Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
proposed new temporary restrictions on the use of pesticides while bee swarms are feeding, which typically happens when things come into bloom.
Growers routinely contract with honey bee keepers to bring in bees to pollinate their crops that require insect pollination. Bees are typically present during the period the crops are in bloom. Application of pesticides during this period can significantly affect the health of bees.
These restrictions are expected to reduce the likelihood of high levels of pesticide exposure and mortality for bees providing pollination services. Moreover, EPA believes these additional measures to protect bees providing pollination services will protect other pollinators as well.
The EPA also points out that these restrictions
do not replace the chemical specific restrictions already on some pesticides (as bee protections).
It's a pretty big step in trying to protect the health of our bee populations:
The new rule “doesn’t eliminate (pesticide) exposure to honeybees, but it should reduce it,” said University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum. “It may not be ideal, but it’s the best news in about 120 years. In concept, in principle, this is a big policy change.”
The EPA proposal doesn’t apply to residential pesticide use, nor home beekeeping. This is just for areas where professional beekeepers haul in their hives. These trucked-around hives now account for about 90 percent of honeybees in the U.S., according to the University of Maryland’s Dennis van Englesdorp.