http://www.centerforhoneybeeresearch.org/WaggleDancing/tabid/63/EntryId/17/Monsantos-Roundup-and-Honeybees.aspx ~ says Roundup has no effect on bees unless you doused the hive in the stuff. The ‘sources’ blaming Roundup for hive death are all private bloggers or talk shows. They are always in need of some new secret killer to sensationalize. I applied Roundup to my entire yard two years ago. My 2” long bumble bees are still flying. They seem unaffected.
Makes sense. The chemtrails-Nemesis-fill-in-the-blank folks can be a little jumpy.
I have never used RoundUp as a broadcast, just on poison ivy and Chinese Tallow. Both are tough items to kill. In my area, there are no agricultural operations that utilize RoundUp as a broadcast either, so I have no baseline on effects. I have had a beekeeper place hives out in my pastures and have had some fine honey through the years from them, so I do have some small experience with bees. Emphasis on the small.
Thanks for the link!
You live on a small parcel probably compared to spraying several hundred acres at one shot and probably do not use the same concentration as most farmers. The reason that is important is that your neighbors most likely did not spray at the same time as you, but in farm country thousands of acres are sprayed at a time...how would you even know if you killed or didn’t kill bees with your spraying? Your parcel even if five to ten acres is too small to stop bees from neighboring land from flying over after you have sprayed.
If you check...cancer rates are much higher for farmers than for other people. Due to the exposure every year from these safe chemicals. I have little doubt that bees and other insects and bugs, not to mention animals, get sick from exposure over time to these chemicals. I have a small river that runs through my property. Prior to the chemical spraying it had wild trout in it. The trout disappeared after farmers began using chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides.
No one is saying to stop using the chemicals in this story...the expert bee owner was trying to develop bees more resistant to these chemicals. That is worthy research...he was doing with his own money by the way...