Randy:
Pete, I heartily concur, except that I would tone down the word "abuse."
Well-meaning beekeepers applying legal miticides per label instructions
still inadvertently poisoned their colonies.

Pete:
I was thinking of my experiences as a bee inspector where I often saw
signs of the mis-use of hive chemicals, including simultaneous use of
Apistan and Checkmite, large numbers of Apistan strips (5 or more) and
strips left in for more than a year. To that I would add the
inadvertent combination of Apistan and Checkmite by alternating them,
which of course is what the extension researchers were telling us to
do. However, it doesn't matter in the long run whether it was
intentional or not, as to whether it is classed as mis-use.

As a matter of fact, Jamie Ellis and others raised this issue two
years ago, and I suggested that we not rush to tar and feather the
beekeepers. At the time the public was as concerned about bees as we
are, since it appeared that bees were vanishing at an alarming rate,
and I felt that the sympathy would evaporate if the public thought the
beekeepers were their own worst enemy. Now that the public has moved
on, we are seeing the results of actual study and it appears that the
worst fears are true; the bees immune system may actually have been
compromised by excessive use or inappropriate combinations of chems.

I still believe that the measures were appropriate to prevent
devastating losses. Without miticides beekeepers would have lost 99%
instead of 30% to 50%. The resulting bees may have been highly
vigorous but few would consider that a fair price to pay. Gradually
working toward resistant bees has always been the prudent plan. I am
not sure it can succeed overall but it has succeeded in some
localities. But now the problem has taken on a new dimension, backed
up by facts and scientific explanation.

* * *

> The pollution of six agricultural areas of Greece (north, central, south) by insecticides used in crop protection has been investigated utilizing, as a bioindicator, bee honey produced in those areas. Honey samples collected randomly from apiaries located in those areas were analyzed for pesticide residues with a multianalytical method, able to determine simultaneously up to 10 organophosphorous insecticides from the same honey extract. Findings concerning the acaricide coumaphos were also included, even though it is not used in crop protection.

> This study indicates that in agricultural areas with developed apiculture, useful information about the occurrence and the distribution of pesticide residues due to crop protection treatments can be derived from the analysis of randomly collected honey samples, used as bioindicators. It also shows that, very often, the chemicals used by apiculturists inside the hives in order to control disease are the main pollutants of the produced honey.

> It must be emphasized that coumaphos residues were found in 37 out of the 50 honey samples (74%). They ranged between 0.10 and 4.8 ug/kg [parts per billion] and they originated exclusively from the acaricide Perizin (a.i. coumaphos 3.4%), which was used by the apiculturists inside the hives to control Varroa. However, out of the 10 insecticides that had been used in crop protection of the investigated areas, only 3 were found in honey samples (chlorfenvinphos, chlorpyrifos, and phorate) in rather low levels (0.70– 0.89 ug/kg).

Bee Honey as an Environmental Bioindicator of Pesticides’ Occurrence
in Six Agricultural Areas of Greece
by George Balayiannis & Panos Balayiannis
Arch Environ Contam Toxicol (2008) 55:462–470

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