On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> Yes, but maybe you can explain why a beekeeper would place his hives
> adjacent to a corn field, knowing they could get dusted?


My understanding, Peter, is that the talc (used as a seed lubricant) dust
spreads for very long distances.  The beekeeper I heard the other day on
the radio kept his bees on his own organic farm, but he was surrounded by
corn.  I can't know for sure, but it did not sound from the interview that
he kept them "adjacent".

But I can give you a personal anecdote of how it could come that you might
have hives "adjacent" to a field that is dusted.  It just happened to me.

I keep about 80 yards of 40 hives after the blueberry pollination.
Pollination suddenly finishes and leaf spot has started and they want to
spray a fungicide known to be not nice for bees, called Pristine.  So it
means they now want the bees out ASAP.  We are working roughly 10 hours a
night EVERY night moving over 300 hives a night.  I have a pollination
contract for borage two hours drive away.  In that area is a potato
operation that grows canola in their rotation.  Another closer operation is
not going to grow any canola this year due to a fear of getting clubroot
from growing it too much.  So I am a little stuck for yards.   I phone up
this potato operation and discuss their fields with them looking at it on
google earth.  We figure out where the best location for hives is to
minimize the blight spray drift (chlorothalonil) that is going on the field
surrounding the canola.  I arrive in the middle of the night at fields I
have never seen before and find some windbreaks that will be useful for the
bees in locations where I think I get the trucks in and out and dump off
the bees and am on to the borage fields.

I wake up the next day and think what the hell did I just do?  Are the
fields I just dropped off in already seeded or are they just going to be
seeded (they just looked dirt, you couldn't see whether the marks were from
a cultivator or a seed drill).  Did I just drop two yards of bees where
they are just going to drill in neonic treated canola?  How the hell am I
going to fit in time to move them before they seed?

Fortunately it turned out the fields were already seeded.

But Peter, you talk about choice and beekeepers putting their hives away
from problems.  But I have no choice.  A penny (one cent coin) on the PEI
tourist road map is about a two mile radius circle.  80 pennies will cover
the eastern half of PEI and overlap.  I don't even know where all the other
beekeepers bees are.  I am just trying to keep my own from overlapping.  It
is not as if I could go anywhere to avoid pesticides.  There are no
mountains here or unused land.  I pretty much have bees everywhere.  And
pesticides are used everywhere.

Peter, I think you are about the same age as I.  I had really good luck
with bees when I started, and I knew shit.  Now, I am still doing ok, but
every year I count my blessings.  It is way more difficult to keep bees.
And I think it is a bit much to think that beekeepers can know what the
hell is going on in all the fields adjacent to their beeyard.

This post brought to you by  an amazingly excellent bottle of
blueberry/honey moonshine.
Stan

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