of those crops use or are you just reacting to a fairly vague article.

Now I can’t speak to those other farmers and those crops but I can give you some insight into what I do at my orchard. I have 2500 peach trees and about the same in apples. Not massive but more than enough for me.

I have at my disposal many pesticides that are very harmful to bees and a smaller but effective selection that are very easy on the bee population. So if I chose to I could spray my orchard and kill every bee that comes near it.

Bees are most susceptible to pesticides during bloom or flowering. I choose to either use very mild pesticides or none at all during this time just because of the bee population even if it puts a percentage of my crop at risk. Oh and I don’t actually need bees as a pollinator. Later in the growing season I switch to a harsh pesticide to help with stink bugs and beetles because those pest are more active and can do more damage from fruit set to a couple of weeks before harvest.

So what I want you to realize is there are a lot of factors that play into using pesticides. Crop, time of year, what pest you’re trying to control, cost of the pesticide, effectiveness, attitude of the farmer and more. It’s possible this new pesticide will have very little effect on bees, especially if used intelligently.