# Absence of honey bees at garden centers...??



## rlsiv (Feb 26, 2011)

My guess would be that the big box store's "forage" is temporary and changes daily... new plants get brought in, displays get moved, inventory gets sold - - all on a daily basis or multiple times per week.... so it may be more difficult for the bees to repeatedly "discover" attractive blooms there and communicate its' presence to the rest of the colony - and therefore less of an attraction than other forage alternatives.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Not my guess ... I believe that these plants have every conceivable chemical on them and in them that makes them undesirable if not deadly.


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## RickR (Mar 19, 2010)

It may be that they just don't have anything that attracts honeybees right now. We have a Lowes, Homedepot, and two locally owned nursery/garden centers close to home. I see honeybees at all of the locations certain times of the year. I usually see more in the mid to late Summer, and during the early Fall. In fact I've made several flower purchases based on the activity I've seen. I was purchasing blueberries from a nursery about 1/4 of a mile from my house early this Spring, and the clerk commented on how many bees they had in their greenhouse. I just smiled and asked him to be nice to them 'cause they were probably mine.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

My guess is that many of the flowers/plants are either hybrid/GMO/pesticided and the bees may not like them as well as ones which exist in nature untampered.

I'm not saying bees never forage on plants which are victimized by "science", but they have other options.


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## suburbanrancher (Aug 5, 2011)

Intheswamp, I did the exact same thing last year and saw HB's on salvia, gaillardia and something else I can't remember.
This year I've noticed the same as you: no HB's or even BB's anywhere at Lowes or HD. I suspect it's just as the other poster mentioned, the turnover is very quick and there probably isn't enough of it to draw the bees in if there's a field of something more enticing blooming. 
Plus, I've noticed more and more flowers are the "double-flowered" type and these are not generally good for any pollinators as the second row of petals are derived from the plant's reproductive parts (read that somehwere...) and thus provide almost no nectar or pollen.


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## oldforte (Jul 17, 2009)

They have better things to do at this time. Wait till late summer and fall....they will be there.


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

Intheswamp said:


> I did not see the first honey bee on any of the thousands of blooms there.


Did you fail to see honey bees working flowers that normally attract them such as escallonia, lavender and salvia? In order to make a case that there might be something "faulty" with the flowering plants for sale at Home Depot you would have to show honeybees are actively working those same species of plants in the neighborhoods surrounding Home Depot.


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

Acebird said:


> Not my guess ... I believe that these plants have every conceivable chemical on them and in them that makes them undesirable if not deadly.





PatBeek said:


> My guess is that many of the flowers/plants are either hybrid/GMO/pesticided and the bees may not like them as well as ones which exist in nature untampered.


I visited the local Home Depot this afternoon in Placerville, California (40 miles east of Sacramento) and
found lots of honeybees visiting the potted lavender, escallonia and salvia flowers that were for sale as
you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25jMXpt9OWU


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## Scrapfe (Jul 25, 2008)

BlueDiamond said:


> Did you fail to see honey bees working flowers that normally attract them...


I suspect that a bag of peanuts in the middle of a twenty acre patch of asphalt would be as safe from the attention of elephants as would a van load of flowers be safe from the attention of bees if they were in most Lows‘ parking lots.


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

I saw some Honey bees working some purple flowers at my local Home Depot. So I bought them, and brought them home. My bees wont touch them.


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## Mrobisr (Mar 10, 2012)

Sad, but true not enough bees! No chemicals, no pesticides, no boogie man, just that the bees have enough invader mites and shb to keep the wild pop at a poor level. I/we used a lot stronger pesticides in the past and the bees did fine. I live in the heart of used to be bee country, but the native pop to include the africanized bee is next to nil. We must and will breed mite tolerant and the disease tolerant bees into the local pop and hopefully it will work in our favor.:thumbsup:


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## SRatcliff (Mar 19, 2011)

Probably just something better in bloom.


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## casinoken (May 6, 2012)

Guys, look at it this way. Are there any hives within range of the stores u have visited. I do the same thing when I go to Lowe's. The Lowe's in Philadelphia, MS is especially nice because one of our forum members has 40 to 60 hives just a few hundred yards away. I pick perrenials that I see them working. Just my two cents, with the decline of HB populations worldwide, what are the odds that there is a hive within range of a big box store like Lowe's in a city that is large enough to support it.


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## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

I think also something which is missed is bees don't wander around looking for flowers. Scouts are sent out to look and report back with the complex dancing which tells them quantity, distance and direction. Why would a hive go to HD when they can go to a 20 acre field getting ready for summer harvest.

Foragers communicate their floral findings in order to recruit other worker bees of the hive to forage in the same area. The factors that determine recruiting success are not completely known but probably include evaluations of the quality of nectar and/or pollen brought in.

There are two main hypotheses to explain how foragers recruit other workers — the "waggle dance" or "dance language" theory and the "odor plume" theory. The dance language theory is far more widely accepted, and has far more empirical support. The theories also differ in that the former allows for an important role of odor in recruitment (i.e., effective recruitment relies on dance plus odor), while the latter claims that the dance is essentially irrelevant (recruitment relies on odor alone).
The Waggle Dance of the Honeybee.ogv
The Waggle Dance of the Honeybee

It has long been known that successfully foraging Western honey bees perform a dance on their return to the hive, known as waggle dance, indicating that food is farther away, while the round dance is a short version of the waggle dance, indicating that food is nearby. The laden forager dances on the comb in a circular pattern, occasionally crossing the circle in a zig-zag or waggle pattern. Aristotle described this behaviour in his Historia Animalium. It was thought to attract the attention of other bees.

In 1947,[citation needed] Karl von Frisch correlated the runs and turns of the dance to the distance and direction of the food source from the hive. The orientation of the dance correlates to the relative position of the sun to the food source, and the length of the waggle portion of the run is correlated to the distance from the hive. Also, the more vigorous the display is, the better the food. There is no evidence that this form of communication depends on individual learning.

Von Frisch performed a series of experiments to validate his theory.[7] He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for his discoveries.

One of the most important lines of evidence on the origin and utility of the dance is that all of the known species and races of honey bees exhibit the behavior, but details of its execution vary among the different species. For example, in Apis florea and Apis andreniformis (the "dwarf honeybees") the dance is performed on the dorsal, horizontal portion of the nest, which is exposed. The runs and dances point directly toward the resource in these species. Each honey bee species has a characteristically different correlation of "waggling" to distance, as well.[8] Such species-specific behavior suggests that this form of communication does not depend on learning but is rather determined genetically. It also suggests how the dance may have evolved.

Various experiments document that changes in the conditions under which the dance is performed lead to characteristic changes in recruitment to external resources,[9] in a manner consistent with von Frisch's original conclusions. Researchers have also discovered other forms of honeybee dance communication, such as the tremble dance.
Odor plume

While the majority of researchers believe that bee dances give enough information to locate resources, proponents of the odor plume theory argue that the dance gives no actual guidance to a nectar source. They argue that bees instead are primarily recruited by odor. The purpose of the dance is simply to gain attention to the returning worker bee so she can share the odor of the nectar with other workers who will then follow the odor trail to the source.

The primary lines of evidence used by the odor plume advocates are

clinical experiments with odorless sugar sources which show that worker bees are unable to recruit to those sources[citation needed] and
logical difficulties of a small-scale dance (a few centimeters across) giving directions precise enough to hold the other bees on course during a flight that could be several kilometers long. Misreading by even a few degrees would lead the bee off course by hundreds of meters at the far end.[citation needed]

Neither of these points invalidate the dance theory, but simply suggest that odor might be involved, which is indeed conceded by all proponents of dance theory. Critics of the odor plume theory counter that most natural nectar sources are relatively large - orchards or entire fields. Precision may not be necessary or even desirable. They have also challenged the reproducibility of the odorless source experiment.

Significant to the argument are the elegant experiments of William F. Towne, of the Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, such as this pdf file, in which hives are moved to "mirror image" terrain settings, and thus fooled into both dancing about the wrong location for a nectar source, and successfully recruiting foragers to that wrong location, but only when the sun is obscured by clouds, forcing them to rely on terrain-based navigation rather than "solar ephemeris" based navigation. As the cloud cover breaks up, more and more bees correct their dances to indicate the actual location of nectar, and forager visits shift to the correct location.

The academic debate between these two theories is extremely polarized and often hostile. See here for an overview. Adrian Wenner, a modern bee researcher, is the chief proponent of the odor plume theory (anti-dance). One supporter of Wenner's theories, Julian O'Dea, has proposed an evolutionary explanation for the "waggle dance" that does not involve communication from one bee to another, by claiming it may be a simple idiothetic movement that conveys no information [1]. Conversely, experiments with robotic dummies were indeed able to induce some recruitment,[10] which should not have been possible if the dance contains no information.

An article in the 18 September 2009 issue of New Scientist sets out evidence against the use by bees of the information in the dance [2].

The controversy persists, though it does so primarily due to an asymmetry between the two "camps"; those who study dance communication freely admit that odor is an essential component of the system, and even necessary at various stages of the recruitment process, including once a recruited forager reaches the vicinity of the resource (e.g.[11]), while odor-plume advocates do not acknowledge that the dance contains any information whatsoever. Various experimental results demonstrate that the dance does convey information, but the use of this information may be context-dependent (e.g.[12]), and this may explain why the results of earlier studies were inconsistent. In essence, both sides of the "controversy" agree that odor is used in recruitment to resources, but they differ strongly in opinion as to the information content of the dance.

Odor learning is usually tested by a method called the proboscis extension reflex.

Note: much of the research on the two competing hypotheses of communication has been restricted to Western honey bees (see the work of F.C. Dyer [3] though). Other species of Apis use variants on the same theme, and other types of bees use other methods altogether.


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

casinoken said:


> with the decline of HB populations worldwide


The decline is a myth: http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1204&L=BEE-L&F=&S=&P=227429


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## mike haney (Feb 9, 2007)

i always ASSUMED it was because of the overhead (via handheld sprinkler wands) watering washed the nectar from the flowers. BUT I AM NOT A SCIENTIST OR ENGINEER OR A BOOK AUTHOR so many here will say i'm wrong. and no, i dont stay in Holiday Inns.


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## summer1052 (Oct 21, 2007)

Two main issues here:

1.) Cides, aka herbicides and pesticides.

2.) Most (unless it's a "native" nursery) plant centers are geared to planting the "latest and greatest" hybrids and GMOs. The vast majority of these are self pollinating, and offer no forage to bees whatsoever.

Oddly enough these two problems may also be a factor in the decline of feral bee populations. But what do I know? 

_*Summer*_


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## JYawn (Dec 6, 2011)

BlueDiamond said:


> The decline is a myth: http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1204&L=BEE-L&F=&S=&P=227429


This study is only on kept colonies though, right? I would like to see studies done on feral bee populations.


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

I checked out the local Walmart Garden Center today (Placerville, Calif. east of Sacramento) and noticed bees even in the mostly enclosed part of the center: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foWHFQenWzc

About 10 days ago I had filmed them in the local Home Depot Garden Center:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25jMXpt9OWU


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## coopermaple (Aug 30, 2009)

We have a small retail greenhouse business with mostly annuals and some perenials. We rarely see any honey bees on the flowers and there are 20-50 hives within a mile of us. We do get a few bumble bees and some native pollinators. We Rarely use any pesticides in the greenhouses and when we do we use the safest option to control the problem. With a few exceptions most of the plants we carry are not sought out by honey bees either in, near the greenhouses, or in the garden. From what I have seen at other garden centers it is very similar. One garden center even has it's own hive on site and customers rarely see any honey bees.
Mark


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

Was at the Troy, Alabama Walmart last Sunday...went from one end of the garden center to the other with the purpose of spotting a honey be...it didn't happen....bumbles were there but no honey bees. 

In my original post I was not inferring that anything was odd about the plants at these BBSs but that apparently the local bee population was very weak to non-existent. It seems to me that a garden center with row upon row of blooming flowers would be attractive to local honey bees...especially in the dearth that we're entering into. Even though the plants come in and go out the bees aren't stupid...I believe they know the "usual spots" to check out. Kind of like an oasis in the desert. It will be interesting to see how it is a little later when things get really hot and dry. We've already experienced a 100-degree day and mid-90's have been *very* regular.

I would say that either the local honey bee population was weak, as I stated above or that there is/was something the bees preferred over the retail plants.

Whatever the case, it's kind of interesting...and worrisome. 

Thanks for the feedback!
Ed


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

Bee swarm right on a Walmart building itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls1yO47eKH0


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

Hmm, so honey bees are attracted to the faux stone of Walmart buildings but not to their flowers...interesting.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

BlueDiamond said:


> Bee swarm right on a Walmart building itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls1yO47eKH0


I think that box design is lacking in the function department. He needs to make the bottom removable instead of trying to beat them out of the small opening.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Acebird said:


> I think that box design is lacking in the function department. He needs to make the bottom removable instead of trying to beat them out of the small opening.


I would have brushed them into a cardboard box and avoided the additional trip(s). And while I would avoid being too critical of a more experienced beekeeper, I bet those metal nuc covers get quite hot...


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Only if they are direct sunlight.


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

Intheswamp said:


> Hmm, so honey bees are attracted to the faux stone of Walmart buildings but not to their flowers...interesting.


The bees like some of the Walmart flowers too (the reason I didn't stay longer to check more of the flowers for sale at Walmart is because the company has a no cameras allowed policy):

Walmart Garden Center:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foWHFQenWzc

Home Depot Garden Center:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25jMXpt9OWU


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## Yucca Patrol (Mar 31, 2012)

Most plants sold at big box garden centers are varieties developed to be more pleasant to the human eye, even if it means they are less attractive to our bees. "Double" flowers are mutants that have extra petals instead of the rest of the parts of the flowers that produce nectar and pollen. Look nice, but useless to a honey bee.

Also, these sorts of garden centers depend on impulse purchases of short lived annual plants from customers who will only buy something that is flowering the moment they buy it. These people are not going to plant something in the spring that won't flower until next fall.

Thankfully, we do have a few decent independent local nurseries that sell some nice stuff, but the very best plants we grow come through mail order nurseries.


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## julysun (Apr 25, 2012)

I saw four bees on the Salvia at Lowes yesterday. Two miles from there at my home I see zero bees. Baytown Tx near the Gulf. I have a saucer of honey on my back porch, will see if I attract bees.


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

I checked out the Green Acres garden center in Folsom, Calif. (suburb of Sacramento) this morning. Lots of commercial nursery plants there were teaming with honeybees (and some wild bees as well) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZppIGdR68U


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## oldforte (Jul 17, 2009)

This thread is a good example of how we try to explain why bees do or don't do some of the things that we think they should do. Some give the opinion that they stay away from the BBS flowers because of chemicals, pesticides, GEO or other reasons. Others SEE a multitude of bees visiting these same plants. I have planted many different flowers that bees have been attracted to in the past. Some years they ignore them and other times they are all over them. THE BEES WILL NEVER TELL!


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

oldforte, my thought when I posted the original message was that apparently there is an absence of honey bees in the range of the few stores that I've looked at in south Alabama. I was at Lowes of troy a week or so ago and experienced the same thing (and we're basically in a dearth now)...no honey bees on anything. They had a good stand of hyssop plants (I bought a couple) and several other plants known to attract honey bees. Several bumble bees were present. I just think that there isn't a good population in the area. Same thing happened over in Greenville, Alabama at Wallyworld...no honey bees but several bumbles.

The dearth has progressed a bit now so I'll keep paying attention as conditions get "worse". 

I understand completely what you're saying about bees ignoring known honey plants. I planted four small hills of vitex negundo last year. The plants were rooted plants that I dug up last year at another beeks yard. The plants have grown so much that the smallest bunch is about twice the total volume of what I planted last year. Tallest plant is about 4 feet tall and all the plants are blooming. But, there are no honey bees working it when I check....bumble bees, wasps, tiny wasps/bees, hornets, etc.,. Go figure, eh? :scratch:

Ed


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## dnichols (May 28, 2012)

I am thinking they probably don't want to go throu the checkout line. . Sorry couldn't resist...


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

Well, I can't blame them for that!

Ed


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## danmcm (May 23, 2012)

Every notice how the box stores usually have thirty percent of the stock dead or dieing... Underwater over watered shade plants in the sun full sun plants in the shade... My favorite how many still see the spring bulbs and bare root plants in bags on the cardboard displays. Yep those strawberry roots haven't been watered in six months but they are still for sale. My point is the plants are hit with large amounts of bloom booster at the nursery then sent to a big box store and stressed further by teenage workers who don't know or frankly care nectar is washed from plants in the once every three days they are over watered to make up for being neglected for days. I will say I worked for twelve years for garden stores including seven years in home depot garden centers. They buy gmo plants that look pretty and sell but rarely if ever use pesticides at the store that would cost money easier to move plants to the back of the store to die and get credit from the grower, fact happens all the time. Local nursery is different but rarely would they have enough of one thing blooming to get a scouts attention.


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

I wonder if all of this "revelation' regarding neonicotinoids in the plants sold at the BBS garden centers had anything to do with what I observed two years ago? I know people reported seeing honey bees at those stores, but I wonder if in our area the damage had already been done and a honey bee "dead zone" around the garden centers had already been created...???? 

It will be interesting if in a couple of years I start seeing honey bees at these garden centers...

Ed

05-22-2012, 08:06 AM


Intheswamp said:


> This is definitely a limited observation in south central Alabama...
> 
> Naturally, being interested in honey bees I tend to check out blooming plants for honey bees foraging on them. I recently went by a Home Depot in Montgomery, Alabama and Lowes in Troy, Alabama and visited the garden centers of both stores. I did not see the first honey bee on any of the thousands of blooms there. Of course I didn't look at all the blooms but I searched around with the idea of purchasing flowers that I saw honey bees working. The only thing I saw was some lonely bumble bees. I've also noticed at a couple of the "local" Walmarts a definite lack of honey bees on the blooms there.
> 
> ...


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Many horticultural flowers have been selected and hybridized. An unfortunate part of the selection is de-emphasis on scent, nectar and seed production. Many hybrids are completely sterile. Modern roses, freesias and a host of other "scented" flowers are now produced entirely without perfume (or nectar). Heading flowers to renew the bloom is labor intensive, and modern selections avoid burdening the homeowner with actually visiting the sidewalk garden strip, by presenting flowers that are sterile and do not need to be headed. Sterile flowers tend to be nectar free.

Many flowers are mechanically unsuitable for bees, and these are especially frequent in "color spot" selections.

Assuming "box stores" are bad for bees, and then making an observation to support the supposition --- this is not science, but classic "confirmation bias".

Yes, you can find bees at nurseries, and yes, watching bee behavior is a good way to make selections for your own garden --- there are surprises. Bees optimize their foraging -- if a sweeter source exists in volume --- they will move to the sweet nectar and nearly ignore the other. They are able to detect even subtle changes in sugar content. In the flow, in the spring time, the bees are going to ignore small patches of plants in the sales rack, and forage on the abundance outside. In August the situation will reverse.

The main suburban pipeline for "neo-nics" are Advantage flea drops. Every Golden Retriever and Kittykat behind every fenced backyard is doused monthly in a killing dose of imidacloprid at enormous expense to the homeowner. The simple solution is to give all these household parasites distemper and heartworm.


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

JWChesnut said:


> The main suburban pipeline for "neo-nics" are Advantage flea drops. Every Golden Retriever and Kittykat behind every fenced backyard is doused monthly in a killing dose of imidacloprid at enormous expense to the homeowner. The simple solution is to give all these household parasites distemper and heartworm.


Yes, I understand a lot of what you were saying, JW. I was just a bit curious about this latest issue/frenzy/fact/myth/whatever coming up after what I physically saw a couple of years ago.

I am confused, though, about that last statement you made. Surely you are not saying that everyone's dogs and cats are parasites and that they should all be given distemper and heartworms? :scratch:


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## cg3 (Jan 16, 2011)

JWChesnut said:


> The main suburban pipeline for "neo-nics" are Advantage flea drops. Every Golden Retriever and Kittykat behind every fenced backyard is doused monthly in a killing dose of imidacloprid


This is why I avoid eating cat.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Yeah, I guess a public campaign slogan "Save the bees, Barbeque your Dog" would not get much traction, even if it had celebrity endorsers. 

Fallback position would be to relentlessly promote "treatment free" dog ownership --- between heartworm, rabies and distemper, we should be able to make a dent in the canine overpopulation.


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## cg3 (Jan 16, 2011)

Of course there are celebrity endorsers for TF kids.


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

JWChesnut said:


> Yeah, I guess a public campaign slogan "Save the bees, Barbeque your Dog" would not get much traction, even if it had celebrity endorsers.


Would depend in which culture/country you're campaigning in... 

cg3, I agree with you about the cats...I'm on a strict "no cat diet". Hmm, but thinking about it, I did eat at an asian restaurant yesterday....if I start noticing fewer ticks on me I'll know something. inch:


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

cg3 said:


> Of course there are celebrity endorsers for TF kids.


Great way to leverage the "Hollywood" wisdom.
If the real issue with bees is the replacement of conservation land with monocultures of soy and corn to feed the planets untamed billions of humans then ....

The effective slogan: "Save the bees, expose your kids needlessly to deadly childhood diseases" Yup, that's the ticket.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>between heartworm, rabies and distemper, we should be able to make a dent in the canine overpopulation. 

And you would have genetically stronger dogs...

>"Save the bees, expose your kids needlessly to deadly childhood diseases"

Take out the word "needlessly" and that is precisely what they did when I was a kid. They made sure we got exposed to everything when we were healthy and strong and not when we were sick and weak. It was done for a purpose and was not perceived as "needless".


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> They made sure we got exposed to everything when we were healthy and strong and not when we were sick and weak.


And today parents try to sterilize everything that comes in contact with not only their kids but everyone. You can see how that is not working.


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## Stella (May 22, 2013)

Im sure my boys ate a lot of dirt when they were young because they were always trying to dig a hole to China. When they got bored with that, they would fill the hole with water so they could cover themselves with mud.
Auh...the good ol' days.


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