>   We beekeepers have got to stand up and get enforcement of pesticide label
>directions, because use in violation of these directions is MISuse.
 Whatever
>we do to help protect honeybees will also tend to protect wild bees as well.
> Applicators MUST monitor the bee situation in the application area, and
>comply with the directions of the specific pesticide.
 
In California, beekeepers had a serious problem last year with pesticide use
on cotton in the central valley.  The state approved emergency use of Furidan
and wiped out a lot of hives.  Luckily, we didn't have bees near the cotton,
so we weren't affected, but I know a lot of beekeepers who were.  Sounds like
this year will be bad too, judging from estimates of cotton prices (as one
beekeeper said, "When cotton prices go up, the streets of Modesto will run
with pesticide").
 
The problem was so bad, that the California State Beekeeper's Association
invited a representative from the state Dept. of Pesticide Regulation to talk
at our annual convention.  We expressed our concerns that label regulations
weren't being followed.  He told us that not everything on the label was
legally binding; that some of the stuff on the label (including not spraying
over open water and not spraying blooming plants) was "just a good idea".  My
husband has been meaning to contact a pesticide manufacturer to ask about
this particular interpretation of their labeling--we haven't done it yet.
 
One of the big problems as I see it is that the guys who are supposed to be
making sure that pesticides are used correctly (like this representative)
don't care about enforcing rules.  They only care about keeping the growers
happy.  If a grower wants to spray, by gum the grower is allowed to spray,
and the rules are bent as much as necessary to allow that to happen.
 
The Santa Cruz Agricultural Commissioner's office is another example.  All
the other counties we work in have a 48-hour notice system set up.  We
register our locations, and when a grower within a mile of a location
contacts the commissioner's office with intent to spray, the commissioner's
office informs them that they need to contact us.  This is the law in
California: Growers are required to give us 48-hours notice to move or
protect our bees (even then, they are theoretically supposed to follow the
labeling, which minimizes risk to the bees).  In Santa Cruz, even after we
pointed out the law to them, the commissioner's office refused to comply
(under-staffed, they said... an understandable problem.)  They told us that
we could have a list of the 40 or so growers within a mile radius of each of
our locations, and call or visit each grower individually, to ask to be
notified if they decided to spray... I can see it now, "Please Mr. Grower, if
you don't mind, and if you don't forget, would you mind calling us...".
 There is a Sevin release date for apples, so we simply told our growers that
we would have to remove the bees by the Sevin release date.  Then the
commissioner's office called us (our growers called them in a huff), and said
that even though they had set a release date, they weren't going to allow
anyone to spray without express permission (and, besides, everyone said, No
One Is Going To Spray).  So we left some of the bees in (still took out the
ones we considered truly high risk).  Then we started getting calls from the
commissioner's office (10:00 am, or 11:00am, sometimes 2:00 pm):  "Hi, this
is Soandso, this grower wants to spray on suchandsuch road tomorrow morning,
call me by 4:00pm today if that's not okay."  Now, as beekeepers we are out
of the house and working the bees all day.  We typically didn't hear these
messages until 6:00 or 7:00pm.  So much for 48 hour notice, and so much for
working with the commissioner's office.  Luckily, the high risk bees had been
pulled, because there was indeed a Sevin application across the street from
one of the places we'd pulled bees.  No more apples for us.  If Santa Cruz
was willing to follow the 48-hour law, we could probably manage it.  But the
hoops we went through this year trying to protect our hives were ridiculous.
 
I don't know how to force applicators to follow the labeling laws when the
people who are supposed to be enforcing the laws won't enforce them.  It's
really discouraging... I always knew I was a little guy, but I never
suspected that I was as little as this.  Maybe we should just all start
buying only organic produce and cotton.  It might encourage more growers to
go organic if there were a bigger market.
 
Shawna Roberts, co-owner
Gypsy Bees
Hollister, CA