Gm Charlie:
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Your answers are very helpful to
me. Although I plead guilty to being a non-commercial beekeeper (and a new
one at that), I am also a vegetable farmer so pesticide practices are a
constant consideration for me.
Pest scouting is a daily activity here during the growing season so I, too,
am flabbergasted when I encounter beekeepers (large and small) who don't
have a well-planned varroa monitoring program in place. On one forum that I
monitor even just using sticky boards is considered anathema to the group's
"treatment-free" standards. But it's not just the treatment-free crowd
which doesn't have any idea about their pest levels. Being a new beekeeper,
I'll eagerly listen to just about anyone describe their approach to
beekeeping and more than one commercial beekeeper has told me they don't bother with
any monitoring, they just treat on set schedule, no matter what. To me,
that's equally clueless. (And exactly the same situation you're predicting as
the likely result of withdrawing neonics and reverting to more ad hoc
pesticide decision making.)
If you've talked to 200 hobbyists a year, please consider me the 201st, and
I hope, the exception. I do know about monitoring, and do so constantly (I
even have boards in now, even though I be darned if I can find any info on
interpreting varroa drops during the winter in a broodless period).
nevertheless, that doesn't matter to me, because I know from my farming
experience that if I monitor/scout the pest levels faithfully, then over time the
meaning of the trends will eventually become clear(er) and I'll have a sound
basis for treatment decisions.
Once again, thanks for taking the time to respond to a new beekeeper's
query.
Nancy Wicker
In a message dated 2/27/2014 6:48:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Would you mind explaining what beekeeping practices you believe are
problematic (and why)? I am not trying to dispute, just clarify since I
wasn't
sure to what you were referring.
Sure, first off studies show that the top chem. Issues in the hives are
beekeeper applied treatments for mites. Imaclorapids and neonics I think
were 19 and 23 on the list... (don't quote me on the positions, but way
down there).
2nd, we take a lot of the food and shelter away from the bees just before
winter. Like it or not many of us are not very good at this practice
3rd Migratory work (I am not against it at all) is hard on bees. It
exposes
them to things (mostly sprayed) that they shouldn't be in. Fungicides
being
the largest, and just other pathogens also being on the list.
4th Varroa. Like it or not we as a whole are terrible at mite monitoring
and management. While commercial guys are a bit better, most do blanket
treatments. Hobbyist are clueless..... period. I talk to and deal with
about 200 hobbyist every year. And no matter what I say or show them, they
don't know or care to learn.
5th Diagnosis. When it comes to determining what killed a hive, we as a
group are illiterate. Bees are dead... end of story. So to the letter,
people are looking elsewhere to blame. It would astound me how many
samples
are sent to Beltsville, as a complete waste of time. Usually the answer is
right in front of us, but we choose to ignore it.
I agree pesticides can and are issues from overspray to soil buildups. We
need to know whats going on, and where to head. We also MUST acknowledge,
they are NOT going away. So we need to be careful when we cry wolf.....
Darn well needs to be one, because in this case in particular, as a person
in the middle of it, I can tell you the options are BAD....
For most sitting in the non farm country this is just noise..... for me,
back to spraying randomly would really effect my beekeeping
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