I have cotton fields all around me. Is there any way I can protect my bees from the pesticides being sprayed?
I have talked to farmers regarding their spraying and my bees. They both check and told me that they are using honey bee safe pesticides because they know my bees fave been pollinating their fields and they do not want to loose the service the bees are giving them. One even said the new pesticide he is using was actually cheaper by $.13 a gallon. -Mike
I talked with a fellow at the last state convention. He told me that he has around 25 hives and he keeps them on his cotton fields. If you were raised up in the 60's crop dusters were a common sight. Now a days I don't think they hardly ever spray cotton - the good side of genetically modified plants.
The Texas chief apiary inspector talked at our beekeeper's meeting last week about Texas laws affecting beekeepers. He said to let farmers in the area know you have bees and they'll be helpful about pesticides.
>If you were raised up in the 60's crop dusters were a common sight.
Here in Eastern Nebraska they are still a common sight. I usually hear them first... nothing like waking up on a Sunday morning to the sound of bees dying (well actually the sound of an airplane, but that is the end result...)
They still spray here with planes, but its usually not insecticides. The insecticides are mostly systemic now (Neonicitinoids)
But..... I can remember watching the planes from the school bus window, and thinking it was going to be a long weekend cleaning out hives and doing splits to replace the losses....
i'm in middle georgia and i see a crop duster now and then but usually the sprayers are pulled by tractors around here now. i think the soybeans, peaches and pecans are sprayed more than the cotton these days.