FYI  -  Repost of item made to fruit growers:

   In the mid-Atlantic area of the US, massive aerial applications of Naled
are now
being undertaken, in the areas where rains from Dennis occurred. If you are a
grower in this area, you should be aware of the implications. These project
managers routinely ignore the label directions for bee protection and
circumvent the law by dumping the responsibility onto beekeepers.  (They've
been lobbying EPA for exemption from bee directions - a kind of back-door way
of admitting that they are violating them.)

   Beekeepers often cannot reach all their bee yards in the wake of floods;
also, the aerial applications can impact several bee yards all on the same
day.  Furthermore, this system to evade the law ignores the non-Apis
pollinators altogether. In some areas, wild bees do significant fruit
pollination. Some species may be dormant, but others that are active on fall
flowers may get wiped out.  Bees that are working goldenrod usually drop on
the site and don't make it home. It's too late in the season for the bees to
replace their losses, and the weakened hives do not have a big enough cluster
to get through the coming cold weather.

    If you can have any input into these applications, insist that the bee
protection directions be obeyed. Bee foraging times must be established by
fact, not guesswork.  Monitor hives should be used to determine the hours of
bee foraging, and the applications be done only when the monitors show that
foraging is done for the day. Any other adulticide application is illegal.
Typically, they ignore any monitoring, and arbitrarily set the applications
for late
afternoon. The forage pattern for fall flowers typically reaches a
peak in the late afternoon.

    You may call your beekeeper next spring, and find him out of business, or
unable to supply the pollination demand.  And believe me, if they spray in
your area, while bees are working goldenrod and other late bloom, the need
for managed pollination will be greater than ever.

Dave Green    Hemingway, SC   USA
The Pollination Home Page:     http://www.pollinator.com
The Pollination Scene:   http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html

Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop    (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles):
http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm