Bob
A green manure would take some harm out of the way of the bees but it would take
away 4/5 of our honey crop with it. Not working clover here would remove the biggest financial insentive to keep bees on PEI.  There are probably more than 1000
potato farmers here and clover is grown as a hay or silage crop - not just a
soil conditioner.  Almost no one here grows a green manure crop and trying to get
farmers to give up a cash crop for a ploughdown would be a hard sell. This would not protect the bees from chemical movement into the wild flowers along the field margins either.  
Our weather this winter has been lots of snow on ground that is not frozen.  All this snow is melting now and the small brooks are not rising at all. This means that the snow melt is going straight down into the ground water.  I cringe to think of the possibility of Imidacloprid going into not only my drinking water but the water I need to make sugar syrup for the bees.  Maybe my worries are premature.  Maybe there will be no bees alive to feed.
Beekeepers in Missouri should be on the lookout for Imidacloprid poisoning
as it is used on many crops.  I'm not sure just what crops are grown in your
area but watch out if there is corn (both sweet and field), sugar beets,
millet, rice, cereals, vegetables, sunflowers, and more. Remember, it's not
necessarily on the crop that's treated that problems will arise with the
bees. It is also the succeeding crops. It's not known how many years after a treatment the problem could
persist. I expect soil type and weather conditions will affect this
persistance.
What I want to stress is the fact that I have kept bees around potatoes for years without problems and now that Admire is being used I have big problems.  This chemical is different from any chemical used here before.
Al Picketts
Kensington, PEI
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob & Liz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <BEE-L>
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: bees don't visit potato blossoms


> Hello Al & All,
> Al wrote:
>  This  is a good thing since so many very nasty insecticides, fungicides,
> and
>  herbicides are sprayed on potato fields. Imidacloprid, to my knowledge, =
>  is  the only in-furrow pesticide used here and it does not pose any
obvious
>  problems until the clover rotation comes around in year 3. Then bees
begin
> to die...especially during the winter following the clover.
>
> Would a possible solution for the Clover problem be for the grower to
plant
> a green manure crop the bees don't work?
> Sincerely,
> Bob Harrison
> Odessa, Missouri
>