about pesticides…

Before I got into beekeeping I would rarely think about plants and bugs. Now I think about it all the time and do things like mow around the clover and dandelions in my yard. I used to treat my lawn with broad spectrum bug killer to deal with ticks and ants, but the pesticide in that treatment kills honeybees too. So what do you do? I have found a couple ways to not kill all the beneficial insects in my area.

To kill mosquitoes and black flies I have a Mosquito Magnet. You can also use traps that are non-toxic for yellow jackets, wasps and hornets. If I treat for ticks I only treat the perimeter of my lawn rather than the entire area. You can also use permethrin cotton balls which mice will store in their nests (mice are a vector for ticks). Permethrin can also be impregnated in clothing which repels unwanted pests.

On a different note, I saw a Round-Up commercial the other day and it hit me….I was duped. It showed a guy grimacing at a dandelion and then killing it with a spray bottle of Round-Up. I never really thought much about it and before beekeeping I would have been like “yeah, stupid dandelions!” It should have shown the unsuspecting honeybee (or 30+ other beneficial insects that rely on early nectar producing plants in the spring) landing on it after the guy sprays it with the chemical, and then slowly dying just like the plant. Oh by the way, New York banned Round-up because of the link to cancer. So maybe don’t use that? And I’ll step off the soap box now…..