Pesticide killing my bees?

[Legion©]

I noticed yesterday on one of my hives at home that there was about 30-40 dead bees outside it. I'd mown the lawn a few days earlier so I know they're all recent. Today there is probably a couple of hundred. The hive right next to it has the usual half dozen or so.

The dead bees are all mature (the hive swarmed a week or two ago, so no or little larvae anyhoo). No deformed wings, and Varroa hasn't made it to this part of the country yet, no bad smell in the hive, just the sweet smell of nectar evaporating.

I guessing due to the very quick nature of the deaths, and the fact that it's late spring/early summer that they've gotten into something someone has sprayed with pesticide. Our roses have all opened in the last week along with a lot of other flowering plants so it's certainly spraying time.

If that is the case and they've brought it back to the hive and are now feeding from the contaminated nectar/pollen what it the likely scenario? Am I going to lose all or part of the hive? Any steps I can take?

Thanks

Paul

[Michael Bush]

In my experience, pesticide kills usually are short lived and things straighten out shortly. Of course it's Summer there so the bees can still recover by winter. Seems like the Penncap-M (used for aphids) was mistaken for pollen by the bees and was long lived in the hive and fed to the larvae, but most of the current insecticides here in the US are pretty short lived. I can't say what they have in New Zealand.

[Legion©]

Thanks, I'm hoping it's over already. There was fairly high winds last night, so most of the dead bees are gone, and they don't seem to be building up again today.

I think for the most part NZ is pretty tight on what they'll let people use, though there have historically been a few particularly bad things they allowed to continue in use after other countries had banned them; such as a Dioxin pesticide called '2,4,5-T' which the government even subsidised for a long time.

It's always worrying when something goes bad for your bees for the first time, and not knowing quite what it is and the what consequences will be doesn't help.

Paul.