CATCH THE BUZZ
Corn Planting Drift is Killing Honey Bees. You Can Help.
Here's How.
The number of beekills this spring due to poisoning by
pesticides has skyrocketed. In Ohio just this spring we have seen more beekills
than I can remember total in the past 25 years combined. Reports from many,
many states have been coming into this office in the past couple of weeks. At
first they seemed isolated and unsupported. Beekeepers are wary of reporting
incidents, and seldom sure of how to proceed or what to do.
The incidents this spring are not the symptoms reported
commonly as Colony Collapse Disorder, where bees disappear and a beekeeper
returns to what had been a strong healthy hive only weeks before and what's
left is simply lots of brood, a handful of young bees and a queen...if anybody
is home at all.
No, the incidents this spring are different...they harken
back to the days of massive beekills, when plants in bloom were sprayed on a
routine basis, when beekeepers would find entire apiaries wiped out, with
pounds and pounds of dead bees, twisting, writhing and dying in front of their
hives. Piles of dead, stinking bees were common then, but with the advent of
more restrictive regulations and safer-to-use pesticides, much, but not all, of
that death-by-pesticide era has gone away.
Until now. This spring the ugly past has returned. We
were warned though. Purdue researchers saw this problem last year and brought
it to everybody's attention.
Then they looked deeper and further and saw that it
wasn't just a flook, an accident, an anomaly, but rather it has turned into an
epidemic. And they brought that to our attention too.
Simply, pesticides, those troublesome neonicotinoids, are
applied to corn seeds before they are planted so when the corn begins to grow
the pesticide on the seed is absorbed by the new roots and fills the plant with
poison for the rest of its life. But the stuff is sticky and doesn't come out
of the planters very well so farmers supply a slippery additive in the form of
talcum powder to make those seeds, in airblast seed planters, simply fly right
out of the drop chute and into the ground. But there's the rub. That airblast
planter is blowing all that talcum powder and loose pesticide dust
everywhere...up into the air to travel where ever something as light weight as
talcum powder can travel...feet and yards and yards certainly, maybe
miles...nobody knows.
But birds are dying. Robins and crows. And one observer
says that wildlife eating the seeds are dying...three seeds will kill a quail
is what I'm hearing, but I don't know for sure. I wouldn't be surprised. But
for beekeepers, what's happening is that this poisonous dust is landing on
everything downwind...dandelions, flowers, water surfaces, everywhere a honey
bee can go, that's where this stuff is landing.
How much of it is going airborne? I don't have a clue,
but every seed is coated with it, and you know how big corn seeds are and there
are about 30,000 seeds planted in an acre...and there are, this year,
96,000,000 acres of corn planted in the U. S. And what I read is, is that
almost all of those seeds are coated with something that protects the plants.
Know how big 96,000,000 acres is....?
It's all of North Dakota and South Dakota, combined. All
of that.
But of course all those acres are spread out all over the
place. There are few places in this country that are not within drift distance
from these airborne poisons. Very, very few. For instance...North Dakota plans
on 3.4 million acres of corn this year...that's 5% of the entire state. And
recall, North Dakota is the biggest honey producer in the U. S. I'm thinking there's
no place to hide in that large, very flat state.
If you experience a beekill in your apiary this spring DO
NOT simply shrug your shoulders and feel there's nothing to be done. There is
something to be done.
First, take pictures...with today's newspaper showing so
you have a date. Get a witness in the photo so you have someone else to verify
your incident. Video a person collecting samples and filling to half a plastic
bag and sealing the bag.
Freeze the sample as soon as possible. Call you state
apiary inspector and report the incident. If your state has a pesticide
incident reporting system in place, report it there, too. And tell the feds.
There's two places to go. First, do a direct to EPA email. They have a system
in place to document these when reported. The email is
beekill@EPA.gov
<blockedmailto:beekill@EPA.gov>
Tell them what, where and when you found the incident,
attach a couple of photos of the scene, record the number of hives affected,
the date the incident occurred and any other pertinent data you can include.
Tell them you have taken samples, and that you have reported it to your state
authorities. And tell them you want something done!
When you finish that, go to this web site
http://npic.orst.edu/reportprob.html#env
<blockedhttp://npic.orst.edu/reportprob.html#env>
the National Pesticide Information Center's page to
report a pesticide incident.
And do it again.
And then, one more thing.
Send this information to your local beekeeping group, and
to your state beekeeping association and tell them to put it on their web page,
to send out emails, to put it in newsletters, to get every beekeeper in this
country up to speed on what is killing our honey bees (heck, send it to every beekeeper
you know and tell them to do the same thing. Let EVERY BEEKEEPER EVERYWHERE
KNOW!).
This is something YOU CAN DO, whether you never, ever
have a problem or not.
Help protect honey bees, and beekeepers from this, and
any other Pesticide Incident.
