On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > Yes, but maybe you can explain why a beekeeper would place his hives > adjacent to a corn field, knowing they could get dusted? My understanding, Peter, is that the talc (used as a seed lubricant) dust spreads for very long distances. The beekeeper I heard the other day on the radio kept his bees on his own organic farm, but he was surrounded by corn. I can't know for sure, but it did not sound from the interview that he kept them "adjacent". But I can give you a personal anecdote of how it could come that you might have hives "adjacent" to a field that is dusted. It just happened to me. I keep about 80 yards of 40 hives after the blueberry pollination. Pollination suddenly finishes and leaf spot has started and they want to spray a fungicide known to be not nice for bees, called Pristine. So it means they now want the bees out ASAP. We are working roughly 10 hours a night EVERY night moving over 300 hives a night. I have a pollination contract for borage two hours drive away. In that area is a potato operation that grows canola in their rotation. Another closer operation is not going to grow any canola this year due to a fear of getting clubroot from growing it too much. So I am a little stuck for yards. I phone up this potato operation and discuss their fields with them looking at it on google earth. We figure out where the best location for hives is to minimize the blight spray drift (chlorothalonil) that is going on the field surrounding the canola. I arrive in the middle of the night at fields I have never seen before and find some windbreaks that will be useful for the bees in locations where I think I get the trucks in and out and dump off the bees and am on to the borage fields. I wake up the next day and think what the hell did I just do? Are the fields I just dropped off in already seeded or are they just going to be seeded (they just looked dirt, you couldn't see whether the marks were from a cultivator or a seed drill). Did I just drop two yards of bees where they are just going to drill in neonic treated canola? How the hell am I going to fit in time to move them before they seed? Fortunately it turned out the fields were already seeded. But Peter, you talk about choice and beekeepers putting their hives away from problems. But I have no choice. A penny (one cent coin) on the PEI tourist road map is about a two mile radius circle. 80 pennies will cover the eastern half of PEI and overlap. I don't even know where all the other beekeepers bees are. I am just trying to keep my own from overlapping. It is not as if I could go anywhere to avoid pesticides. There are no mountains here or unused land. I pretty much have bees everywhere. And pesticides are used everywhere. Peter, I think you are about the same age as I. I had really good luck with bees when I started, and I knew shit. Now, I am still doing ok, but every year I count my blessings. It is way more difficult to keep bees. And I think it is a bit much to think that beekeepers can know what the hell is going on in all the fields adjacent to their beeyard. This post brought to you by an amazingly excellent bottle of blueberry/honey moonshine. Stan *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html