“Whodunit: Unwitting Oregon Bee Killer Turns Self In” is a story on real facts, written by Bob the beekeeper, a professional beekeeper and American blogger,
In June 2014, on her blog, Dena Rash Guzman, an Oregon (USA) citizen, hobbyist beekeeper, suspected neonicotinoids pesticides of of the mass bee die-off which striked her hives.
Activist groups like Beyond Pesticides wasted no time linking to the story proclaiming, “But according to advocates, bee deaths in Oregon last week from the use of a neonicotinoid and mounting scientific evidence require an urgent response that necessitates removing these chemicals from the market.”
But a month later, the bee die-off was still unexplained : “it turns out that there wasn’t a bit of pesticides involved and the angry new beekeeper just doesn’t know how to keep bees”
On the 12th of august 2014, in a news from Capital Press, a professional newspaper, “Commercial keeper Harry Vanderpool, who was consulted during the investigation, was more blunt about it. He said the hobbyists didn’t know what they were doing and “raised the red flag of pesticides” when their bees died. Each newly established hive should have been fed a gallon per week of sugar-syrup mix for the first month, he said. Instead, “There was not one drop of food in any of them,” he said. “Don’t go throw a (hive) box in the backyard and run to the Pesticide Division when they all die,” Vanderpool said. “That is beekeeper error, that’s what it is, 100 percent.”
Conclusion from Bob the beekeeper : “Feed the bees!”
Please read the full story and Internet links, it’s very informative and meaningful.
Our conclusion : Neonicotinoids may kill bees in specific conditions. It is logical to forbid some uses, for example during flowering. But beekeepers should stop to regard pesticides as a scapegoat…
