Cotton, Bees and Pesticides
Bees Have Legal "Right of Way"
Cotton and bees have a mutually beneficial relationship. Cotton feeds bees, and bees aid in cotton pollination. Yet more bees are killed each year from cotton spraying than any other southern crop.
The reason is misused insecticides. All insecticides that are toxic to bees have specific label directions concerning bees, but these are often ignored. Once a grower told me, "Bees are fine, as long as they don't get in my way."
The sickening
sight of poisoned bees is familiar to beekeepers, who sometimes have our
"livestock" slaughtered en masse, by applications made in violation of label
directions. The decline of domestic and wild pollinators is one of the most important
environmental issues of today, and continued decline will threaten our food supply.
Beekeepers have increased pollination efficiency, by migration from crop to crop, to
compensate for the loss of all pollinators. But there are limits to this.
Is it a legal application?
Online Resources for All
Texts of many pesticide labels in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format are available online from:
*Crop Data Management Systems, Inc. 423
Fourth Street, 7th Floor, Marysville, CA 95901
*Sample Bee Protection Statements from a
couple of Pesticides Commonly Used on Cotton
Applicator Resources
Flow chart of procedures to comply with bee directions on
labels (large graphic, slow loading)
Compliance with label directions through monitoring - Don't
rely on guesswork or assumptions
Some cotton/bee foraging rules of thumb
Monitor report for SC coastal plain
Using IPM scouts as monitors
Trespassers? Not any more!
McGregor on Pesticide Poisoning of Bees -Written
from a pre-FIFRA perspective, so recommendations are not up-to-date, but gives a good
overview of the bee/pesticide problem Coming
Soon!
Sources of info on cotton pollination
Beekeeper Resources
Providing monitor hives a way
to help the good guys comply.
Neighborhood Watch as a tool to stop the violators
*Mention of commercial sources or products does not imply recommendation or criticism.