Hello Aaron & All,
Aaron asks complicated and excellent questions.

The best place to start the discussion is in the bee yard.

1. The most obvious pesticide kill is when you arrive at the bee yard and a
huge number of dead bees are in front of the hive and on the bottom board.
These kinds of kills were easy to collect on under the old USDA program.

2. Disappearing problem. This pesticide kill is when the poison kills the
bees on the return flight. Easier to detect when you see a larger than
normal amount of bees outside the front of the hive also.
The larger beekeeper which is working his hives on a regular basis and has
been monitoring the build up will notice the kill as usually all hives in
the yard suddenly lose half to almost all the bees. Nurse bees, drones and
the queen is unaffected.

3. Bee bringing back pollen from plants which have been sprayed. Has not
ever been a  problem for me but I have talked to beekeepers which have had
the problem. At times they report only winter kill.

Number 1 & 2 have been my experience.

My problems have always been linked back to people which spray for hire *or*
large orchards. Always a label violation was involved.


The largest bee kills  I have had were in the field right next to the bees
(commercial spray for hire outfits) and the county spraying noxious weeds
( honey plants) in the middle of the day when they could see bees working
the flowers!

Samples sent to Beltsville will show pesticde problems but one has to act
faster than the turn around time (at times several weeks) if you want to
find the source of the problem.

The above is a very general outline of bee pesticde kills from my point of
view. Others may have a very different point of view. I would be interested
in what other beekeepers see .

 Maybe others can address Aaron's New York State concerns!

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

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