# Pesticides/Chemical Treatments and Robbing



## peacekeeperapiaries (Jun 23, 2009)

Hmm, yes this could be a valid concern and one that I share with you. I agree responsible beekeeping should be encouraged. However I remind you of your recent post (how mean is mean thread I think ???) which posed a similar question in regards to hive inspections in which you dismissed everyones concerns about yours and others lack of enthusiasm or time to "properly inspect" your own hives for signs of communicable diseases such as AFB and other problems. So as stated I share this concern with you about colonies robbing other colonies which may contain honey with chemicals on board. With this in mind can you not see the concerns brought forth in your previous thread concerning colonies robbing out an improperly managed or inspected hive which might contain AFB or other viruses/problems? I would say OUR (yours and mine) concerns about chemicals and the concerns brought forth about proper inspections for AFB/problems are pretty "even" if you ask me, I hope you will agree, then we can all promote RESPONSIBLE beekeeping as it relates to both chemicals and proper hive inspections.


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## arthur (Apr 6, 2008)

Sure.

But I think I should point out that AFB seems to be relatively uncommon. At least around here.

But illegal/unethical chemical treatment is likely not too uncommon.


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## peacekeeperapiaries (Jun 23, 2009)

yep AFB is very uncommon, especially to those who dont look for it. Those of us who have burned thousands of dollars of hives and equipment might disagree with you though. It not about common or not, 1 hive with AFB can potentially infect many more.. Just like 1 hive with an over abundance of chems being robbed by several or many hives can "infect" many gallons of honey and those hives bringing it home. Is all about responsible beekeeping RIGHT not about whats common or not.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

1. illegal chemical treatements are _very_ common.

2. there is nothing ethical about putting treatments in a hive that is too weak to keep mass robbing at bay.

3. if the chemical treatments actually worked, one would think that treated hives would be strong enough to fend off robbing.

deknow


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

arthur said:


> It occurred to me that if your biological hive is robbing out another hive that has not practiced biological beekeeping, and worse, might even have been practicing in ways that are frowned on (treatments with honey supers on, during flow).....you don't what kind of honey you have in your supers.
> 
> I wonder how frequent robbing is for strong hives. Doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it, except encourage biological, responsible beekeeping.


I think you have it a bit backwards here

Beekeeping should be responsible at any given time whether you treat or not. Being responsible means following the directions to the T, and following the dose, and the withdrawal times for said products. Over dosing changes the withdrawal time...just a tid bit of info.

99% of most beekeepers follow directions
Commercial have to follow directions or risk their crop being turned away at the packers for residue levels of treatments. This could bankrupt them.

I think the beeks we have to worry about are the ones who just got started, who do something cause they were told to and told how to, but did not take the time to read directions.

i really wish that the backlash against people who work and treat their hives would cease. I may not agree with a beek not treating, but i am not going to go after them with a PETA like zeal and condemn them for it. There is room enough for more than one style of beekeeping


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## arthur (Apr 6, 2008)

Part of why I keep hives is so I can have honey that is not produced in hives that have been treated with pesticides and other toxic chemicals.

That's my choice. I'm sure lots of people are fine with eating honey that comes from these kinds of methods. That's their choice.

This is a subject for another thread, but I think the commercial guys suffer a bit from "first man in" syndrome.

If all commercial beeks would band together and agree to only use hygienic bees and not use all these chemical treatments (like many hobbyists do), then we could get somewhere, because everyone would be in the same boat. But as is, in the short term the guy who is using lots of chemical treatments has an advantage. And the longterm advantage that is reaped by the guy who has abandoned chemicals is not exclusive to him--it is distributed among all beekeepers. Thus we see, very little movement towards hygienic beekeeping that operates without chemicals.

At least that's one of my takes on it.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

honeyshack said:


> 99% of most beekeepers follow directions
> Commercial have to follow directions or risk their crop being turned away at the packers for residue levels of treatments. This could bankrupt them.


well, the 2 instances discussed here:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=511680#post511680
amount to about 1% of the commercial hives in the country...so if these are the only ones, then your 99% figure is about right.

deknow


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

There are some bad beekeepers, I will admit that. However, one thing that is missing here is....all honey sold to American and Canadian packers is tested. Each lot is tested. It is tested for residue. If it surpasses the threshold limit, it is rejected and condemned. The problem with that is once rejected it can not be sold anywhere else. A good thing. This could drive a beek to bankruptcy...not on most peoples adjendas...

Arthur...I refer you to a thread

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241872

This one seems to have passed the none treat beeks by due to the hard realities of numbers....and the use of hygenic queens.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

honeyshack said:


> T....all honey sold to American and Canadian packers is tested. Each lot is tested. It is tested for residue. If it surpasses the threshold limit, it is rejected and condemned.


rejected...sure, in many cases a packer will reject honey based on tests.

condemned? never as far as I'm aware....even heavily contaminated chinese honey is returned to the seller (no govt agency is ever appraised when lab tests show problems). i know of one load of honey that was destroyed (pharmaceutical contamination), beyond that, there is always someone willing to buy contaminated honey at the right price...and the right price is always higher than dumping the load.

you should also talk to some labs (like the one that mike palmer gave the phone number for in the thread i linked to above). honey is regularly coming up contaminated with hfcs (this particular lab ony does sugar tests, not pesticide testing). 

more disturbing is that rice syrup is being found more and more often. the lab tests show that something is "off" on the protein profile...but because it can't be specifically identified (even thought the lab knows that it does not test as it should for honey, they can't say it's adultrated becasue they don't have a specific test for rice syrup), packers are often contractually obligated to buy the shipment, even when they know it's adulterated.

as far as pesticedes....i know less about the testing procedures and trends, but i can't believe that some beekeepers aren't using offlable/illegal treatments that are specifically not tested for.

deknow


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## bigbearomaha (Sep 3, 2009)

Honeyshack, I see things in terms of 'backlash' as the other way around. in terms of methodology, there are more folks who practice the treatment, 'traditional' methodology of the past 150 years or so than there are who promote the 'non-chemical' or non-treatment methodologies.

If you peruse the vast and many posts and threads of this forum alone, you will likely find it is the 'traditionalists' who frown upon and shout down the non-treatment folks. 

As this non-treatment wave have come about, the discussion has become more vocal to be sure and there are some folks who become as judgmental and 'over-lordly' as many of those who wish to impose the 'traditional' methods upon everyone.

Personally, I would suggest that regardless of methodology, we should stop trying to force our ways onto others and simply accept that we do things and see things differently. As long as we are all doing what we feel is our best to keep honey bees alive and offer help to those who ask (but not make sweeping judgment) then we will be in a good place.

Now, in terms of the actual topic, This is a big issue with the organic certifications as well. Unless one's apiary is essentially isolated from any other bees, chemically treated plants, etc.. there is no way to guarantee that they will not bring in substances from other hives they robbed or pesticide covered pollen, etc..

I think the closest you can come is to say in your bee yard, you work to create a certain environment and hopefully, it will be maintained that way, more or less.

Big Bear


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## MeriB (Mar 15, 2010)

Forgive me if this is a bit long. I see so many parrallels here with Modern Medicine. At one time everything Homeopathic was considered bad. Only new Scientific things were good. Then REAL studies started being done. Some of the new stuff was found to be rot. Many of the Old, anecdotal practicesl were found to have merit. Because every person is unique, my Responsible Practice of Nursing requires me to consider both sets of information AND how my patient is responding to my care. I am a new beek. I plan to use this approach to keeping my bees. Because they cant tell me what is happening, I will rely on my mentors and the old hands here to help me interpret their behavior to apply the best practices to meet their needs, whatever that may be.


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## erwkkkk08 (Mar 13, 2010)

MeriB, 
Thats a great approach to your beekeeping, everything and every hive is different, what will work for you will not work for others and vice/versa, I myself have had wonderful results with essential oils and other natural products, but I don't dare fault others for using more mainstream methods. It's easy to forget that we're all individuals within a whole.
Like Bruce Lee said, "Keep what is useful, discard what is not".
Best of luck.


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