Issues from farmer spraying field??

[Mook]

Had 2 established hives that were building up nicely pretty much collapse after farmer next to my house sprayed his field with herbacide.  All that is left in each of those hives is maybe 50 workers and a dazed queen that is not laying. Anyone else experience this? The other hive not closest to the field is going strong. Those hives were building up nicely when I checked them a week before they sprayed.

[little john]

Herbacides are not usually the culprit, unless the bees were short of water and sucked it up immediately after spraying.  Insecticides of course, are a very different story ...

Bearing in mind that bees can fly long distances to forage, I wouldn't have thought that the proximity of hives in the same apiary to the suspected cause is a useful indicator. 

With one hive still going strong, this presents as something of a puzzle ...

LJ

[Mook]

Not sure what the mix was they were spraying but I watched the wind blowing the spray towards the hives. They aren't very far from the field. Was puzzled to see both hives still had the queen and about 50 bees each and the queen not laying at all.

[jimineycricket]

Were there 3 hives to start with? Now one is good and two are bad?

[little john]

Not sure what the mix was they were spraying but I watched the wind blowing the spray towards the hives.

Ok, so we're talking about actual spray drift into the apiary, rather than just the spraying of a nearby field  - now THAT would certainly explain why some hives are affected and others not.

I'd be inclined to ask the farmer what he was spraying on the day in question - then, depending on what it was, you can proceed from there with whatever course of action seems the most appropriate in order to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

LJ

[Mook]

Correct 3 hives. All were building up capped brood and still plenty of stores. The 2 hives that went south each had about 6 full frames of bees a week before he sprayed. Watched him spray and drift in my hives and now only one is left. I couldnt belive what i was seeing so i took pictures as it was happening.

[GSF]

Did you treat for mites last fall? Just a thought.

I'm a couple hundred yards from cotton fields that's been sprayed and haven't had any derogatory effects. However I didn't experience any drift either.

Check with the farmer maybe yall can work out something to prevent this in the future - if that was what it was.

[Michael Bush]

I have heard from many beekeepers of a huge loss of bees shortly after someone sprayed herbicide...

[BeeMaster2]

Many times farmers spray herbicides and insecticides together instead of making two separate runs. The two together are a lot more deadly than either one by them selves.
20,000 hives were lost from a almond worker spraying them together with the hives still in the field. It took 2 weeks for it to kill them.
Jim

[Jim134]

If you spray herbicides or pesticides or fungicides... if your bees are closed where this stuff is being sprayed and especially if the flowers are out you can have a very quick Knock Down of your field bees.




                        BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)