[Pollinator] Bumblebee Kill in Eugene Rains on Pollinator Week

[Matthew Shepherd]

From: Squash Practice
http://squashpractice.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/bumblebee-kill-in-eugene-rains-on-pollinator-week/
Bumblebee
Kill in Eugene Rains on Pollinator Week

June 18, 2014

It is with dismay that I must report on another bumblebee kill, this time
only about a mile away from the bees in my yard.  All of the details are
not in yet, but the basic picture is clear.  Insecticide was sprayed on
blooming linden trees in an apartment complex in northwest Eugene.
 Residents reported that the sidewalks were littered with dead and dying
bees.  Apparently officials from the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA)
and Oregon State University were on the scene to collect samples and
initiate an investigation.  I’m sure we will know soon what was sprayed and
who did it.

Recall that about this time last year more than 50,000 bumblebees were
killed in Wilsonville.  That prompted the ODA to issue restrictions on the
neonicotinoids dinotefuran and imidacloprid, banning their use on linden
trees.  It is also against label directions to spray pesticides on blooming
plans when there bees present.

I went to survey the bee kill scene this evening.  The ODA and OSU
investigators had gone, but the dying bees were still falling from the
trees.  Walking around the complex I identified eleven blooming linden
trees that had been sprayed and had dead and dying bees on the ground under
the trees.  Under one set of three trees I counted about 300 bees on the
side-walk.  Easily there was 200 more in the grass and shrubbery.  I later
learned from one of the residents that she and others had swept the bees up
already once and she was dismayed to continue to see them fall from the
trees.  My brief survey was apparently just the more recent victims.  The
eventual body count will depend significantly on what was sprayed.  If the
insecticide is one of the neonics, the toxin is designed to be taken up in
the plant tissues, and the trees will be lethal to bees until after they
stop blooming.  If they were sprayed with a pyrethrin, then the worst
toxicity will probably be gone in about a week.

That such a thoughtless act falls in the middle of Pollinator Week just
illustrates how far we still have to go.  Eugene may be the first city to
ban the use of neonicotinoids on city property, but that action helps
little when these chemicals are actively promoted and used by thousands of
homeowners, landscapers, residential maintenance companies and pesticide
applicator on private lands.

All this matters to me because my bees are in range of those trees.
 Right now the blackberry honey flow is still keeping most of the bees
occupied, but the blackberry flowers are beginning to dry up and the bees
will be looking further afield. Bees heading west from my house that find
their way across the industrial railroad yard will come upon the very
attractive linden blossoms.

The residents mentioned that the trees in their neighborhood often dripped
a sticky mist from aphids in the summer.  Apparently, this is not the first
time that the trees have been sprayed, but this year they sprayed earlier
than in previous years.

Although bee kills like this one will make headlines, it is the less
dramatic impact of pesticides that are even much more troubling.  Have
these trees been poisoning my bees for years at sub lethal levels?  How
many pounds of these toxic pesticides are spread about in my bees’ foraging
range?  Is residential beekeeping doomed by thoughtless policy and people?
 The pollinators are weak this week
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