Beekeepers in Cape Town uncover reasons for mass killing. Last week, Weekend Argus reported that beekeepers suspected wine farms in the area were spraying their vineyards with a pesticide consisting of a mixture of ant poison and molasses.
Cape beekeepers have an answer to what killed thousands of bees in Constantia leaving the local industry devastated after massive revenue losses.
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.
“The wine farmers are very concerned themselves and we are all open to looking for solutions,” he said. He said, “it was accidental and there are still some anomalies in the sample that we are trying to work out”.
“I inspected about 150 hives on Thursday and about 40% of the hives have masses of dead bees in front of them.” Once the wine farms in the area discovered the mass killing of the bees, use of the pesticide was stopped immediately.
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.
“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 said everyone present at the meeting resolved to collate all information from farms and affected beehives and have an in-depth scientific approach to find the root cause.
Source: IOL News