Bee friendly means pesticide free
Ninety percent of commercial beehives in the United States are used to pollinate California’s Almond crop. This year ten percent of the honeybees have died-about 80,000 colonies-an unusually high number, and beekeepers do not know why.
The unexplained death of bee colonies, also called Colony Colapse Disorder, is thought to be due to a combination of factors including mites that feed on the bees, pesticides, and using bees to pollinate vast monocultures of crops rather than diverse forage.
Neonicotinoid pesticides are thought to be a potential culprit, and spraying plants in flower with this chemical is illegal in Europe. Neonicotinoids interfere with the bees nervous system. But farmers in Canada and Australia that use neonicotinoids are not seeing the same devastation of bee colonies as in the US and Europe.
Are US and European farmers using different mixes of pesticides, or is something else tipping the balance?
Neonicotinoids have been found in dead bees around some hives. They can wind up in pollen and nectar even if they are applied to the seed or soil rather than the flower. This is a problem both for commercial crops, and crops in our yards. If you buy a bee friendly plant that was treated before you get it, it can have neonicotinoid in the pollen or nectar, and you may in fact be harming the pollinators rather than helping them.
While scientists sort out the causes, home gardeners can use pesticide free native plants and bee friendly plants that provide variety and nutrition to support struggling bees. We need them to pollinate our food!
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2012/120111KrupkeBees.html
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/19/6338235/beekeepers-search-for-answers.html
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