“He didn’t know they were going to spray”.
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“We don’t want one of those mosquitos having a blood meal on an individual we’ve already determined was positive”, Dr Mike Weyman, head of the spraying program, told The Guardian in defense of their actions. “His bees are at their porch right by their home, and she saw dead bees everywhere”.
With three dozen people reportedly testing positive for Zika in SC, state officials have instituted preventive countermeasures against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which are considered the main infection carriers. The deadly mist was released from the skies between 6:30 am and 8:30 am on Sunday morning. He also explained that they chose Sunday morning and that time because they knew most people would not be out by that time on a weekend.
The county used a product called Trumpet, which contains the pesticide naled, recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for control of adult Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits Zika.
When bees are lost, we all pay the price. Beekeeper Juanita Stanley tells of the energy around the property on Saturday as the bees were about pollinating and foraging, producing honey for the cold winter months. Safety measures for bees include not applying the product more than two hours after the sun has risen or two hours before it sets so the use is limited to the times when the bees aren’t very active.
“We followed that recommendation”, said Ward, “which is also the policy laid out by the state, using a pesticide the state has approved for use”.
But in a petition on Change.org seeking to call off the spraying, Dorchester County residents say the notices released Friday didn’t provide any details on the type of pesticide to be used, and that requests for more information from the county weren’t answered. Naled is a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact and is also toxic to honey bees.
The county administrator did apologize for the incident, telling The Charleston Post and Courier, “I am not pleased that so many bees were killed”. They weren’t, and millions of bees died. If they had she would definitely had been pleading for them to reconsider. “But they sprayed at 8 a.m. Sunday, and all of my bees were out, doing their work by then”.
In the future, the county plans on expanding their alert list, and also promises to give a full five day’s notice on their website. The EPA says beekeepers can reduce exposure to honeybees by covering colonies and preventing bees from exiting colonies during designated treatment periods, or if possible, relocating colonies to an untreated site.
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Stanley did say no malice was suspected but that the pain of the loss of her honey girls aren’t lessened by this notion. “It was about raising bees and selling them to other people, and spreading the honey girls out there into the world”. She feels that she can not help the outside world anymore because they are all dead.
