Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: hooyaman on July 13, 2009, 11:26:54 pm
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last week my neighbor sprayed my yard with roundup to kill the weeds. That would have been fine, but she also sprayed around my bees and wiped out 3 of my hives. I tried to rework them by putting brood in the hives that were without queens. I also found 2 queen cells in one of my other hives and put them in the other 2 hives that was damaged by the spray. Hope this works, cause if it dont I will be down to 4 hives. Also I was concerned about the honey being contaminated by the spray. don't know how to tell and am scared to sell any of the honey for fear it may be poison. Do any of you all have any comments on this? :'(
Thanks Jeff
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My comments would depend on if you gave her permission to spray or not.
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Roundup kills living things in the plant kingdom. It seems like it would not kill insects.
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find out what was sprayed-Round up has never been a problem for me -or many other keepers 8-)
here is some info http://www.biotech-info.net/glyphosate.html
:)RDY-B
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i use roundup. never had a problem with it. i don't spray it on anything blooming and i try to spray late in the day. roundup is used most on grass and the like.
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As others have said, Roundup won't kill the bees but if your entire yard was sprayed with Roundup, all your grass, flowers, etc would die. I'd talk to the neighbor and find out what was really sprayed. Has any insecticide been sprayed to control misquitos or other pests? Is there a garden where Seven could have been applied?
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It is not exactly the subject here but according to some studies (Chem. Res. Toxicol., 2009 extracts below) R is more dangerous for people than for bees and worse, R is concentrating down the food chain.
A.
We have evaluated the toxicity of four glyphosate (G)-based herbicides in Roundup (R) formulations, from 105 times dilutions, on three different human cell types. This dilution level is far below agricultural recommendations and corresponds to low levels of residues in food or feed
(...)
This work clearly confirms that the adjuvants in Roundup formulations are not inert. Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death around residual levels to be expected, especially in food and feed derived from R formulation-treated crops.
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I hate to sound redundant.. but I also spray around all my hives with no ill effect on bees.. what did she have in that sprayer last time it was used?
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round up will usually not kill the bees I would ask the neighbor what was sprayed I bet it wasn't roundup. when keeping bees with neighbors you need to kick the public relations into overdrive. go out of your way to make sure the neighbors remain happy. give them a free jar of honey every know and then and educate educate educate. make it known if they have a problem to by all mean let them know. I have several hives in town with limited trouble but I am constantly in contact with neighbors making sure it is not a problem. I wouldn't want someone next door with 100 pitbulls.
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Delete
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Send a sample of the bees to the bee lab. They can tell you cause of death. It was not the use of Roundup. You could open the colony and spray it directly on the bees and really piss them off, maybe make them abscond, but you wouldn't kill the colony. Bottom line, you lost 3 colonies ...... if not Roundup, what? Your job to find out. Don't wait until something happens to the others. They will eventually get into the same source that doomed the other 3.
Best wishes!
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Isn't the town of Dudley Missouri, { if I remember correctly about 4/5 blocks long and surrounded by miles of soybeans, cotton, corn & rice } ??
That's were I believe I'd look !!
Bee-Bop
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As some of you already know, I lost lots of my hives this spring due to spraying by air. That was supposed to have been 'just fertilizer' and it was not! It was a mix of two different sprays that was applied at a higher than recommened level....
I too am wondering what was in the sprayer before the Roundup was used. Another question that comes to mind, is why was the neighbor spraying around your hives in the first place? Is she the landlady or something?
Brenda
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I'm so sorry! Geez, I'm glad I live where people aren't in love with yard chemicals.
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my question is why are you having your neighbor do your yard work?
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It was the roundup that killed the bees. I forgot to say this roundup was commercial grade weed killer and u have to have a license to get it. she works at a grainary and one of the farmers gave it to her in syrup form and she mixed it herself. Also I did not give her permission to spray, she thought she was doing us a favor by spraying so we didn't have to weedeat. Although we told her not to spray anymore, the damage is already done. My concern was the chemical contanimating my honey and we were afraid to sell any of it if the honey was poison.
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Intereastin read about Bees & Round Up.
http://www.biotech-info.net/glyphosate.html
A quetion how many of your bees do you see feeding in your yard ?
I have 6 hives, and I'd have to look very very hard to find any in my yard, about 2 acres mowed.
Bee-Bop
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I understand that wal mart grade roundup probably wouldn't kill the bees, but this was commercial grade roundup. This stuff is very poison and will kill anything if it is mixed strong enough. My concern is that the spray has mixed with my honey and is it safe to sell. I guess I could send a sample to someone in Ag and they could test it for poison. O forgot to mention, that I did not give my neighbor permission to spray my yard. she was being nice and tried to eliminate my weedeating. she didn't know that crap would kill my bees. That's alright, The damage is already done now.
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If it were me, she and the guy at the grainary would be buying me some bees. Especially him, unless he wanted to face the consequences of giving a controlled substance to a non licensed person.
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If it killed your bees it's not likely that those bees were able to store any honey while they were dead :-D And I can't believe that very much, if any, of the mist from the spray got into your honey supers. Unless she sprayed it directly into the hives.
I understand that commercial grade Round-Up may be stronger than residential grade, but how do you figure that it killed all your bees. Even if it was sprayed around your hives and in your yard... your bees travel miles to forage and I don't see how the few bees foraging in your yard would bring enough of the chemical into the hive to kill the rest of the colony. Herbicides are not designed to kill insects and I would think that it would take a huge, concentrated dose, directly into the hive and onto the bees, in order to kill the colonies. It seems reasonable that there might be something else going on here.
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It'd be great to see someone do a really educational and reference-filled thread on the differences between pesticides and herbicides.
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It was the roundup that killed the bees. I forgot to say this roundup was commercial grade weed killer and u have to have a license to get it. she works at a grainary and one of the farmers gave it to her in syrup form and she mixed it herself. Also I did not give her permission to spray, she thought she was doing us a favor by spraying so we didn't have to weedeat. Although we told her not to spray anymore, the damage is already done. My concern was the chemical contanimating my honey and we were afraid to sell any of it if the honey was poison.
yea supper concetrate thats what i use -only way it hurts bees is there is no forage after it is sprayed
what dose the nieghbor say-RDY-B
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It was the roundup that killed the bees. I forgot to say this roundup was commercial grade weed killer and u have to have a license to get it. she works at a grainary and one of the farmers gave it to her in syrup form and she mixed it herself. Also I did not give her permission to spray, she thought she was doing us a favor by spraying so we didn't have to weedeat. Although we told her not to spray anymore, the damage is already done. My concern was the chemical contanimating my honey and we were afraid to sell any of it if the honey was poison.
well that was mightly neighborly of her. I would be sending her a bill for bees and honey loss and have my lawyer deliver it. Sorry for your loss.
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yea, thats what i feel like doing but she's a dingbat and she probably didn't realize what she was doing. In her mind she was doing us a favor by killing the weeds. But if it happens again she will pay for the damages or i will be forced to take her to court. Anyway whan raising bees, you can never predict what's going to happen to your bees. between disease, mites, hive betles, moths, attacks from other colonies and attacks from retarded humans, we are fighting a losing battle trying to keep our bees healthy. So what do you do but cross your fingers and hope for the best and when something happens, regroup and go again.
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I smell a rat :-x Glyphosphate is not toxic to anything but PLANTS. It works by interrupting the plants ability to produce chlorophyll causing the plant to starve to death. "Commercial grade" roundup is still glyphosphate. Unless this is a formulation that is different than the retail formula, (which I doubt), it is just more concentrated. The reason it is only available to licensed applicators, is that the potential for problems from misapplication or accidents is amplified when greatly concentrated. If the sprayer had been used for applying insecticide previously, there is a chance that it could contaminate the Roundup and kill bees, but I doubt the residual bug-killer would be in sufficient quantity to kill off 3 hives. Unless your neighbor is an idiot, they wouldn't use the same sprayer for both weed-killer and bug-killer for just that reason. Either the deaths aren't related to the Roundup spraying at all, or your neighbor simply used the spraying as a ruse to rid himself of your bees. I have a neighbor who hates cats. I have had several disappear mysteriously. My point is that cats are cuddlier than bees!!! :-D
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I'm so sorry! Geez, I'm glad I live where people aren't in love with yard chemicals.
Yep. Roundup sprayed to control vegetation is going to get on flowers, don't you think? Seems by extension it's going to get into the honey, that is if contact with it doesn't take out the bees first.
There are so many alternatives to chemicals...I can't understand why people want to poison their environment. Acetic acid (vinegar) and clove oil sprayed onto plants on a warm sunny day will kill them quickly.
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I'm so sorry! Geez, I'm glad I live where people aren't in love with yard chemicals.
Yep. Roundup sprayed to control vegetation is going to get on flowers, don't you think? Seems by extension it's going to get into the honey, that is if contact with it doesn't take out the bees first.
There are so many alternatives to chemicals...I can't understand why people want to poison their environment. Acetic acid (vinegar) and clove oil sprayed onto plants on a warm sunny day will kill them quickly.
How much vinegar how much clove oil :?
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After doing a simple Google search;
Here is a vinergar start;
http://www.versatilevinegar.org/usesandtips.html#4
Some people even spray their bees with it ??? :-x
Sorry about highjacking thread !
Bee-Bop
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I'm so sorry! Geez, I'm glad I live where people aren't in love with yard chemicals.
Yep. Roundup sprayed to control vegetation is going to get on flowers, don't you think? Seems by extension it's going to get into the honey, that is if contact with it doesn't take out the bees first.
There are so many alternatives to chemicals...I can't understand why people want to poison their environment. Acetic acid (vinegar) and clove oil sprayed onto plants on a warm sunny day will kill them quickly.
How much vinegar how much clove oil :?
I use a teaspoon clove oil per gallon of straight vinegar and one of those pump up 2 gal sprayers. Vinegar by itself will burn up grass/weeds quite well. The clove oil can help kill the plants. Vinegar by itself doesn't seem to kill the roots very much (probably more of a "defoliant"). You'll have to apply a couple times or more to actually kill the plant. Not as effective as herbicides like Roundup I'm guessing, and it's a heck of a lot safer. Just make sure you saturate the plants and do it on a sunny, no rain day.
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You know I have an outyard, in a farmers bean field, he sprayed a week ago, good guy he called and asked if it was ok or not to spray. Of course I told him don't not do anything you would normally do on account of the bees. From what I have read and been told roundup don't hurt the bees. Now he sprayed that night. I went over a few days later and the bees were just fine, and he sprayed 140 acres, not 3 feet from my hives. Probly closer, the first rows of beans is a tractor wheel wide away,, Point is nothing happened to my bees an there was more than just a few sprays done with a hand tool pump.