First hand experience with chemicals used for citrus production makes beekeepers skeptical about working orange for honey. Growers are spraying chemicals like Admire for control of pest that spread citrus greening. These chemicals are extremely cost effective costing a little as five dollars per acre to spray. In comparison, bee friendly less toxic chemicals cost five time the amount of money to spray. I saw first hand this weekend the effect of these chemicals sprayed in groves, I have pictures depicting the death of the hive and witnessed sick bees pulling the pupa out of the hive with piles of dead bees at the entrance of about 100 hives.
The action of the bees was exactly like a termite kill from the same neonics, pulling the pupa and larva out and distributing in front of the hive. We removed the bees from the grove on Sat night and hopefully can get them on a road to recovery. The EPA is in Florida at this very moment checking the kill of large numbers of colonies that were set on the orange crops, hopefully something good can come out of this terrible loss. Mr. Putnam the Commissioner of Agriculture should prohibit the use of this toxic chemical at all cost. require the grove owners to spray non systemic chemicals and put strict requirements on the use of all neonics.
The action of the bees was exactly like a termite kill from the same neonics, pulling the pupa and larva out and distributing in front of the hive. We removed the bees from the grove on Sat night and hopefully can get them on a road to recovery. The EPA is in Florida at this very moment checking the kill of large numbers of colonies that were set on the orange crops, hopefully something good can come out of this terrible loss. Mr. Putnam the Commissioner of Agriculture should prohibit the use of this toxic chemical at all cost. require the grove owners to spray non systemic chemicals and put strict requirements on the use of all neonics.