Too many of our farmers, and even more so, our aerial spray applicators, don't want to be bothered with these instructions and simply spray when it is convenient. The farmer paid us to bring them, but because it wasn't convenient to wait until evening to spray, he dropped the very bees he had leased by the thousands all over his cucumber fields. This doesn't usually happen with farmers who pay to lease bees, but it happens all too often with farmers who don't think they need the bees. Cotton spraying is especially hazardous to bees unless those applying the pesticides pay attention to the times when the bees are foraging. The sad part is that the bees have been killed off so badly by now that it is difficult to tell if they are there or not.
Bees love cotton blossoms.
Ten years ago one could walk down a row of cotton in bloom and see hundreds of bees. Today, one is lucky to find a bee or two on the cotton. That is a scary thought when we remember that the bees must pollinate our food. There are new varieties of cotton that have been developed recently that is genetically engineered in such a way that the farmer does not need to use pesticides as often. Last summer with these new varieties growing in our area, our bees fared much better than in previous summers.