Honey Bees - Hives Die

On Sunday morning, South Carolina bees began dying in massive numbers. Parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled - a well known Insecticide that kills Mosquitoes on contact. It has been common practice to use this Insecticide in many areas. In this instance the concern was the Zika Virus. The County gave what they thought was plenty of warning. But circumstances were much different than normal. Because of the extreme heat, bees are known to leave the hive to cool off in what is known as a 'beard', clustering outside the hive in a ball to cool off. Normally beekeepers would shield their hives - somehow from what I read, there was a miscommunication. Most often the spraying is done at night when the bees are not foraging for pollen. One town that we often stay in on our way to Florida, Summerville-North Carolina, there is a single apiary, Flowertown Bee Supply and Farm. 46 Hives died on the spot - totalling 2.5 million Bees. Many bees inside hives were stressed and sought to escape their nests, only to surrender in dead heaps at the Hive entrances. A Summerville woman who walked around the farm wrote on Facebook that it was like visiting a Cemetary. The bees have become 'casualties' of the war on Zika. I just read this article this evening. Normally, Naled disperses so quickly it is not a risk to humans (according to the article). In order to reach areas they could not access by ground, planes were used. The County is very concerned so many bees were killed. The woman who owns this farm says it looks like it has been nuked. Her livelihood is gone - but she is more saddened at the loss of the bees. We are living on an Earth so different from that of 50 years ago. I wonder what will be next, it is so sad. (this is a different species of bee than the ones who died at the farm, they were honey bees but I wonder what other bees were affected)Search online for more information-I don't know what the solution is-Zika and West Nile are a real threat--but we need our Pollinators to have a food supply)
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