I am 67 years old.
I grew up on the farm. Cotton, corn and truck crops.
The cotton was in a field to it's self.
I remember seeing dead birds, rabbits etc. around the edge of the cotton field.
Our cotton crop had a disease called "bowl weevil".
We used arsenic, toxiphane DDT, 3-5-40, and BHC.
We had very few fish in the streams close by.
Now we have an insecticide that is safe to use on cotton and the bees can have at it in a couple days afterward.
You could have an arsenic sack lay out in the weather for 6 months and catch the rain and wind,
then let your goat or cow eat or lick the sack and you have a dead animal.
It takes about 10,000 small men to push one big man.
look at where we are at now because of the greedy.
As long as these big operators get their way, the only hope we small timers have is to take care
of our selves.
The makers of these deadly products say thousands of test have done and their product is safe.
"WHO" did the testing.
I say just try to take care of your bees and study them in the environment you have them in.
I am out in the boonies away from every thing except power line spraying every several years.
The only other thing that has been sprayed for was the timber co. thinking they could deter or eradicate the sweet gum tree. What nuts. or they were lying.
At least maybe I'll have some late summer/early fall blooms, rained the last three days and more on the way.
doak.