Collateral Damage: Bees die in South Carolina Zika spraying

“Today, it stinks of death”. Southern states like Florida and SC are spraying pesticides from trucks and airplanes in mosquito-heavy areas in an effort to control the virus that can cause serious birth deformities if transmitted to a pregnant woman, either by the mosquito itself or through sexual contact. “They are in a sanctuary where I can protect them, and now they are destroyed”.

Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply in Summerville lost more than two million bees.

But, the impact of the Zika spraying on local beekeepers has been devastating.

Two days notice is not enough, they say, particularly because many beekeepers were not personally notified and only realized what was happening when it was too late.

“I don’t know where to go from here”, Stanley said.

“We have a mass killing”, Macke’s wife told him.

The approach should work even though Aedes aegypti – the mosquito that can carry Zika – is a species active by day. In Dorchester, an airplane dispensed Naled mist, between 6:30 am and 8:30 am Sunday.

The county acknowledged the bees deaths on August 30, stating “Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives”, County Administrator Jason Ward said Tuesday, according to the Charleston Post and Courier.

A bee activist group called started a petition and a hashtag to end Naled spraying in the county.

Indeed, CNN reports that the county used a product containing naled, which is “highly toxic to bees”, according to the manufacturer of the pesticide used.

Though the County says it gave notice by way of a newspaper announcement Friday and a social media post Saturday, beekeepers say they weren’t informed.

In parts of SC, trucks trailing pesticide clouds are not an unusual sight, thanks to a mosquito-control program that also includes destroying larvae.

For its part, the county says it’s saddened by the bee die-off and that it had tried to warn every beekeeper in the area that was being sprayed. ‘But nobody called me about the aerial spraying; nobody told me at all’.

Stanley said she hopes that the devastation caused by the spray will force officials to reconsider spraying methods. Local fire captain Andrew Macke, who like many other hobby beekeepers was never on the registry, also lost both his hives this week.

“We are obviously saddened by the fact people have lost their hives, and we have gone back and looked at our procedures”, Ward said. Beekeeping has been in her family for more than 100 years. The silence in its wake was like a morgue, she said. “Now, I can’t help anyone anymore, because all of them are dead”.