Why are insecticides prohibited during the lychee flowering period?
Experimental research and production practice have proven that placing bees for pollination during the lychee flowering period is the guarantee of a bumper lychee harvest, and the honey made by bees from collected pollen is also a natural health food for humans. In order to prevent bee poisoning and honey contamination, ensure that enough worker bees are out foraging for nectar, improve pollination effectiveness, and protect human health...
Experimental research and production practice have proven that placing bees for pollination during the lychee flowering period is the guarantee of a bumper lychee harvest, and the honey made by bees from collected pollen is also a natural health food for humans. In order to prevent bee poisoning and honey contamination, ensure that enough worker bees are out foraging for nectar, improve pollination effectiveness, and protect human health, spraying insecticides on lychee is prohibited from before flowering until the bee colonies are removed.
When pesticides are sprayed during the lychee flowering period, especially organophosphorus and organochlorine pesticides, they are absorbed into the plant tissues; during the flowering period, some of them are not yet decomposed and are secreted along with the nectar. Bees die of poisoning while sucking the nectar that contains pesticide residues. The results of experimental observations show that nectar secreted 27 days after spraying omethoate during the lychee flowering period could still poison bees to death.
In addition, after nectar containing low toxicity is collected by bees, brewed and concentrated, its toxicity level increases; if people consume such honey containing pesticide residues, their health cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, from before lychee flowering (the specific time depends on the residual effective period of the pesticide) until the bees are removed from the orchard, spraying insecticides should be prohibited.
In addition, there are often relatively many flies in lychee orchards during the flowering period. These flies can also help with pollination, but spraying pesticides during the flowering period will also kill them.