How to prevent bee pesticide poisoning in autumn?
After entering autumn, external nectar sources gradually decrease, and colony management gradually shifts from the production of bee products such as royal jelly and honey to preparations for colony overwintering. This is especially true for migratory beekeepers, who, starting in September, successively return from other places to prepare their colonies for overwintering.
Judging from the actual situation of beekeeping production in recent years, September to November each year is a period of high incidence of bee pesticide poisoning incidents. The main reasons are: external nectar sources decrease, migratory colonies are transported over long distances, colony food reserves decrease, bees are highly motivated to go out to collect nectar, while the overall resistance of the colony is relatively weak. When pesticides are used in the outside environment, bees are prone to poisoning, causing large numbers of bees to die. In addition, because migratory colonies are relatively stronger than stationary colonies, under sunny and good weather conditions when external nectar sources are lacking but the colony's motivation to collect nectar is still high, robbing behavior is prone to occur, affecting the normal living order of the colony and even causing large numbers of bees to die. There are also occasional cases in which some beekeepers, in order to vent personal spite, deliberately add pesticides to honey to lure robbing colonies into poisoning.
The experience drawn from beekeeping practice is that the year's plan for beekeeping lies in autumn. This is because whether the colony strength is good or bad in autumn will directly affect colony overwintering and is also the foundation for achieving success in beekeeping production the following year. For this reason, in autumn beekeeping production management, great attention should be paid to preventing pesticide poisoning. Specifically, note the following points:
Strengthen feeding management
After entering autumn, some beekeepers believe that the main production stage has already passed, gradually relax colony feeding management, and leave less feed in the colony, thinking that colony strength can be restored and strengthened during spring reproduction the following year. This often causes large numbers of worker bees to go out to collect on sunny autumn days, leading to colony decline and also creating a great hidden danger of pesticide poisoning.
Carefully choose overwintering sites
In addition to having the necessary overwintering conditions, the surrounding pesticide use situation must also be considered, and sites at the foot of mountains, on barren slopes, and in other areas with relatively large surrounding space should be chosen for overwintering as much as possible. If pesticides may be sprayed nearby, local farmers should be consulted in advance and asked to notify before application so that measures can be taken in time to prevent pesticide poisoning incidents. At the same time, it is best to avoid multiple apiaries overwintering within close range.
Make preparations for prevention and control
Once poisoning occurs, effective measures should be taken as early as possible to reduce colony losses. Specific measures include: (1) spray water to wash the combs and remove toxic feed; (2) feed 1:1 syrup or 1:4 honey water to dilute the toxicity; (3) feed antidotes. For example, for poisoning by organophosphorus pesticides, a 0.05%-0.1% atropine sulfate solution or a 0.1%-0.2% pralidoxime solution can be sprayed on the combs; (4) move the colony as early as possible to a place more than 5 km away from the pesticide application area, and promptly restore colony strength.