The days of empty boxes being filled by swarms are over. Unless your bees are on a Eucalyptus honey flow or in native forests, it seems you are in trouble. The rate of recent use of Neonics is unprecedented in Australia's pesticide history; the growth in use amounts to a complete take over of most of our major crops here. Beekeepers are running away from canola (oilseed rape) for the first time in history, we used to run towards it! I can only see a downward spiral, Australian beekeepers are mostly older and the art of generational beekeeping is almost a myth.
Neonicotinoids are used everywhere; there have never been any field tests in Australian conditions, to observe the mortality rates of bees on Neonics, which is quite peculiar in itself. I believe Australia may have followed suit to the EPA in the USA, although we didn't get any field tests at all. Australia depends upon bees as much as the rest of the world, we are a sizeable food bowl.
The beekeepers are mostly befuddled by what is happening to their bees, this scenario seemed to sneak in under the radar in Australia, there were no substantial consultations with beekeepers, very few people even know that the systemic pesticides they are using are even dangerous to bees. Bees dwindling off everywhere.
Jeffrey Gibbs, 6 October 2011
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