[imagesource:here]

In case you didn’t know, bees play a pretty important role in our ecosystem, and their decline in numbers around the world has many people worried.

If you’re in the business of beekeeping, those numbers are even more worrying, and the local industry has suffered massive revenue losses in recent times.

Thankfully, Cape beekeepers now have an answer to what has caused the mass deaths in the Constantia area, with this below via IOL:

…beekeepers suspected wine farms in the area were spraying their vineyards with a pesticide consisting of a mixture of ant poison and molasses.

Vice-chairperson of Western Cape Bee Industry Association (WCBA) and commercial bee farmer Brendan Ashley-Cooper said at the time he lost 100 hives and sent a sample to be tested in the Hearshaw & Kinnes Analytical Laboratory in Cape Town.

This week, Ashley-Cooper received the sample back confirming his fears.

“We got it and it was fipronil that was the main ingredient in my sample, which is a pesticide used on ants.

“The wine farmers are very concerned themselves and we are all open to looking for solutions,” he said…

Fipronil disrupts the insects central nervous system and causes hyperexcitation of the contaminated insects’ nerves and muscles thus killing them.

Ashley-Cooper added that the poisoning was accidental, and that once wine farms in the area were alerted, they stopped using those pesticides immediately.

For the beekeepers whose hives have been decimated, that may come as scant consolation:

Beekeeper Lawrence Woollam lost between 90% and 100% of his bees, which severely affected his business.

“We only produce between 300kg and 600kg each year and last year we produced 350kg due to the drought.

“The bees have been looking so good this year following the drought and had no real diseases,” he said.

The wine farm owners and the beekeepers had a productive meeting on Friday, agreeing to cooperate and communicate about pesticide use going forward.

Lars Maack, the owner of Buitenverwachting wine farm, said they were “very concerned” about the situation:

“What is puzzling is that the current ant control programmes were in place for the past eight years with no significant effect on beehives.

“Many hives on the farms and wild hives in the oak trees are completely unaffected, while one beekeeper reported larger die-off in areas outside of the valley,” he said.

Maack has already been embroiled in that baboon-hunting uproar from earlier this year, so I’m sure his farm will be doing their utmost to help the beekeepers on this front.

Given how reliant much of our agricultural sector is on bee pollination, we best hope they’re well looked after.

[source:iol]