Today I used round up on some flowering weeds in my garden about 20m from my hive. . In the morning I checked and there were no bees, so I decided to apply the spray. Later in the day, I noticed some bees, probably mine foraging on this weed. Should I bee worried? Tom
One dose of roundup won’t harm the bees
Not a good thing to be using though
The jury is still out on roundup. Maker say OK, environmental groups say not OK. Google “roundup and bees”.
If you have to use roundup, spray only at late evening or night and spray (or wipe) and only on the foliage. The active chemicals only use the foliage for chemical transfer so putting on the flowers is not only a waste, but of more danger to the bees.
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I went cold turkey on glyphosate when I got the bees. To be honest, there is not a lot of difference in the weed load in the garden. I tend to do a bit more whipper snippering. Anyhow, bees like weeds and I noticed a beautiful Eastern Rosella delicately biting/feeding on the weed heads on the lawn last week.
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I too went cold turkey on chemicals. I use Vinegar and salt solution to kill weeds. Give that a go and make the solution very concentrate it works better.
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Glyphosate is not healthy for bees, worms, children or other living things:
Being a working farm we apply hundred of litres of herbicides annually I cant say I have seen any effect on my hives. The only real concession made for bees is we dont spray anything in flower.
There are hundreds of chemicals in widespread use that are proven to be harmful to bees than Glyphosate yet people are fixated on glyphosate despite trials showing it has little effect.
It is often applied in conjunction with other herbicides, pestercides & surfactants that are known to be harmful to bees yet glyphosate gets the blame.
I certainly wouldnt be spraying at night the risk of spray drift due to inversion is just to great. I also think most of the time it is applied in the home garden it is at much higher rates than needed.
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