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Local beekeeper says pesiticides caused his colony to die off

Posted 8/4/18

By MATT LINDSEY PARISHVILLE -- A local beekeeper believes local spraying of pesticides caused his bee colony to nearly die off, and he says many other beekeepers are experiencing the same issue. Luke …

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Local beekeeper says pesiticides caused his colony to die off

Posted

By MATT LINDSEY

PARISHVILLE -- A local beekeeper believes local spraying of pesticides caused his bee colony to nearly die off, and he says many other beekeepers are experiencing the same issue.

Luke Martin, who has been involved in beekeeping for over 25 years, says he first battled varroa destructor mites that invaded our country and wiped out more than half of his colonies over each of the last several years. Now he is losing young bees to neonicotinoids, a pesticide.

He combatted the mite issue through breeding for bees resistant to the mites, but Martin now says pesticides are killing baby bees.

“The last few years beekeepers have experienced extra heavy colony losses over winter, many think neonicotinoids are the culprit,” Martin said. “Europe has banned them for use on any flowering crop and they are being questioned here as well -- but our government denies any connection to bee losses.”

Managing Mites

Martin became interested in beekeeping as a teenager when a beekeeper neighbor caught a swarm that was on an apple tree in his family orchard.

Over the years Martin has kept approximately 20 colonies of bees, with 60 colonies being the highest number.

The first 25 years of beekeeping Martin said he would average 100 pounds of honey each year per colony. Overwintering colony losses never exceeded 10 percent in those years, he said.

“Then the varroa mites invaded our country and losses of bee colonies exceeded 60 percent every winter and sometimes it was even worse,” Martin said.

Being organically minded, Martin refused to treat with chemical miticides, but “instead I choose to go the route of breeding for bees resistant to the mites,” he said.

After about 10 years of taking heavy losses, his bee losses gradually lessened to about 20 to 30 percent each winter without any mite treatment -- which was as good or better success than those beekeepers had who were treating their bees, Martin said.

“Now other beekeepers wanted my local, winter-hardy, mite resistant stock,” Martin said. “So, I started to sell nuc (starter) hives to interested people.”

Last summer after selling nucs in the spring, he said his bees had a good year and produced an 80-pound average per colony.

However, that success was short lived.

Pesticide Problem

Martin thinks a pesticide was sprayed locally this spring and drifted onto properties where he keeps most of his honeybees. About a dozen of his colonies died.

“I talked to Paul Hetzler (Horticulture & Natural Resources Educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension) who thought the symptoms (of the bees) sounded like a fungicide,” Martin said.

Martin heard rumblings that spaying was being done for mosquitoes because of West Nile virus.

“As a registered beekeeper I am to be notified if any aerial spraying is to be done,” he said. “I received no notice, but other beekeepers tell stories of not being notified and losing their bees. So there is a law but what good is it if not followed?”

The neonics, a popular pesticide, are systemic insecticides. “Therefore when used on corn seed, the corn pollen which bees collect and use to feed baby bees then poisons them,” he said.

These young bees, which will hatch in August, are the young needed for the colony to survive the coming winter.

Martin claims this past winter that 90 percent of honeybee colonies in the St. Lawrence Valley were dead by spring.

“Beekeepers are recovering by purchasing honeybees from elsewhere, but colony losses were very high nationwide as well,” he said.

So, what to do to save bees?

Martin says that the U.S. needs to stop the use of chemical pesticides -- herbicides, fungicides and insecticides

“To do so will help the bees and we all will be healthier as well,” he said.