Subject: Re: Why are our bees so weak and sickly?

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 1995 13:22:00 GMT

originally in conference BEE-LIST MAIL on WILD BEE'S BBS
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From: "Dave Green, Eastern Pollinator Newsletter" <[email-masked]>
Date:         Sat, 1 Jul 1995 01:53:46 -0400
Subject:      Re: Why are our bees so weak and sickly?

In a message dated 95-06-30 11:42:16 EDT, [email-masked] (Michael Stoops)
wrote:

>Also, if you keep your agent abreast of where
>your bee yards are, you might get notification for the agency of
>upcoming spray schedules so that you can put screens on the entrances
>of your hives and keep your bees in on the day of the proposed spray.
>It also helps if you communicate, and possibly give a jar of honey in
>the fall, with surrounding farmers and ask them to keep you updated
>with their spray schedule so as to prevent further bee kills.  A lot of
>work, I know.  But that might help prevent future drastic bee kills in
>you yards.

   So you are willing to take total responsibility for *protecting* your
bees, eh?

   That may be why we cannot get any action from public officials on this
matter, because of so many beekeepers like you, who are so compliant to
pre-FIFRA *solutions* that didn't work.  It is obvious that you haven't have
direct experience in this area. I certainly don't wish any bee kills on you,
but I'm sure that after a few, you would begin to see differently.

   The pesticide label (if a material is hazardous to bees) specifically
prohibits application if bees are foraging in the application area.  That is
the applicator's responsibility, and it is a legal requirement.  If he
applies on a blooming crop without knowing if bees are foraging, he is at
least negligent, possibly wilful. If labels are carefully followed, bee kills
drop to negligible levels.

   There is, of course the problem, that in circumventing the label
directions by your proposal to let the beekeeper take responsibility, that no
protection is afforded our pollinators that do not have a human caretaker.
 Oops, -there goes bumblebees, solitary bees,  wild honeybees in trees .....

   Lets try a couple scenarios, according to your plan:

#1.  You are a backyard beekeeper with three hives.  Just as you are to leave
for work, you get a call saying the spraying will commence in a half hour.
 You look out, and the bees are already foraging.  You have accepted the
responsibility for *protecting* them, and let the applicator off the hook on
label directions (as if you COULD give him permission to spray illegally).
 You call your boss and explain to him, that you can't make it to work,
because you've got to protect your bees.  He's not happy about that, and you
know that if you pull this again next week, you'll get fired.

   You begin to wonder how you are going to get the bees back inside the
hives, so you can close them up.  You close them up anyway, and the returning
bees cluster on the outside.  You open one up to let them back in, and a big
bunch from inside leave, and they sure are sore about being penned up, so you
catch a few stings.

   Then you realize that the bees are getting overheated, and are really
getting excited.  You realize that they are approaching meltdown.  You get a
bucket of water and douse the hives, because your hose isn't long enough.
 Then you run to buy a hundred feet of extra hose, because you don't want to
have to lug water all day.  Every time you go near the hives, the outside
ones chase you around. Let's leave the rest of this scenario to your
imagination, along with all the dead bees you'll find from the day's
stresses..

#2  Let's say you are a commercial beekeeper in cotton country (-pretty much
the whole southeast the last couple years).  Your bees are located in over a
hundred bee yards and pollination locations.  You estimate that on any given
day in July and August, as many as fifteen sites could be exposed to
applications. You purchase 400 burlap sheets to cover the hives.  You spend
two weeks finding all cotton fields, and notifying growers and applicators,
so they can call you.  (Some will, some won't.)  Some of them cuss you out
and tell you to get your #@#$&*%# bees out of the area. You know in your
heart that if you don't, they will be vandalized. But you don't know of any
safe place to go.

   You hire and train 15 assistants, provide them with smokers, veils, etc.
 You have to find people that are willing to be in the field by 5am, so they
can pen up bees before they begin to fly in hot weather.

    You get a tank for each, as big as a pickup can hold, so they can keep
the hives cool by dousing them with water every half hour or so. Hopefully,
each of your employees has his own pickup.

    Each one has to have a cellular phone, and you have to have a secretary
to monitor the home phone, as spray schedules are apt to get changed at the
last minute.  You also need a roving 4x4, in case someone gets bogged.

   I am quite familiar with the second scenario, because it is mine. By
following your suggesting of *protecting* the bees myself, I would spend more
than my gross annual income in six weeks of summer spray season. -- All so
the applicators could continue to ignore the label directions!

   Oh nuts...  Your pollination clients are complaining that the crops didn't
get pollinated, because you shut up the bees for 10% of the bloom season, and
they want a hefty refund.

   Cotton acreage here has increased explosively in the last three years, and
is exacting a very high environmental cost.  There had to be many hundreds,
possibly several thousand applications, in violation of bee directions on the
labels, last season.

   I am a very observant person, especially of pollinators.  In all the crops
I have worked with this season, I've seen less than a dozen bumblebees.  Yes
- that is for the WHOLE season.  I've seen only about a hundred solitary
bees, again for the whole season.  I went out of the cotton area a couple
weeks ago, and saw a hundred solitary bees on melons, of at least five
different species, in just a few minutes.

   Last year's pesticide damage has cost me more than half my income for this
year.  I gave up my entire spring honey crop, and my package and nuc sales,
because I had to replace my own losses -- and I still would up with fewer
hives than last year.  And that's not counting all the extra feeding.

   Do you get the picture?  I am not wanting to be unkind, but naive
acceptance of pre-FIFRA thinking is wiping out wild pollinators, and making
it impossible for commercial beekeeping in high pesticide use areas.  You can
see why I'm kind of intense about it.  I refuse to abet a scheme to
circumvent the law.  I refuse to be the turkey at the turkey shoot.  The only
way beekeeping can survive is the implementation and enforcement of the
pesticide label directions for bees.

   (FIFRA is the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rotenticide Act of 1972)
 It, and corresponding state laws, recognized bees as an environmental
resource and set aside the pre_FIFRA precedents that considered bees
*trespassers*)  But it has only been implemented, as regards to bees, in a
very few cases in 23 years.

[email-masked]                 Dave Green
PO Box 1215, Hemingway,   SC   29554

*All people can be divided into three groups: those who make things happen,
those who watch what's happening, and those who haven't the faintest idea
what's happening.*

*Sometimes silence is golden; sometimes it is pale yellow.*

---

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 1995 03:35:00 GMT

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From: "La Reine de la Cite' des Phoques (Liz Day)" <[email-masked]>
Date:         Sun, 2 Jul 1995 22:12:21 -0500
Subject:      loosestrife continued

        From: Andy Nachbaur <[email-masked]>
        >From: [email-masked] (Bernd Blossey)

        I am not a scientist, or
        do I have a doctorate. It is also true that I am a beekeeper and
        beekeepers will be damaged because wildflower pasture bees depend on

Andy,  (sorry, I couldnt' keep shut on this!)

I'm sure you are right that reduction of the loosestrife population will
hurt honey collection.

        Some would say that your position is also one of the "special interest"
,
        or the elite groups, considering that this EA relies disproportionately
        on your own research and opinion seeing that 6 of the 17 references
        listed to support the EA have your name on them. I would venture a gues
s
        that you are in no small part dependent on public monies to do your
        research and must convince others that your research has great value in
        order to generate support including special interest groups.

This really bristles me backwards.  Don't beekeepers also receive the
benefits of some research done with public money?  You have the bias
backwards - people become scientists because they find these matters
(ecology, etc.) important - not for the money.  I bet you didn't become
a beekeeper just for the money either.  Nobody is getting rich on
ecological research grants, trust me!
Further, I and the fairly large number of people who care about
America's indigenous ecology really, really resent being called
a special interest group.  Maybe I am in a minority.  But I resent
it anyway.   A LOT.

        destruction of non target native wildflowers is not a positive benefit
        to anyone but those with special interests.
It's not a benefit to anyone at ALL.  It's a tradeoff.  The loss of
honeybee pasture is a tradeoff too.  I am sorry as I know beekeepers
do not need any more problems than they have now.

        The total lack of financial responsibility by those who would release
        these plant pests if their opinions and research were wrong and
        the new plant pests were to become destructive on other wildflowers or
        crops is not a positive benefit but a real risk.

Well..... one could equally argue that you as a
beekeeper care only for your own monetary interest and care nothing
for the USA's disappearing wild land.  I hope this is not so.

         some beneficial effects that an exotic plant may have for
         >bees does not outweigh the overall negative environmental effects.

I agree.

        My personal opinion is that the value of the lost pasture for bees
        and other insects will grater then the benefits of the release of these
        plant insects

[rest deleted]

I hold out for the insect release.

Liz Day
[email-masked]
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

---

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 1995 16:04:00 GMT

*comments from the BEE-List group*
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From: "Jackie O'Keefe" <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list BEE-L <[email-masked]>
Date:         Mon, 3 Jul 1995 09:08:36 -0500
Subject:      My Two Cents Re: purple loosestrife

1) I only started reading this list a couple of weeks ago. It's very
interesting, informative and lively. I wish I had started looking at it
sooner.

2) I'm not a beekeeper, and never have been one... yet. I would like to
start one of these days.

3) I've already learned a lot, and hope to learn much more. There's an
attitude of mutual support which is nice to see.

4) If this is a moderated list, it seems like time for someone to suggest
moderation; if not, maybe it's time to stop responding to Andy Nachbaur and
get on to more rational things.

The arguments here are NOT about militarism and authoritarianism. This is a
SCIENCE question. The personal and hearsay arguing just makes a lot of
angry, frustrated readers. Stick to science - facts, reasoning. It's
already established that the plant is highly invasive and disturbs habitat,
bees won't be left without forage if some purple loostrife is eliminated,
and that eradication is not even an expected outcome. (Please excuse the
editorialism, but Andy's arguments for his bees seem uni-faceted and
petulant in the face of a complex problem.) The question is about the
efficacy of using the insects being suggested, the risk of unanticipated
effects, and how radically the die-off will affect the immediate
environment. Can we address those considerations? I was curious to know
more about the insects being considered? ARE they the same ones used in the
Canadian control effort? Have they been used anywhere else? What do the
previously mentioned studies have to say? Etc.

Jackie O'Keefe
Austin, Tx.