In a message dated 4/16/00 5:44:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> If balloons can provide some protection for no cost (distributed by the
>  state) and a very small amount of work, I'll try it. Maybe the balloons
> could
>  be placed to protect some of the forage too. If your bees are working a big
>  field of purple loosestrife, put some empty hives out there and put up a
>  balloon. But I'm not fooling myself. This is not a real solution to the
>  problem of protecting our hives. But I'm not sure if any protection is
>  possible when government officials decide to suspend the laws regarding
>  pesticide use in the name of public health.

    There are a some serious problems with the approach.  One is that it is
illegal. The label directions refer to the bees at the flower, not at the
hive, so daytime application can only legally be made on a basis of
monitoring of the hours bees are out *at the flowers.*   See the damages with
this method (turning off the sprayer over the hives) at
http://members.aol.com/gardenbees/       The applicators claimed they did not
spray within a half mile of the hives, yet you see bees piled up dead, and
you know many more died in the field.

   The second problem is that the applicators will often lie about where they
actually sprayed and where they didn't.

    The third is actually the government's problem (IF the programs are
effectual...). Any area that doesn't get coverage (around the beehives, or
around organic farms for example) can be a vector to reintroduce the pest or
disease right back to the sprayed areas.

>I quickly hit a wall when that person said, 'When
>it comes to the health of honey bees versus the health of humans (to control
>West Nile virus, which lives in mosquitoes), we'll choose human health every
>time.'

    You'd better believe they are doing more damage to wild pollinators than
to honeybees. When it comes to pollinators it is not a question of either/or.
 People can die just as surely of starvation as they do of disease.  And we
have GOT to pound that into some thick heads, to be sure.  I am convinced
that we are closer to famine that we can conceive, and that it will happen in
the US, unless we do some serious changing.  All you have to do is
extrapolate the trends...

    The spray programs CAN protect the bees, AND protect humans, IF they have
a WILL TO.