# round up



## cteddo (May 15, 2010)

What are the effects of spraying round up or other herbicides near the bee yard?


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## jrbbees (Apr 4, 2010)

It kills the plants!:lpf:

Just don't spray on the hives or on a water source.


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

I wonder how many bees or brood die from round up? If you check the internet, it always say round up is not “bee poison” – not danger to bees or insects.

How get a product approved as “not danger to bees”? As far as I know, they test it on bees and if the killing rate is less than 50 bees out of 100 they can call it not danger, - bee friendly.

Dos anybody knows what’s happen when bees pick up the fine drops from the plants and feed there brood?


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## Ruben (Feb 11, 2006)

The key is not to spray it on something that is in bloom.


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## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

Axtmann said:


> As far as I know, they test it on bees and if the killing rate is less than 50 bees out of 100 they can call it not danger, - bee friendly.


I'm an organic gardener and wouldn't touch Round-up but that "testing method" seems a bit far-fetched to me.

Wayne


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## Kingfisher Apiaries (Jan 16, 2010)

The berry patch I pollinate for sprays the wild blackberries with it, have not had any problems....

mike


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## PCM (Sep 18, 2007)

Roundup has been on the market for 35 years or so.
So have these discussions regarding Roundup & Bees,they were in the bee magazines, long before Personal Computer discussion groups were even thought of.


:lookout: PCM


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## wolfpenfarm (Jan 13, 2009)

Axtmann said:


> I wonder how many bees or brood die from round up? If you check the internet, it always say round up is not “bee poison” – not danger to bees or insects.


its because its a herbicide, not a pesticide.




> How get a product approved as “not danger to bees”? As far as I know, they test it on bees and if the killing rate is less than 50 bees out of 100 they can call it not danger, - bee friendly.


:O that is the LD50 for testing on how poisonous a chemical is based on rats. It is based on how many mg/kg it takes to get to a lethal dose of 50% death rate. Shoot sugar has a LD50 on it. BTW this is how much sugar it takes to kill you. 

LD50: 29700 mg/kg; IPR-mus LD50: 14000 mg/kg

But if you do Sevin dust, it only takes a few ounces to destroy all your hives, while you yourself would have to eat something like 5 pounds of it to kill you. 

They do not use LD50 on insects. Only on mammals.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_Dos anybody knows what’s happen when bees pick up the fine drops from the plants and feed there brood? _

It prevents photosynthesis in the larvae.


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## SwedeBee1970 (Oct 26, 2008)

For those Organic farmers out there, one could try Horticultural Vinegar 10%. Might be a bit hard to find for cheap, however works good without polluting the environment. Spraying flowers that bees like is a no-no. Observe their activities before spraying.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_For those Organic farmers out there,_

In some situations, Round-Up is approved for use on certified organic farms.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

PCM said:


> Roundup has been on the market for 35 years or so.
> So have these discussions regarding Roundup & Bees,they were in the bee magazines, long before Personal Computer discussion groups were even thought of.


The discussions about whether or not smoking is bad for ones health took several hundred years to conclude that yes, it is bad for your health.

The problem was that a lot of people have been making good money on it for all of those years. Too many interests make the truth hard to get to.

I would not use Round-Up. 

It's like my father said about DDT when he was in the service. He said he used to dust himself with it before he went fishing. It was "the best bug dope" he ever saw. "A horsefly would land on you and fall right off dead".

From certain points of view, that was "great stuff" too. 

No thanks.



Adam


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## Jack B. Nimble (Nov 13, 2010)

Compared to pesticides, round up should be very benign. The active ingredient, glycophosphate, if it isn't absorbed by the plant, readily binds to the soil, and what doesn't bind to the soil, is consumed by bacteria. 

My only concern if you are spraying Round Up in a bee yard is making sure that none of it drifts towards the hives. Even if it did, I don't think it would hurt the bees, but why take a chance on having some kind of residue in your honey or wax.


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## SwedeBee1970 (Oct 26, 2008)

"In some situations, Round-Up is approved for use on certified organic farms. "

That's scary. And it's still a chemical. Just for the record books: Use sulfur based products to treat as pesticides and herbicides rather than copper based. Anything copper based is toxic to bees, fish, frogs and others with sensitive nervous systems.


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## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

Countryboy said:


> _For those Organic farmers out there,_
> 
> In some situations, Round-Up is approved for use on certified organic farms.


I haven't heard that before. I can't imagine any circumstances where it would be permitted in an organic operation without threatening its certification.

Wayne


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## bigbore (Feb 25, 2008)

SwedeBee1970;601663 Just for the record books: Use sulfur based products to treat as pesticides and herbicides rather than copper based. Anything copper based is toxic to bees said:


> then why did beekeepers burn sulpher to harvest honey before movable frame hives?


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## SwedeBee1970 (Oct 26, 2008)

Sounds like you just answered your own question. Sulfur is non-toxic to bees and the burning smoke cleared the bees away. Makes sense.


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## bigbore (Feb 25, 2008)

burnt sulpher KILLED the bees and allowed the harvest of honey without interferance from the DEAD bees


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## hipifreq (Sep 9, 2010)

Countryboy said:


> _For those Organic farmers out there,_
> 
> In some situations, Round-Up is approved for use on certified organic farms.


*CITATION NEEDED*
This is patently false under the previous and existing Organic standards in the United States. As a synthetic chemical glyphosate is expressly forbidden by the USDA in the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances.

Glyphosate, the main ingredient in roundup, has a half-life on average 44 day, and up to 130 days. So if you spray a quart in the spring, then half will still be left at the end of the summer. If you spray every six months it just keeps building up in the soil.
Spring - 1 L
Fall - 0.25 L + 1 Qt = 1.25 L
Spring - 0.125 L + 0.25 L + 1 L = 1.625 L

The degradation pathway leads to production of formaldehyde, another highly toxic chemical:
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/pubs/fatememo/glyphos.pdf
Interesting to note that the above PDF calls out bee LD50 toxicity at >100 ug per bee. That would mean that for a colony of 50,000 bees 5 grams of glyphosate will kill half the bees.

Of course, I don't think anyone's going to spray 5 grams of glyphosate on their colony, but with a high half-life, high prevalence in the environment, possible nectar contamination for plants exposed, and then exposure from spraying around the hive, that's some serious stress to the bees.

Yes, Glyphosate alone been termed safe by the EPA, but that was in 1987, examined only oral application, and then only acute death (LF50). Since then numerous studies have shown that the combination with other chemicals can radically increase toxicity. Also, its been implicated as an endocrine disruptor, although studies are still underway.


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## Jack B. Nimble (Nov 13, 2010)

hipifreq said:


> *CITATION NEEDED*
> 
> Glyphosate, the main ingredient in roundup, has a half-life on average 44 day, and up to 130 days. So if you spray a quart in the spring, then half will still be left at the end of the summer. If you spray every six months it just keeps building up in the soil.


Where did you hear that? If that were true (i.e. it keeps building up) then farmers would have not to worry about weeds at all. Glycophosphate is so biodegradable that if even a slight silt load in your mix will deactivate it. Even a thin film of dust on a weed's leaf requires an extra heavy dose just to allow for the action of soil bacteria on glycophospate during the short time before the plant absorbs it. 

I am not saying it is harmless but if you want to quote statistics, you should cite them. The only way glycophosphate would have a half life of 44 days would be if it has not been sprayed and is still in the mixing tank with clean water not taken from a ditch.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

Round-Up is not 'normally' permitted to be used on certified organic farms, but in some situations it is allowed. For example, it can be used as a burndown to control some invasive weeds when other organic methods do not work.

Used to, certified organic farmers had to obtain manure from certified organic livestock farms to use as fertilizer. A local farmer tells me now that he can use chicken manure from any farm - it no longer has to come from a certified organic farm. (I don't know if you can feed certified organic livestock hay from a non-organic farm or not, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

Organic does not mean a food is as pure and natural or environmentally healthy as folks often think it is. Certified organic just means the farmer jumped through certain red tape hoops. I have a cousin who is a certified organic grain farmer - he controls weeds with giant blowtorches that burn all the weeds between his corn rows. (trying not to fry too many cornstalks) He could get better yield if that gas was used to make fertilizer rather than burning (and wasting excess) gas to fry weeds, but fertilizer made from gas isn't approved for an organic farm, and the blowtorches are.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Is it possible that we are talking about two different things? The question was about Roundup and the active ingredient is " glyphosate " .
Another writer is talking about " glycophosphate" ? Ihave not heard of this checmical but guess could Google for it.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Looks like we have two names for the same chemical: http://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main...ble-patch-management/using-glycophosphate.htm


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## Jack B. Nimble (Nov 13, 2010)

glycophosphate is the active ingrediant of Round Up and other broad spectrum herbicides such as Rodeo, PondMaster, and Glyfos. Glycophosphate is the stuff that kills the weeds and other plants. The amount of active ingredient all these herbicides have are very similar. Only the exact formulation (surfactants, ph buffers, etc) are different. For our purposes, they are basically the same. Here is some information about Glyphos : 

Glyfos: Very low mammalian toxicity. Acute oral LD 50 (rats) = 4320 mg/kg. Eye irritant. Not toxic to bees, birds and fish MCPA: Moderate acute mammalian toxicity. Low toxicity to fish. May cause burn upon contact with skin and eyes, and it can be absorbed through skin.​
http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/app23/getcataloginfo?subject=product&view=toxicity

It states that it is not toxic to bees. That does not mean you can pour it inside a beehive and not have bees die. It just means that it is not toxic when applied in the manner, conditions, and concentrations they recommend. Any substance is toxic when misapplied - even oxygen and water.

There is a lot of technical application information for Glyfos here: http://www.cdms.net/ldat/ld289006.pdf


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## Merlyn Votaw (Jun 23, 2008)

Spray afterr dark because the bees will be in the hives plus most flowers close up after dark and bees alwaysgo to the center of the flower


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## hipifreq (Sep 9, 2010)

Jack B. Nimble said:


> Where did you hear that? If that were true (i.e. it keeps building up) then farmers would have not to worry about weeds at all. Glycophosphate is so biodegradable that if even a slight silt load in your mix will deactivate it. Even a thin film of dust on a weed's leaf requires an extra heavy dose just to allow for the action of soil bacteria on glycophospate during the short time before the plant absorbs it.
> 
> I am not saying it is harmless but if you want to quote statistics, you should cite them. The only way glycophosphate would have a half life of 44 days would be if it has not been sprayed and is still in the mixing tank with clean water not taken from a ditch.


:doh:

First of all, that just pisses me off. You tell me that I need to quote statistics when I ACTUALLY DID. You didn't follow the link I posted to a Canadian government study? THEN you have the NERVE to tell me my statistic was wrong by trying to make several up yourself? If you had BOTHERED to look you'd find that glyphosate has been found to have an median half-life in water of 91 days (Tomlin 2006).

As for it's fate in soil, you'll find that under aerobic conditions it can have a half-life as long as 197 days (WHO 1988). However, another study found the half-life to be as short as 2 days(Giesey et al.), but this was under anaerobic conditions, which are typically found in wetlands, not in farmland where it would be bad for crops. One thing to note is that in the presence of chelating cations, glyphosate's half-life has been extended by up to 11 times the normal length of time (Tsui and Chu 2008). It's interesting to note that the 11 times values was found in the presence of iron, which is certainly present in abundance in fertile soils. So even the average of 44 days I quoted, which could also be 47 (Vencill 2002), the presence of iron could make that 484 or 517.

And that study about LD50 for honeybees? That was Fraser and Jenkins (1993) who did that one, but it wasn't formally published. Of course, it was monsanto that had paid for that one to be completed.

REFERENCES
Frasier, W. D.; Jenkins, G. 1993. The acute contact and oral toxicities of CP67573 and MON2139 to worker honey bees. Unpublished report no. 4G1444, 1972, submitted to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by Monsanto Company , prepared by Huntingdon Research Center, CDL 093848. Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) Glyphosate; EPA-738-F-93-011; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, Office of Pesticide Programs, U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC

Giesey, J. P.; Dobson, S.; Solomon, K. R. 2000. Ecotoxicological risk assessment for Roundup herbicide. Rev. Environ. Contam. Toxicol., 167, 35-120.

WHO. 1988. Environmental Health Criteria 159, Toxicological Evaluations - Glyphosate; International Programme on Chemical Safety, World Health Organization: Geneva, Switzerland.

Tomlin, C. D. S. 2006. The Pesticide Manual: A World Compendium, 14th ed.; British Crop Protection Council: Hampshire, UK, pp 545-548.

Tsui, M. T. 60. K.; Chu, L. M. 2008. Environmental fate and non-target impact of glyphosate-based herbicide (Roundup) in a subtropical wetland. Chemosphere 71, 439-446.

Vencill, W. K. Ed. 2002. Herbicide Handbook, 8th ed.; Weed Science Society of America: Lawrence, KS, pp 231-234.


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## peacekeeperapiaries (Jun 23, 2009)

To answer the orginal question the effects are....weeds around the hives are dead. We use roundup in all of our yards, spray in the evening when the bees are finished flying and home for the night. Works very well and has not affected the bees....except of course they dont have to dodge the weeds to get to the front door


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## Jack B. Nimble (Nov 13, 2010)

hipifreq said:


> :doh:
> 
> First of all, that just pisses me off. You tell me that I need to quote statistics when I ACTUALLY DID. You didn't follow the link I posted to a Canadian government study? THEN you have the NERVE to tell me my statistic was wrong by trying to make several up yourself? If you had BOTHERED to look you'd find that glyphosate has been found to have an median half-life in water of 91 days (Tomlin 2006).


First of all, I don't think addressing a member of this forum with "du-oh" icon and following it up with degrading language is not the beginning of a rational thought.

I went back to the post that you referred to and although you did include the link you refer to, you were citing the fact that formaldehyde is a by-product of glyphosate. Since I didn't disagree with that, I did not follow the link. Your statement that glyphosate has a half-life of 44 days was in the previous paragraph, and to me, was not associated with paragraph. A paragraph is a collection of related statements after all. However, your statement "it (glyphosate) keeps building up in the soil" is an unsupported statement among others in that post.

I have studied soil science as well as toxicology and entomology. These are my comments.

The half life of 44 days in the paper "Environmental Fate of Glyphosate" (page 2) was a reference from a 1993 Agrochemicals Handbook based on two samples of undetermined soil type. We don't know the micro fauna of that soil sample and can't judge how relevant this is to a beekeeper. On page 4, this paper cited other studies that have determined that the half life of glyphosate is as little as 3 days. On page 1, in fine print as part of the pathway diagram, it states that glyphosate degrades rapidly in soil with a large number of microbes.










It is common knowledge that the soil in a field that has been intensively cultivated has little microbial activity and is very sterile as soils go. However, a beekeeper keeps their hives in a far different environment that would be much more apt to support high microbial activity, and therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the lower values of the half life of glyphosate would be expected. 

It is also important to remember how a beekeeper would be applying glyphosate. In a apiary, a spot spray type of application would be used rather than broadcasting as farmers or foresters would. The amounts that a beekeeper would use are far less than a farmer or a forester and a beekeeper would not be directed spray to the hive itself. In addition, no beekeeper would be spraying open flowers during the day but nuisance weeds such as grass and shrubs. Beekeepers would not be adding glyphosate to sugar syrup. In addition, bees don't eat dirt and bees don't eat things that eat dirt so it is hard to imagine why a beekeeper (unless he want to blast the hive entrance with glyphosate-laden spray) would be worried about how his spraying activities of glyphosate in the apiary would hurt his bees.



hipifreq said:


> If you spray every six months it just keeps building up in the soil.


This statement is not supported by the paper you have referenced. On page 9 in the conclusion, the paper states "glyphosate is inactivated in soil and water by microbial degradation". If you understand half life values, you will know that this is a mathematical impossibility. Any regular addition of a substance to a closed system that degrades by half lifes, is that an upper limit of concentration will be reached. At that point, no further accumulation will occur as the substance is degrading at the rate it is being applied. Therefore, your statement "it just keeps building up" is incorrect and misleading. Another important point of the half life is that the half life of a trace amount of a substance that has little toxicity and is not persistence - is not worth worrying about.

Based on the facts that you have presented, if I was a farmer who sprayed my fields every year with glyphosate, I would be concerned. I would be sure that I would not be breathing in any of the dust that I that would be stirred up. *But the OP of this thread is asking about ""What are the effects of spraying round up or other herbicides near the bee yard?"*. The facts that you have raised are not relevant in the case of round up or any other glyphosate-based herbicide. In fact, on page 5, the reference you provide states that the formulation (the surfactants, the stuff that makes it soapy) of glyphosate based herbicides are more toxic than the glyphosate itself. If that is true, perhaps we should also be looking at the half life of soap instead. 

The OP of this thread may rest assured that although there are effects of spaying herbicides, (one of them is that unwanted weeds are removed), the other effects shouldn't stop him if he follows the directions and applies them safely as he should be applying miticides and anything else.


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