Pesticides and honey bee safety

Crop growers and pesticide applicators need to reduce the chances of bee poisoning from chemical spraying. This involves communicating your pesticide plans and assisting beekeeper requirements.

Beekeeper requirements

Bees can forage up to 7 km from their hives and they usually stop flying in the late afternoon or early evening. This limits the timeframes for safe pesticide application on nearby properties.

Apiaries can only be moved at night and under suitable environmental conditions. Beekeepers need as much notice as possible to relocate their apiaries before pesticides are sprayed within the flight range.

Find out about beekeeper practices to reduce bee poisoning.

Crop grower practices

Follow these steps to help protect bees:

1. Advise beekeepers with apiaries located on your property, and on adjacent properties if known, of the pesticides you use.
2. Notify beekeepers of when pesticide applications are planned for your property – give at least 48 hours' notice.
3. Inform contracted pesticide applicators where apiaries are located on your property.
4. Plan control programs so that pesticides are applied before or after apiaries have been in the area.

Buffer zones

Use buffer zones and buffer plantings to protect non-target crops and native vegetation used by foraging bees. Find out about:

• Vegetative barriers to minimise off-target movement of chemicals ( PDF 81.4 KB )
• Natural and artificial barriers for spray drift exposure mitigation ( PDF 1.7 MB ).

You also need to manage buffer zones, headlands, inter-row and cover crops to reduce damage to bees. For example, mow inter-row cover crops when applying pesticide to target orchard trees.

Pesticide applicator practices

It is important to apply pesticides only when needed and choose products with the lowest:

• hazard rating for bees
• residual toxic effect.

Always follow the instructions given on product labels – information about risk to bees is usually included under protection of livestock.

Avoid bee poisoning

You can reduce the risk to bees by taking these steps:

1. Notify beekeepers when a pesticide application is planned so that apiaries can be moved – give at least 48 hours' notice.
2. Advise beekeepers of the product that will be used and any relevant management considerations.
3. Apply pesticides when bees are not foraging in the crop. Check apiaries for bee activity and use:
   • low hazard pesticides in the morning
   • pesticides with residual toxicity in the early evening, a few hours after bees have returned for the day.
4. Be on the alert for apiaries that you aren’t aware of when pesticide applications are planned.
5. Assess and mitigate the level of risk to apiaries located where spraying is planned. Use measures to make sure:
   • pesticide application or drift does not occur over apiaries, or non-target areas where bees pollinate
   • all water sources within flying range cannot be contaminated by the pesticides.

Contact

South Australian Apiarists’ Association
Phone: (08) 8635 2257
Email: secretary@saaa.org.au
Facebook: South Australian Apiarists' Association