Allen Dick wrote:

> I have heard bad things about fungicides and bees.  Has anyone on the list any
> experience with the following chemicals?
>
> Benlate
> Bravo 500
> Ronilan EG
> Rovral
> Tatoo


Bravo is used as a fungicide as often as every 10 days on ginsing crops
in BC. I do believe it will kill bees.

My anecdotal evidence is that about 5 years ago I had a medium sized bee
kill.  Bravo was sprayed under the black plastic crop netting on ginsing
in the early spring.  Very few flowers were in bloom in the fields.
However, the plastic netting caused the wild dandilions to bloom under
the netting and many bees were working the dandilions.  They were
drenched with the spray.

In front of the hives were classic examples of bee poisioning: dead
bees, writhing bees, dying bees, shaking bees, etc.

I had observed this on one other occassion.

The last time I noticed the bees dying in front of the hive I saw the
sprayer in operation a few hundred meters away.  The operator said that
Bravo was harmless to bees and that there were no flowers under the
tarps.

I pointed out the many dandilion blossoms that he had not seen and
showed him the bees working the blossoms.  He discontinued spraying
until early evening.

We looked at the Bravo label and bees weren't mentioned at all so he
assumed that they wouldn't be harmed.

The problem hasn't happened again in the last 3-4 years.  The dandilions
have finished here now so no problems this year.

Ian