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<534AF881B63D4FEDB5B9FF734A040409@Romulus> |
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Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:55:27 -0700 |
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<AD2FEEAEEA794A9784323320069F3174@bobPC> |
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Deep Thought |
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?> I think its reasonable to say (from those on the list ) that bees do poorly
on canola ( Allen dicks diary information) but seem to recover after removed
from *Canola.*
Actually, my bees do great on canola, or did when I was commercial, (that was
seven years ago) and seem to now for the many beekeepers I inspect, but my bees
and those of other beekeepers I know did not do not so well when trucked
annually to the canola pollination and back, for reasons which are unclear.
The guys local to the pollination that I inspect seem to have pretty
good-looking bees these days, and they are in a district where beekeeping was
almost sprayed to extinction in the past.
The canola *pollination* to which I refer crowds bees onto fields with
alternating strips of male and female flowers of two varieties grown in
isolation on irrigated fields, and provides the seed for normal commercial
hybrid canola crops. Only the latter seed is used for oil, meal, etc.. The
former is too valuable for that.
On the other hand commercial hybrid canola crops are grown all over Alberta,
and when we look out the window in summer we see yellow in all directions.
Canola is a major honey source and Alberta bees seem to thrive on it. It
yields huge crops of mild white honey. The same cannot be said of the old
rapeseed varieties which preceded canola and which were implicated in wintering
losses and horrible, unsalable honey at times.
As for effects of seed treatments in either case, I cannot comment other than
to say that if there is an effect, it is either subtle or local and still needs
to be discovered. These products are still quite new and we may not have seen
the build-up in the soil yet. However, the far south of Alberta which, for a
decade or two, was very inhospitable to bees due to heavy spraying is now home
to many apparently healthy bees. We have birds again in summer. I can
remember years when birds were dying everywhere due to spray and the fish in
the local dam were killed by Furadan runoff.
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