The Scheme Applicators use to Evade Compliance With the Labels

    An alternative scheme is routinely used to circumvent compliance with label directions. Unfortunately this scheme is usually condoned by pesticide regulators, extension personnel and other officials.

  In a nutshell this scheme is:  Dump the problem on the beekeepers!

   The label clearly makes the applicator responsible. It is he who has chosen to use a material which has environmental hazards, and it is he who must obey the label.

Instead he calls the beekeeper, and demands that he "protect the bees."    How many of our pollinators actually get protected that way?    Bumblebees, wild honeybees, butterflies, even possibly hummingbirds can be drinking poisoned nectar.

  Compliance with the label tends to protect ALL our pollinators.

     The scheme to circumvent labels presents an impossibility to beekeepers. Already buffeted by low markets, new parasites and diseases, they are now expected to bear the expense of protection from condoned illegal applications. Who pays their travel expenses, motel bills, cost of materials, hired help? And what if pesticide applications are to occur on more than one site in a given day? I have bees at 50 to 100 different sites in South Carolina at any given time, some a hundred miles from home.

    Even the hobbyist has to make a dire choice. Should I stay home and offend my boss? Or should I lose my investment in my bees?

    This alternative scheme, when condoned by public officials, is a de facto seizure of the beekeepers' property without compensation, a violation of the Bill of Rights.

Hey, not all applications are wrong!

Caught in the Act!     1. Caught in the Act!   2. What does a pesticide violation look like?  3. Are there blossoms?  4. Are there bees on the blossoms?  5. What is the first rule of pesticide use?  6. Who enforces pesticide laws?   7. Do the regulators have the will to enforce against this crime?  8. What about the mosquito threat?  9. How to comply?  10. How does one set up a monitor?  11. Condoned Evasion Scheme!  12. Hey, not all applications are wrong!     13. Contacts for comment or information         Home

Part II: The damage:  Bees, Beekeepers Clobbered!        More Violations      Home