At 09:00 PM 7/14/98 -0500, you wrote:
 
>Tennessee is going to spry from planes ULV Malthion on every acre of
>cotton in the southwestern part of the state.
 
>will spray up until October.  My question is how much loss should I
>expect.  Moving all of my 100 hives is out of the question because I
>have no place to move them that cotton is not within foraging distance.
 
Hi Bill,
 
Its always hard to answer these kind of questions as it makes me feel like
someone selling a dyeing cancer patient a pre arrange funeral.
 
As to the question of what loss to expect I would if I were you not only
expect NO loss I would insist on it.
 
When birds, bees, fish, people or any non target species is damaged by any
regulated chemical applied by anyone it is in itself an unlawful use and
act, and you should have every expectation of full re numeration regardless
of your own interests if you own the property damaged.
 
You should not care what chemical it is or how it is used as long as it
does not damage your property, or injure your personal well being.
 
The above is easy said but now you have some obligations to document your
own loss. At one time this was impossible for the ordinary person but today
it is much easier if you follow some easy rules which include an assessment
of the actual condition of your bees before the loss. Get your local
friendly bee inspector to come out and make a 100% inspection of all your
hives right now before the loss would be one step you could take. It is not
necessary to let it be know why you are doing this other then looking for
pests, or disease. Maybe its time to search your hives for the Killer AFRO
wax beetles. Make a note of their condition as to number of bees, brood and
laying queens. Don't worry if they are in sorry shape now and improve
between now and the end of October you will not have to pay for the cotton
spraying.
 
I would have and use a video camera, if you don't have one now is the time
to get one. I once paid for a new Camera in one hour in a pesticide damage
situation that just could never happen but few experts can explain away
pictures that show dead bees. Always have someone with you when taking
samples or pictures and if you can it should be someone without an interest
in your bees or personal welfare unless they work for the Welfare
Department or something.
 
If you have loss take samples of fresh killed bees and all the pollen you
can find. I would even put on a pollen trap in every yard now just to have
something that is easy to analyze for chemicals. You can label and freeze
any samples and again it is better to have a disinterested party take and
store the samples if you can, in any case have a witness along with any
film exposed or samples taken. If there are any public schools within a few
miles of your bees and the crops sprayed take plant samples and always
identify your bee yards by the distance from the closest school if you can.
Churches, public parks, fishing holes would be a 2nd choice if you lack
schools. Pesticides can be detected on most plants especially ones with a
waxy coating on the leaves or plants closely related to animal forage
plants such as clovers. Samples need not be big, I have used a old ticket
punch that cuts out small disks from the plant leaves like a leaf cutter
bee and they worked great as long as you get a hundred or so. Anyway if you
are going to do this you should get with the lab that will run the samples
to see what their requirements are. I would stay away from any government
labs or send duplicate samples to a private lab for obvious reasons.
 
If you do all the above I can guarantee that the word will get around and
you will be the most hated beekeeper  in your area but you may find that
your bees will not be damaged if they are not burned up from fire escaping
from the cross burning in your bee yards. But if you never had a friend in
the pesticide business you would not suffer from it as for the most part
they do not make good friends anyway. Here in California the Bee Cops are
also the Pesticide Regulators and sleep in the same bed with the chemical
industry so we have lost lots of bees. Anyone who has been in the bee
business has replaced all of their hives once every twenty years because of
the regulated use of pesticides and some more. Its always a case of the
value of the bees vs the value of the crop being protected. Considering
that its the same with the poor people who work on the farms what can we
expect anyway.
 
The last time someone deliberately sprayed a crew of farm workers picking
tomatoes here they took his licence away for 90 days....the next winter
when its too foggy to even find the air field let alone spray crops like
there were any to spray in the winter.  The only good thing about crop
dusters is they don't live very long, if they pesticides don't kill em the
crash does. Years ago we had a old beekeeper who used to shoot at them when
ever they flew over his bees which all were kept around his home. They
complained to the authorities and the next night the old plane burned up.
Never could prove who did it but a five gallon honey can was found in the
cockpit of the burned out plane.<G> They did haul the beekeeper off to the
funny farm. He had a good rest on the county and returned a new man with a
special sparkle in his eyes which lasted I am told until he moved off to
better bee pasture in Heaven. I learned a lot from this crazy old Russian
bee man, and a lot more about the law and the bravest and dumbest thing I
ever did was to drive my old pickup straight down the road one day that was
being used in violation of the law for a crop duster landing strip. I was
never so shocked in my life and relieved to see that plane take the briar
ditch, and I never realized just how big those old crop dusters were until
seeing this one coming down the highway right at me and to see it in the
ditch still brings a smile to my face. The pilot got out and ran over to me
screaming and yelling about my family roots and how he would get me and my
bees. But I went to the state house the next day and that was the last crop
duster to ever use a public road in our county and I could not tell the
difference in my bees as they were killing them anyway or I would have not
been in a frame of mind to do something so stupid. You see he also
complained to the local bee pesticide cops and told them how close I had
come to being killed and made my case for me at the state house as that was
the reason crop dusters and cars don't use the same roads plus the fact the
duster's was not paying any gas tax to support the damage being done to the
roads anyway.
 
Now the bad news. MALATHION itself is not a good bee killer, or even a good
boil weevil killer, but repeated applications will increase the damage done
to honeybees matters not how carefully done. Ultra Low Volume is just using
less water or carrier so that more pure insecticide can be loaded in the
sprayer reducing the cost. There is some BS about how bigger the drops are
or is it smaller and they do less damage but it is BS. More acres can be
treated with each load, more loads can be sprayed and that's the reason its
used, it the money that talks. The bad news about this is that it makes it
X times more toxic if birds, bees, fish, or your kids are exposed to it.
But it is cheaper to use.
 
In ending I would say ULV MALATHION can be used without bee loss. (I read
that in some of their advertisements.) Don't believe it. I would also say
that there are chemicals that are even worse as small amounts of them will
cause your hives to die out next winter but at the time of application no
big loss will be seen,  at least with the malathion you should be able to
see and document the loss at the time it is used. Bees get very aggressive
during exposure to malathion and many other chemicals at the time they are
exposed so have your smoker and veil handy before going into your bee yards.
 
I wish you luck, I hope when all is said and done you can report back that
your bees were not damaged and everything worked out great. Sorry for
turning this post into a book, the bees make me do it.
 
Between now and then if I were you I would get in touch with ALgore the
environmentalist as most of these state programs are political favors being
paid back by state and federal agricultural regulators to chemical
company's, applicators, or farmers and really have no real benefit as they
seldom reduce the target pest and the crop suffers the same damage with or
without them and sometimes more because of them, such as a reduction of
honeybees in cotton can reduce the seed yield by 15%+.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
 
 
 
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