivering moonshine!!!!
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a snip...I'd take a glass of a good cabernet over Roundup or vinegar'
I am definitely not the drinker I once was. I do 'know folks' that bring me a small jar of home made hooch (corn liquor and tequilla but not from the same cooker or for that matter the same country < all quite exceptional I might add which makes me believe that just like in keeping bees distilling alcohol does require some basic knowledge).
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a snip...I'd take a glass of a good cabernet over Roundup or vinegar'
I am definitely not the drinker I once was. I do 'know folks' that bring me a small jar of home made hooch (corn liquor and tequilla but not from the same cooker or for that matter the same country < all quite exceptional I might add which makes me believe that just like in keeping bees distilling alcohol does require some basic knowledge).
Me neither; possessing basic knowledge is needed for a successful start of most every pursuit. To be exceptional requires considerable experience and knowledge. If I remember correctly, jake legs was a temporary sign of less than exceptional hooch! My dad had a bird dog that rarely pointed a bird but she did point where our local moonshiner stored his 'fresh' hooch. I was too young at the time to understand why he liked the dog so much :laugh:
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I have been served some home brews that would make the roundup and vinegar taste good.
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
I would like to think my craft is a bit more passable than that...
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we use round up hamptor. what tec and jack said. in the big picture of things...........common sense maybe with it's use? we use it to kill the weeds that grow in front of the hives and to keep the electric fence weed free............we don't spray when the bees are flying. i use it once, and later in the season i just weed whack. we also use it in our prairie restoration/pollination planting areas. we have a company we are working with now to restore an area in a meadow near the river. without the use of roundup to kill the junk that is growing, planting anything would be useless and a waste of money. the areas we have already sprayed/prepared/planted are absolutely beautiful and full of all sorts of pollinator plants.
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Where we placed our second hive this spring is next to friends food plot and he had used a good amount of roundup on the section he planted corn in. I was a little worried at first, as I'm not a chemical kind of gardener. As it turns out this is by far our most successful hive. Not saying this is conclusive results and everyone will be OK using round up on everything, I'm just saying...... ;)
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poison is ....poison, period! Use it at OUR peril.
A necessary evil? Possibly! Accepting the status quo is NOT an option.
Weed free fields? Where does Mother Nature's children feed?
Is the Honey Bee the Canary in the mine, or is it the Monarch Butterfly?
I'm off the soap box now. IMO don't use any poisons.
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With NO poisons, bodies and plants would quit producing anti-bodies, and would become totally susceptible to any and every thing that happened to come along. Enough poisons are needed to keep our bodies working, or immune deficiency becomes the norm.
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Many poisons don't stimulate the immune system and Roundup is one that has been demonstrated to suppress the immune system. It also causes numerous other problems with nontarget wildlife, including insects. The biggest problem here (ND), from a pollinator perspective, is the widespread use of roundup on gmo crops and systemic insecticides. Prior to gmo, most of the value to pollinators in midwest agricultural fields came from "weeds" like clover, milkweed, etc. that grew along field borders, edges of wetlands, etc. There have been many studies that have documented similar impacts on other wildlife species. As we strive for improved agricultural efficiency, it comes at a cost but we often can't quantify those costs till years later. The same is true for many of the crops here in North Dakota that use systemic insecticides to control insect pests. I used to love to haul my bees to sunflowers this time of year but now I pick them up and move them if I have a sunflower field within 2 miles of my bee yards. Have a friend who hauled 300+ hives to sunflowers 3-4 years ago. He made a heck of a honey crop but he lost nearly all of those hives. I helped him treat about 1,000 colonies that fall with formic acid for mites and the difference between the hives from sunflowers and those from grassland/forb mix sites was striking. He took all his bees to east Texas that fall where there's lots of great pollen but those hives still didn't make it. That friend is a queen breeder and he does select hygienic queens from hives that sit in ag settings all summer and do very well so there is certainly a genetic basis and rationale. Problem is that as soon as one pesticide looses it's efficacy, we come up with a new one. It's the same rat race we've had with mosquitoes since we found out we could spray chemicals to control them. I still remember my dad out in the street in Hickory, NC when the DDT trucks came through fogging for mosquitoes; he didn't bother to come inside because folks were led to believe it was a safe chemical. He got real sick and we took him to the hospital--the doc said not to worry--symptoms would go away since it was only DDT! A long time ago, folks like Ray Dasmann recommended a friendlier and more balanced approach that created habitat along field margins for predatory insects that controlled crop pests; Ray wasn't the first to make that recommendation. Today's production ag is so intense in many areas (especially here) that small areas that once provided habitat for desirable predators (and pollinators) are mostly gone and the future doesn't look too promising. How we balance functioning ecosystems with production ag will be a major challange. I hear we now want to create a corridor for Monarch butterflies but I can't see how that could effectively be implemented in our contemporary landscape. If it can, I'm all for it but I am skeptical. Most of my honey crop volume this year (and it's a good high-volume crop) came from sweet clover in the drawdown zone of a couple of reservoirs and some wetlands. We've had so many spring floods in previous years that the plants that germinate the previous summer get flooded the following spring (sweet clover is a biennial). This year, the conditions were great and I predict we'll see a record crop from the upper midwest. Not much clover makes it in field margins here anymore because most of our crops are roundup ready gmo crops. I started keeping bees here 15 years ago and the average yield was usually at 160lbs/hive. It's less than half that now in an average year--this year will be an exception.
Before I retired, I focused my work on quantifying (and predicting) the costs of land-use and practice shifts to better inform policy decisions. Sustainability is an explicit goal of farm policy but we have a long way to go to provide the necessary guidance.
I'll get off my soapbox now. Leave for vacation in the morning!!
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Chip Have a great vacation and happy anniversary to you and the misses.
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Chip Have a great vacation and happy anniversary to you and the misses.
Thanks Apis. We're leaving here soon for the airport with my bride of 40 years :)
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"poison is ....poison, period! Use it at OUR peril.
A necessary evil? Possibly! Accepting the status quo is NOT an option.
Weed free fields? Where does Mother Nature's children feed?
Is the Honey Bee the Canary in the mine, or is it the Monarch Butterfly?
I'm off the soap box now. IMO don't use any poisons."
ray, where does mother nature's children feed in fields/cropland or backyards that provide nothing to sustain them? where is the benefit? it is up to us to provide the landscape/habitat that benefits/nourishes all living species, and in the circle is the plants, bugs, crustaceans, fish in our river's and streams, all birds and wildlife, and all insects. glyphosate herbicide such as Roundup, may be a necessary evil, but it is a 'tool' and without the proper/managed use of it to restore or provide plantings where once nothing grew, or clean up 'junk' weeds/grasses to provide that diverse landscape, then one is wasting intensive labor and money. if anyone thinks just by throwing wildflower seeds down is going to get the job done, it won't. there is a flip side to the 'poison' and the necessary evil to get you the means to a good end.
our land and the river on it has been abused by over 100 years of poor farming practices, and we are smack dab in the middle of nothing but corn and soybean fields. at one time some of the land near the river was leased to a local gravel company that stripped the river of sand, rock and gravel and also removed the top soil from an area in a nearby meadow. all that grows in that section is nothing but some type of sparse brown grassy junk and there is not one bug to be found in that soil. this is the 5th area we have begun restoration on in about 6 years now. we took back one corn field from a lease farmer, and a large section from another, and two other areas where we wanted to restore natural and native plantings. those 4 areas took about 3 years to produce all types of native/pollinator friendly plants/grasses that bloom from spring to fall.
restoration or planting for pollinators is not easy in larger fields or tracts of land. it is labor intensive, requires expensive equipment/or equipment you rent or hire out, and the seed is not cheap. soil samples were taken, and we have worked with a company to provide us with seed mixes to match the soil and landscape they are planted in. those 4 areas are now finally providing colorful mature plants/grasses that are full of insects, butterflies, nibbling critters and birds, and most of all, my honey bees. it started with site preparation and the use of of a glyphosate herbicide to rid the ground of whatever junk was growing there to give the new seeds a chance to grow and mature. sounds corny but 'if you build it, they will come', but do it right from the get go, if you don't, and without roundup in the initial preparation, it won't happen and one might as well take whatever money invested, open a trash can and throw it in.
the company we have worked with, i can't say enough about them. prairie restoration is all they do. we could have hired them to do all the work and management but was rather expensive, so we took it on ourselves. they are out of northfield, minnesota:
Praire Restorations Inc. (http://www.prairieresto.com/establish_landscape.shtml)
also, i have attached a simple pdf file on the Guidelines for Establishing a Prairie and what it involves.
i don't disagree that some folks misuse and overuse herbicides. folks want perfect yards, lawns and gardens, etc.. the herbicide for us, was a necessary tool in the arsenal, and a beneficial end to justify the means; a colorful diverse landscape that attracts, provides and sustains 'mother natures children'.
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Wow Riverbee, that's a really impressive project and the kind of thing we need more of.
I saw a story on the CBS evening news this past Sunday where Steve Hartmann (I think that's the reporter) had worked with Prairie Restorations to restore a meadow on this property in New York State. It was filled with coneflowers, blackeyed susans, and lots of other beauties. But he had to control the weeds before the meadow got established.
I know we'll continue using Roundup but will probably limit its application to early morning or late evening.
This has been a really interesting conversation to me. Thanks so all who contributed!
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There's no doubt that Roundup and other chemicals cause problems in our contemporary ecosystems. I used Roundup and a few nastier herbicides when I restored the 160 acres we live on 18 years ago. It was necessary and I wouldn't have the native grasses or forbs we enjoy now (or bees too!) if I didn't use them because the land had been farmed for many years and the seed bank of things I didn't want to grow was too large. In restorations, chemicals can give you the initial advantage needed to shift the system to favor the species you target with restoration. In my case, all I have to do now is mow problem spots at the right time and/or do a controlled burn at the right time. I have kept the balance I want and its a great piece of prairie. The secret to successful restoration anywhere is to get a community established that is a good fit (ecologically) for the area being restored; otherwise, you will always be fighting the drivers responsible for ecological function at your site. I've seen restorations at wildlife refuges over the years that were poor fits for the area and they were great big flops! My big problem with Roundup is it's widespread and increasing use in production agriculture and the associated impacts on nontarget organisms. There are tools for everything but not all tools are the same.
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thanks hamptor. steve hartman used a company in westfield, wisconsin, Prairie Nursery, and all they do is consult and sell seed mixes. also, hartman is doing it the hard way! (i found the cbs clip and watched it). not sure he's really following recommended guidelines.......
we have no weeding, just maintenance as chip stated.
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Not just bees: in March 2015, the W.H.O. upgraded glyphosate from possibly carcinogenic to probably carcinogenic to humans. :sad:
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Dont see it... Been using it for 40 years. It gets sprayed every spring. My bees have done fine. we have flowers and goldenrod in all roadside ditches and in the fencerows and draws. Bumble bees, Monarch butterflies etc, etc all in great profusion.. To be honest, if Roundup is hurting GOOD, if we have ANY MORE bugs or critters than we have now we will be in serious trouble. The ecosystem is better here now than it has been in 60 years. As stated, eagles, deer, birds rabbits etc, etc, are beginning to over run the place.. I have eagles slamming into my chicken wire and had to tie ribbons on it... The grand total this year... 4 fox, 12 coons, 7 deer, 4 turkeys, 1 weasel, 5 coyote, 1 bobcat, Uncountable number of rabbits, and 4 golf balls have vanished from the hen house.....
If roundup is as horrible and terrifying as I have read, you cant tell by living in the middle of the ares its used in. My bees dont seem convinced either..
If I start having issues I can always jump up and down and yell ROUNDUP!
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" 4 golf balls have vanished from the hen house....."
golf balls?...........
wouldn't want to be the critter that ate those...... :D :D :D
(sorry hamptor for the 'hijack', couldn't help it)
like scott, i am not totally on the 'roundup' bandwagon......... :) not saying that folks don't misuse or overuse it, cuz they do.
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not saying that folks don't misuse or overuse it, cuz they do.
I agree.
Golf balls fool the bigger snakes and they dont come back.. it saves my eggs for ME. Plus if I have a broody hen she will happily set on a golf ball after I run off with the eggs.
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lol, figured as much or some method to your madness scott!!!............ :D
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That's right. Kill off the black snakes and the copperheads they would have eaten will be waiting for you when you step in the barn one night.
Personally, I would prefer to feed them an egg or chick now and then, to repay them for doing away with the copperheads and rattlers.
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If they just took one now and then, and THEN left, I'd be content.. unfortunately after a good meal of egg, they like to curl up in the nest box and wait for my wife to reach in... The door was blown off the hinges and the nesting boxes half torn off the wall....
Thankfully the copperheads stay down toward the river, but we do get a timber rattler now and then..
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:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
The copperheads stay down by the river ?? They are not water snakes. In fact, down south, they are nicknamed Highland Moccasin. You only see them down by the river because they get eaten by the black and king snakes when they get near the barn.
Same as the rats and mice.
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My family kills poisonous snakes close to the house. We do not kill snakes that are away from the house. In my opinion, let the snakes work it out with nature. I haven't killed a rattlesnake at the ranch in three or four years. The last on I killed was on the front porch.
It is standard business practice for our local farmers to use roundup and pre emergents. The local hay farmers also spray to keep grasshoppers at bay. I'm not a farmer, and I don't know if roundup is good or bad, but I suspect it is a bit of both. What I do know is that farmers are now changing their operations to use less chemicals. It will be a slow process, but there are less chemicals each year.
American farmers of the future will use less chemicals and much less irrigation water. Those folks that can adapt to dry land farming and using native insect predators will be rewarded.
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Kings, Racers, Gopher, fox, and milk snakes are quite abundant nearby. Cottonmouth, Copperheads, Massasauga, and the timber Rattlesnake are less common but they are here... I see cottonmouth in the pond once in a while and take no chances, it goes away quick... Massasauga and the timber rattlers both have rattles and dont bother me much, I usually leave them alone if I see them and they move on. I have never found them in my hen house... I assume your talking about a racer or rat snake when you say black snake? Its the rat snakes that like to eat the eggs...
(https://worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs22.postimg.cc%2Ffv34u1iy5%2FRat_Snake.jpg&hash=d59fe66e07801e2bc7fac5ce094f9fe0658d1821) (http://postimg.cc/image/fv34u1iy5/)
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That's unusual. You are the only one to ever find a cottonmouth in Iowa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agkistrodon_piscivorus
Maybe this is what you are finding.
http://srelherp.uga.edu/snakes/nersip.htm
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I agree Iddee, probably one of many species of watersnakes. There are many species and many have the looks and a nasty temperament people associate with cottonmouths. Used to see them in coastal North Carolina where my wife's from and in southern Louisiana where we fish each summer.
Funny thing about snakes is that most people don't like them but they do a great service as many have stated in this thread. There was a study years ago that looked at the proportion of rattlesnakes that rattle versus those that don't. We mostly see the rattlesnakes after they rattle but not all individual rattlesnakes rattle--it's a a genetic thing. The study was around Tuscon, AZ and they looked at the proportion of snakes that rattled verses those that did not as a function of distance from town. The findings were that, the farther you got from town the greater the proportion of snakes that rattled increased significantly. Why? Because, people killed ones that rattled. Increased survival of the of the "quiet"ones shifted the population to favor quiet snakes! Makes sense but something that most folks wouldn't think about with a shovel in their hands!
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@Chip:
I haven't read your article about rattlesnakes that don't rattle. (If it doesn't rattle, is it a rattlesnake? :):)) That being said, there was an article in the Abilene News about rattlesnakes not rattling because the one's that rattle get eaten by feral pigs. We now have lots of large feral pigs roaming our land, and the larger ones seem to be immune to snake bites. I suppose their thick skin and fat on the frontal parts of a pig make it difficult for a snake to penetrate their fangs into the snakes body.
It does seem that we have less snakes in recent years. Our ticks are now gone because the fire ants have eaten them. Our ecology is drastically changing.
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Yeah well its kinda like Jeremy Wade saying there are no Alligator Gar this far north...
When I was six a friend of the family died from a cottonmouth bite. I believe it was several bites while noodling.. It was enough trauma to make me learn what snakes were poisonous and which were not, and learn to recognize them. I have seen at least a dozen since then.
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@Chip:
I haven't read your article about rattlesnakes that don't rattle. (If it doesn't rattle, is it a rattlesnake? :):)) That being said, there was an article in the Abilene News about rattlesnakes not rattling because the one's that rattle get eaten by feral pigs. We now have lots of large feral pigs roaming our land, and the larger ones seem to be immune to snake bites. I suppose their thick skin and fat on the frontal parts of a pig make it difficult for a snake to penetrate their fangs into the snakes body.
It does seem that we have less snakes in recent years. Our ticks are now gone because the fire ants have eaten them. Our ecology is drastically changing.
Indeed. Pigs are thick skinned, especially their frontal areas and they will eat just about anything. Fire ants are tough characters too (removing ticks would be a big positive here!). Africanized were forecast to move from Texas to Florida but that didn't happen (the bees got to Florida by ship). Monitoring data show that the bees move east during dry spells and retreat west when it's wet. The hypothesis is that when it's wet, nest sites are more limited and they can't compete with fire ants for nest sites. Don't know if it's true or not but it wouldn't surprise me.
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Don't know about Jeremy but the closest state I could find with cottonmouth records was southern Missouri. According to:
Snakes of Iowa; J.L. Christiansen and R.M. Bailey; Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Des Moines, IA; 1986.
Iowa has 4 poisonous snakes but there were no records of cottonmouths. If you see more, contact the DNR or Iowa State, I'm sure they would want to confirm the record. Stranger things have happened and one thing I've learned in Biology over the past 63 years--never say never!
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Yes we have more cottonmouth now than when i was a teenager. If you see a snake swimming in the water, ( river, creek, lake, ect.) with his head up out of the water, more than likely it's a cottonmouth. They are a aggressive snake and won't run from you :o. I've had them try to get in the boat, but don't think there motive was to attack me, just getting out of the water? except for one time my buddy was trying to kill one with a boat oar and thought he killed it and then we seen it coming over the stern and it wasn't happy. We have more copperheads than any other poison snakes, but there not aggressive and will run from you unless you startle it by walking up on it. The only other poison snakes we have that i know of is timber rattlers and pygmy rattle snakes. The cottonmouth is the only one i'll go out of my way to kill, unless any of the other poison snake are anywhere close to my house. I've never seen a poison snake on my farm but i have plenty black snakes and salt and pepper king snakes, and the they have a free pass. Jack
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I killed a timber rattler last summer that was sunning next to my porch step. He never rattled but I identified him by his head and markings. Sucker was 5 feet long and fat. Didn't rattle because his rattle had broken off. I have heard of that happening but it was the first time I'd seen it. As a general rule I don't go out of my way to kill venomous snakes. I live in the middle of a thousand acres of woods and rather not get close enough to get bit. Those I find in the yard and garden are too much of a threat to my family and animals.
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My neighbors say that an outdoor cat will keep snakes away from your house. The cat doesn't kill them, at least not the large one, but the cat does annoy them until they leave. I have an indoor cat, and can attest to them being annoying.
Back to roundup: Our governments, local, county and state, use roundup to poison the edges of uncurbed streets, fence rows and around the bases of signs. One would think the State of Texas has to comply with some strenuous regulations before spraying at random from a specialized 1,000 gallon truck.
I don't know enough about life science to make an educated statement about the harmful effects of roundup, but I do know there is a lot of it being used in my tiny, little agricultural surrounding.
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I spray roundup around my hives twice a season.
I see no ill effects on my bees.
I also use permethrin SFR as a drench around and under my hives also.
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News on roundup:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-13/monsanto-stunned-california-confirms-roundup-will-be-labeled-cancer-causing
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Really interesting article, Chip. Thanks for sharing. It raises a lot of questions in my mind about Roundup for yard use in small quantities vs. no quantity at all being acceptable. I'm sure there will be more research and information coming out about this.
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It's hard to keep track of all the chemicals and what they may or may not do to benefit or harm us sometime down the road. The fact that some of the chemicals we use today have been used for a very long time isn't, in my opinion, a sign that they are harmless. If history is as history was, there will be things that are commonplace today that will make future generations wonder why in the world we ever used them! My dad died when he was 54 from brain cancer but my mom made it to 80; she died of mesothelioma. She never worked with asbestos but she did wash my dad's clothes when he worked at a shipyard sandblasting the inside of asbestos tanks. The doctor said that was probably how she was exposed. The world is changing so fast that it's impossible to test everything and determine, with any degree of certainty, whether a chemical is good or bad. I tend to shy away from chemicals that are easy to apply, are advertised as low risk and are supposed to make your life better; I avoid them if there is peer reviewed literature that documents negative and unintended impacts. I hate that we have to use synthetic chemicals in hives and have drifted towards 'softer' ones and hope to shift to totally organic treatments in the future. The hard way may be the best way. Don't use chemicals in our garden either and we've never had a problem with pests because we have so many predatory insects in our adjacent 'weedy' areas. Do get a few worms in our apples but we just cut around those ;D
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Well said Chip,
I wonder at times if we, the public, are just two legged guinea pigs in a grand experiment.
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from the article:
"It’s still too early to tell whether other states will follow California’s lead."
they won't...........california is the leading state in warnings on labels......................., not picking on california but just saying.
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Chip:
As a brain cancer survivor myself, this resonates with me. The thing nobody talks about is how all these chemicals interact in the world. The other thing that surprises me, though it shouldn't, is how many people around me who are on antidepressants. (Not trying to make it seem like I am the cause of it :laugh: )
Like you Chip, I try to keep my chemical use to an absolute minimum, but the reality is, in the modern world, you can't escape them totally. You can reduce your exposure A LOT, but you can't eliminate it. A shame really. I agree with neillsayers I wonder at times if we, the public, are just two legged guinea pigs in a grand experiment.
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Chip:
As a brain cancer survivor myself, this resonates with me. The thing nobody talks about is how all these chemicals interact in the world. The other thing that surprises me, though it shouldn't, is how many people around me who are on antidepressants. (Not trying to make it seem like I am the cause of it :laugh: )
Like you Chip, I try to keep my chemical use to an absolute minimum, but the reality is, in the modern world, you can't escape them totally. You can reduce your exposure A LOT, but you can't eliminate it. A shame really. I agree with neillsayers I wonder at times if we, the public, are just two legged guinea pigs in a grand experiment.
Congrats on surviving brain cancer--you must have terrific genes!! My son in law had brain cancer too but he wasn't so lucky; he passed the day after he turned 32. Indeed, it is impossible to eliminate exposure totally. I also agree with neillsayers. We are guinea pigs since we take a statistical approach to evaluate impacts. We use the LD50 but I'd be far more comfortable with an LD10 or 5!!! And, as you say, interactions, especially synergistic ones, are poorly understood at best. Best to keep plugging along, keeping bees, fishing or whatever we enjoy that keeps our minds clear and happy :)
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I agree with most of what is being posted, and I would add that there is a lack of "good" science today. Much of our often quoted, so called "research" is done by prejudiced scientists. I think what we read from the chemical companies, Mother Jones, Yahoo, and many governmental agencies is tainted science. Per example: I sometimes work as a geophysical well log analyst and reservoir engineer. The people that hire me sometimes tell me to determine how much oil and gas reserves are in one or more of their production wells. Sometimes the clients tell me THEY ARE SURE THERE IS X AMOUNT OF RESERVES AND THEY HAVE BASED THEIR FINANCIAL STATUS ON THE X AMOUNT. These clients are really telling me that my research needs to find at least X amount of reserves, and it further implies that if I do not agree with their hypothesis, there will be no future work.
I have met some zealots at the USEPA, and I think they pressure up on some of their scientists to find what they want found. One of the reasons I do not use my name of this forum is because of my relationship with governmental agencies. I do not want to offend some good people that work with the EPA. Note that is use the word "some." I think many organizations do the same thing. It is difficult to pay scientists or anyone else good money to find against you. We need more unbiased science.
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I agree Lazy shooter, to much money and greed involved in just about everything nowaday :sad: :sad: Jack
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I grew up in a subdivision of New Orleans right on the edge of miles of swamps. Couple times a week the city mosquito control truck would slowly drive down the street blowing a huge fog of DDT everywhere. As stupid kids on a dare we would ride our bikes in that fog until we couldn't stand it! Many years later, while earning my agriculture degree, the texts would refer over and over, almost wistfully, to the "DDT revolution". All these years later, after it was taken off the market, scientists are still finding residues and their effect on health.
So, the question is, what "safe and effective" treatment of today is to become tomorrow's ecological threat...or carcinogen?
Neill
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I grew up in a subdivision of New Orleans right on the edge of miles of swamps. Couple times a week the city mosquito control truck would slowly drive down the street blowing a huge fog of DDT everywhere. As stupid kids on a dare we would ride our bikes in that fog until we couldn't stand it! Many years later, while earning my agriculture degree, the texts would refer over and over, almost wistfully, to the "DDT revolution". All these years later, after it was taken off the market, scientists are still finding residues and their effect on health.
So, the question is, what "safe and effective" treatment of today is to become tomorrow's ecological threat...or carcinogen?
Neill
That's the million dollar question and sadly, the one that only time will answer. Monsanto still made DDT and sold it in countries like Mexico at least until the mid 1980's I found out when I was down there waterfowl hunting); they may still sell it there for all I know.