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Nicotine, Neonicotinoids and Bees

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BigBonner

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I personally believe that people are putting the Bee dying blame on tobacco and it is not true .
My tobacco field lays about 250 FT from my sons 5 bee hives . I have more blooms this year than I want and I have yet to see one bee on any tobacco .
A few humming birds but no bees
 
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deluxestogie

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I am also about 300 feet from an apiary. I agree that honeybees seldom if ever visit my tobacco blossoms, although I have seen bumblebees occasionally visit them. My guess is that most bees prefer the wildflowers that fill the intervening pasture. Chillardbee has documented his honeybees foraging on his tobacco blossoms. So if tobacco pollen is mostly what's available at a given time in a given location, that's where the bees will forage. Bees seem to perform an uncanny calculation of preference vs. distance.

The difficulty of the issue is that bees (wild or domesticated) don't drop dead by the hundreds around the blossoms of plants treated with neonicotinoid insecticides. The effect of pollen foraging seems to be an incremental increase in the risk of hive failure. If that were the only threat, it might make little difference overall. But the scores of different pesticides that are used at an ever increasing pace on all sorts of plants, especially in multi-acre monocultures--well, it all adds up. There's no free lunch.

Bob
 

ringanator

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Very intestine read as I will be keeping bees next year. We don't ever use pesticides herbicides fungicide or any other cides on our farm because of our organic designation. But I was looking into using rustic tobacco steeped as a tea as a natural insecticide. I have to do more research to see if it would void our organic status or not.
 

Jitterbugdude

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I personally believe that people are putting the Bee dying blame on tobacco and it is not true .

Don't discount the dangers of tobacco to quickly. It is responsible for every problem we have in the entire world. Cancer, Heart Disease, Unemployment, Inflation, Alien anal probing etc. You name it and tobacco is the cause..:)

As for honeybees. They are very specific in their foraging habits. When they find a particular floral source they will stick with it 100% even though there may be another source of flowers nearby. They also forage for certain flowers at certain times of day. Buckwheat may be blooming when you walk your fields in the morning but the bees might not source it until 4:00pm. As for a comment earlier about bees not flying in temps under 55 degrees. That's just bee book nonsense. They will actively fly when temps are in the 40s and winds are gusting.
 

BigBonner

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The main problem , from what I know and hear is that Bees die off because of Varroa Mites . You have to treat hives for these critters .

I have seen one hive infected by the wax moth . Looks like maggots in the honey cells .

They blame tobacco for everything . Back in older days elections was backed by tobacco , a lot of mistakes made there .

On the other hand it is scientifically proven that the biggest smoker / growers on here are well educated , very knowledgeable and well respected .
 

Alpine

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Last year i left all my Celikhan plants flower (i'm not doing this again, it delays leaf ripening too much) and the bees visited the plants every day, for more than a month. I later discovered (here) that bees and bumblebees that feed on tobacco flowers are actually healthier. This year i let 3 plants of rustica go to flower, but i've seen bumblebees only. Maybe it's the flower colour. Anyway, both insects seem unaffected by the nicotine content of the pollen
Pier
 
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