Tom's Corner

Here’s a pretty well written artcle just out on the bee loss situation, The Plight of the Honeybee. More and more, the alternative press is getting the story mostly right, but the powers that be show absolutely no sign that they are going to change their behavior, and we continue to get nothing but excuses and evasions. Worse, it looks like they intend to ignore the criticism of clothianidin and it’s failure to be properly registered and instead will arrogantly repeat their performance with sulfoxaflor. And just to add to the mix I had a bear show up Saturday in a beeyard that is miles from the foothills and has been in place for over 30 years. If this keeps up it could get discouraging.

I will do 30 minutes on The Organic View Radio Show today (July 13) on neonicotinoids, sulfoxaflor and the EPA.

Finally, some uncommonly good sense from a mosquito control district, and right here in Colorado.

Paonia is seeing an unseasonably intense attack by mosquitoes. The North Fork Mosquito Abatement District reports receiving many calls from citizens asking or demanding that the district “Do something!” about the mosquito problem.

According to board president Kevin Parks, “Callers seem to generally assume that what is needed is that the District spray poison to kill the mosquitoes. Most callers have seen spray operations in the past, and have the idea that spraying is the reasonable response to this problem. Our board members have felt tremendous pressure to go along with this idea — to even go against their own judgment — just to relieve some of the pressure being placed on them.”

So far, the board has resisted the pressure to “go along to get along.” From their evaluation of the pros and cons of spraying, they are convinced that spraying would actually, unquestionably, do more harm than good.

This is not what most callers want to hear, according to Parks. They just want the problem to go away, and it is clear to them that spraying is the answer.

You can read the whole article, Under pressure to spray, in the Delta County Independent.

The Health Canada Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) today announced that the agency is initiating a re-evaluation of Canada’s registration of two types of neonicotinoid insecticides (clothianidin and thiamethoxam). This notice adds two more neonicotinoids to the list that are already under re-evaluation (imidacloprid being the first).

Read the full article at FarmlandBirds.net.

Most of you newer and/or suburban beekeepers probably don’t have much direct experience with agricultural pesticide spraying, but it has been a significant threat to bees and beekeeping for a long time. This article about spraying appeared on Friday night and I commented while it was fresh. That generated a response from an applicator the next morning, and a comment from Minnesota beekeeper Jeff Anderson Sunday morning. Paul Hendricks of Englewood tried to comment, but his comments were not posted. Here they are:

I’m not comforted by any “professional” aerial applicator whose evaluation of his business is by a person with no skin in the game. Let Dr. Scott Bretthauer purchase 100 colonies at the market rate of $250 each and place by any field which Ag chemicals are constantly and incessantly applied and leave them there throughout an entire year; then pay for extensive necropsies of the hives which have failed (studies already done by other PhD’s) and he will have earned the right to speak. I have several decades of practical experience where only ground rigs were used and I learned that apiaries across the road from only ground rig spraying invariably experienced a constant diminution of their population. As a beekeeper with 36 years experience I can righteously assert that in all cases where Ag chemicals were used (there are other methods available which use no chemicals) my bee operation suffered irreparable uncompensated harm. I would like to reach out and strangle (generically speaking) PhDs who say “studies show,” when I can rightfully counter with “my experience is…”

Any assertions made that no harm was done cannot be ascertained the morning after a spray incident because the damage is often not evident until several months later when necropsies of the hive are done.

I successfully raised in the ballpark of 350 thousand pounds of honey before the sea of Ag chemicals overwhelmed me. Before one particular farm switched to GMO corn seed I raised the weight of a steer, approximately 850 pounds, from a single hive in Parker, Colorado. That farmer’s son-in-law has seen fit to change back to heirloom corn seed and I have hope of seeing good crops there once again. That farmer’s father-in-law, now deceased, told me he coped with the alfalfa weevil by baling the weevils into the first cutting. Weevils left alive in July were scorched in the heat and did not present a threat to 2nd and 3rd cuttings.

Dead bees tell tales and they speak loud and clear to scientists who properly exercise the scientific method. The best scientists in history have been run through the matrix of life’s experience before tackling such questions as, in this case, “why are these bees dying?” Poison is poison, no matter how you apply it and unfortunately bees don’t read the labels on any of Monsanto or Bayer or fill-in-the-blank’s pesticide. – Paul Hendricks