Dear HCN,
First, on behalf of the
beekeeping industry, I want to thank the High Country News for
running what is probably the most comprehensive look at Penncap-M
since it was introduced in 1974 (HCN, 1/20/97).
I
would like to clarify two points, however. The first is that,
contrary to their claims, Colorado state pesticide regulators have
had ample opportunity to determine the connection between Penncap
sprays and bee kills.
In August of 1994, we had a
spray kill here in Niwot which affected seven beekeepers in a small
area. The aerial applicator had called the night before to tell me
that he would be spraying Penncap-M on corn. The state was called
the day of the application and collected samples of dead bees and
vegetation two days after the spray had been applied. Positive
identification of methyl parathion was found in the dead bees as
well as on a non-target cornfield shedding pollen and being foraged
heavily by the bees, and on a hive top in a beeyard over 1,000 feet
from the nearest target field.
This was not a
case of trying to identify a culprit months after the fact, but the
state concluded that, while they had identified methyl parathion,
they couldn’t tell if it was Penncap-M.
The
second thing I want to comment on is the charge that beekeepers are
whiners and grousers. We certainly have no corner on that market in
the agricultural community. Just go to any rural cafe and listen
for a while. One of the rights of agriculture is the freedom to
bitch about everything – weather, the season, prices, bugs,
neighbors, the government, your wife’s cooking. Most of it is
harmless and it fills the time.
Far from being
grumblers, beekeepers have been amazingly tolerant of their
situation. They went public with the Penncap-M story only after
several frustrating years of trying to resolve the problem quietly
from within the system. Beekeepers have been hammered by pesticides
for 50 years, and today 10-15 million acres of suitable bee pasture
in the United States are uninhabitable for beekeepers because of
the intensity of pesticide use.
Most beekeepers
have tried to compromise by working with growers and applicators,
but many others have just absorbed the losses and remained silent.
In Colorado alone, beekeepers reported losses from spraying in 1996
totaling $1.3 million. To what degree Penncap may be involved is
unknown, but it’s clear that the damage is significant even without
it.
These spray losses represent 56 percent of
cash receipts for the industry in 1993 (the most recent year for
which ag statistics are available). Those same yearly losses for
Colorado cattlemen would translate to 2.6 million 800-pound
slaughter steers, for corn growers 4.9 billion pounds and for wheat
farmers 39 million bushels. Do you think we would see some action
if these commodities were experiencing these kinds of
losses?
Whiners? I think not. Instead, beekeepers
have shown the patience of Job.
Tom
Theobald
Niwot,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Beekeepers have the patience of Job.
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