Does the farmer not know that all life ( including insects we don't like)
are important to the ecosystem and that recent research claims that we may
not have enough food in the future - not because of Brexit but because we
are abusing our whole ecosystem??
On Fri, 22 Feb 2019 at 23:40, Paul Honigmann <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Zuzana asks
Farmer tells me, they will be spraying some chemicals in late March. Ihope we will get some notice about it. l plan to close the hive off for
that day (or two days?). Any advice on this please?
Some thoughts:
Remember bees need to breathe, so if your hive does not have a mesh floor
which you can open, consider putting some kind of mesh over the entrance
rather than just blocking it with e.g. a cork. In the past, lacking a
proper metal mesh I have used, for example, plastic netting that some
vegetables came in. I have heard of people stretching stockings over
entrances.
I think you only block the entrance for one day. You do it the evening
before, to stop any foragers emerging on the day of the spraying.
Farmers are not meant to spray flowering crops, especially ones that
attract pollinators. (I'm not sure all farmers know this.) Will the farmer
be spraying:
(1) Something right next to the hives? This is the biggest risk to the
bees and they must be kept in.
(2) A non flowering crop some distance away? In this case you probably
don't need to do anything.
(3) A flowering crop the bees might feed on? I'm not sure how you can stop
them taking up some poison, but you could probably reduce the dose by not
letting them out that day.
Does anyone else have advice? Despite my village / rural location, I have
no direct experience of losses from sprays - my thoughts are all based on
reading, not experience.
Paul
