No Mexico, chemicals and pesticides exterminate hives in apple orchards and cotton crops

By Emmanuel FernándezChihuahua, Chihuahua.- The indiscriminate use of pesticides and chemicals applied by apple growers, cotton and other crops are killing off entire hives of bees in the northwest region, which means a threat to honey producers, said the president of the Committee System Product Beekeeping, AC, in the northwest region of the country, Jesus Marquez Morales.

In recent years honey producers had faced the problem of drought, why they were forced to feed themselves bees with sugar and other products to keep them alive and therefore honey production decreased, but now they face a major threat, the indiscriminate use of chemicals and pesticides in the field.

Jesus Marquez Morales, leader of beekeepers in Chihuahua and northwest of the country, He reported that they are having a bad time, because traditionally they were hired by apple growers, cotton, chile, among other crops, to carry their hives to pollinate farmland and flowers, which they represented an increase in production of up to 50 percent of fruits and quality.

But now the threat of fungicides and pesticides in the field is a constant loss of hives, overspending on feeding bees and loss of honey production, because to get to the field, where days earlier left their bees, They meet with entire hives exterminated by chemical.

Arnulfo Ordoñez Maldonado, Northern Honey, It was one of those affected with these toxic to kill bees 600 hives moved to a cotton field in Casas Grandes, economically it means a loss of 900 A thousand pesos, if one takes into account that each of them is worth a thousand pesos and thousand 500 pesos.

“We are seeing that being unaffordable go to pollinate orchards manzaneras, because in full bloom they are applying insecticides, antibiotics and affects the deterioration of hives. Therefore please do not apply to many toxic food, because they also affect humans”, Marquez said Morales.

Said the president, there are agricultural technicians recommend very high doses of toxic pest killing, but subsequent elimination of consequences is the bees. In certain regions insecticides until two or three times a week, because they have become resistant and eventually end up eliminating beneficial insects that control pests.

They have come to lose up to 100 percent of hives, especially when they transferred to the apple growing region of Cuauhtemoc and Guerrero, where producers of this fruit are paid 600 pesos to bring their insects for pollination. Other areas with the same problem is Meoqui and Casas Grandes, in the cotton fields using planes for spraying.

To give solution to this threat, producers have asked the Sagarpa regulate the use of agrochemicals they use without any control and restraint. In addition to local producers they warn them not to control their use, cease to move these insects to fields.

From the 2007 Thousands of colony losses were reported in the northern hemisphere, mainly in developed countries like the United States, where no apparent reason million colonies disappeared worldwide. After investigations over the years, It has proven the damage nenicotinoides products or neurotoxic insecticides generate disorder inside the hive derivative of damage to each bee and the impediment of effective communication between them, causing its collapse in the early spring flights.

This coupled with new agroantibióticos high residual products used for control of agricultural diseases that damage the microflora of the hive, preventing pollen silage generate the honeycomb that the colony needs to feed their larvae and end up with a disastrous collapse starve for lack of this metabolic breakdown of silage pollen.

“Hopefully both state and federal authorities take action on the matter for agriculture is not affected, thus affecting the economy and families in the state of Chihuahua, and thanks to the bees and beekeepers flora of the state can dispense rental of hives in the orchards”, finished.