‘It kills everything’: conservationist
warns over threat to other animals
Regulators: ‘clear and public
health crisis’ allows use of Naled chemical
Alan Yuhas in
San Francisco
Sunday 4 September
2016 11.55 BSTLast modified on Sunday 4 September 201622.05 BST
Huddled around their hives,
beekeepers around the south-eastern US fear a new threat to their livelihood: a
fine mist beaded with neurotoxin, sprayed from the sky by officials at war with
mosquitos that carry the Zika virus.
Earlier this week, South Carolina
beekeepers found millions of dead honey bees carpeting their apiaries, killed
by an insecticide. Video posted by
a beekeeper to Facebook showed thousands of dead insects heaped
around hives, while a few survivors struggled to move the bodies of fellow
bees.
“This is what’s left of
Flowertown Bees,” a
despondent keeper says in the video. Company co-owner Juanita Stanley told the
Associated Press her farm looked “like it’s been nuked” and estimated 2.5
million bees were killed.
“This is what’s left of
Flowertown Bees”, where up to 2.5 million bees were killed by an aerial spray
meant to combat the Zika virus. Video: So many bees
dead after the aerial spray.
In another
Facebook post, South Carolina hobbyist Andrew Macke wrote
that he had lost “thousands upon thousands of bees” and that the spraying had
devastated his business. “Have we lost our mind,” he wrote, “spraying poison
from the sky?”
Around the US, bees and other
pollinators contribute
an estimated $29bn to farm income. Clemson University’s department
of pesticide regulation is investigating the incident.
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