Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => Bee News => Topic started by: Wandering Man on March 22, 2017, 08:24:24 am
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From Texas A&M:
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-almond-crop-fungicides-threat-honey-bees.html
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My question is why would there be a need to spray when the pollinators are in there doing the work?
Sort of like the apples, etc. here I'll watch some farmers spraying all day long when they know pollinators out out there.
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Thirty-five years ago I was an agri student at Ark Tech studying horticulture. One of the "techniques" for limiting overbearing on fruit trees was to spray insecticide when the pollinators were most common on the trees! :o I kid you not! This was straight textbook. I was totally stunned and needless to say never ascribed to this practice.
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WOW Neil..... :no: Just for money too.
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thanks Neil for the personal insight. you CANNOT believe anything that source (TAMU) says anyone < apply favorite funny face here. evidently it is quite common in the almonds and often leaves hives with a yellow stain on the outside of the boxes. some folks are limiting any spaying when the bees are in the almonds in their contract... of course some almond growers are a bit more aware and limit such activity since they know this will invariable means pollination fees will increase. Why is it so hard to get folks to do the right thing? < and I guess this question applies not only to almond growers but also to beekeepers.
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...Why is it so hard to get folks to do the right thing?...
So often, people use a sliding scale to find that 'right thing', resulting in 'Situation Ethics'. ;)
While we are talking about fungicides and their effect on honey bees and pollinators in general, don't forget that certain combinations of fungicides and insecticides, (potentially gathered from different sources on different days), are exponentially more deadly to pollinators than either substance on its own.