Throw away your cell phone. That seems to be what many scientists are say now.

Bravo Allegra!

Thanks for the heartfelt message.

The rose growing community at large is seriously (and sadly) in need of a wake up call when it comes to the use of toxic chemicals. Franky I'm shocked at just how low the consciousness is here on Garden Web. It saddens me deeply to read of free-and-easy way poisons are used, seemingly without regard to the environmental consequences.

I love to see that you have had an enlightening moment, and have shared it with us. Perhaps it will help open the hearts and minds of others to the devastation these chemicals are causing. Blessings be upon you!!!

Peace,
Bill

And sorry if you get snide comments, it's not always easy being green ;-)

Throw away your cell phones. They are the worst offenders for bees.

Hi Allegra - long time!

This issue is only one of the reasons why I don't spray my roses (except in the greenhouse, but bees don't go in there), but it is an important one. No pesticides or fungicides, and herbicides very, very sparingly and only when absolutely necessary (bindweed/morning glory - need I say more?) I use the "selective sight" method of dealing with blackspot, etc. Realistic expectations go a long way. I'm not perfect, and I don't expect my roses to be either.

Thank you very much for posting this. Where will we all be without pollinators, ladybugs, earthworms, birds, clean groundwater, etc.?

The Sacramento Perennial Plant Club had a lecture from a UC Berkeley bee expert recently - cell phones, he says, are only part of a much bigger picture, in the problem with bees.

There are non-toxic approaches to most pests. I posted a link to the UC pest note about thrips in the previous thread. In general, the Integrated Pest Managament approach that the university suggests is what Robin describes - reasonable expectations. Remember what Joni Mitchell says - "give me spots on the apples, but leave me the birds and the bees."

Of course, I'm blessed by living in a relatively pest-free part of the area - Sacramento is rose heaven, and I don't know what I'd do if I lived in Alabama, or Ohio (where my family is from). We don't have much black spot here, winter freezes provide some chill but no real damage, and, so far, we don't have Japanese beetles or Rose Rosette Disease. So very, very lucky...
Anita

I probably shouldn't respond, but I will. I just had a thrip infestation on my budding roses. I mixed up a batch of Bayer insect control (Imidacloprid is the active ingredient), and spray directly into open buds and around slightly open buds. I did not put on a hazmat suit and spray clouds of chemicals all over my yard. There were no bees present (since I have no open flowers). And now the thrips are gone. So no more spraying.

If you don't want to use chemicals, fine. But please don't criticize the rest of us. I am as concerned about the bees, but if you think a bunch of people spraying in their yard is equal to the amount of spray that is used in commercial agriculture, you need to think more. Fungicides and insecticides are tools that should be used carefully.

Actually the numbers are probably closer than you think. According to EPA figures American commercial Agriculture uses about 800 million pounds of pesticides a year as compared to home use, which is about 200 million pounds a year. So yes, while commercial agriculture and home use are not equal in usage of pesticides, home usage accounts for a huge volume of chemicals.

Home usage accounts for a huge volume of chemical use -- and when you think of it -- it is the least-excusable amount. Here in Southern CA, a massive amount of material is pumped into the environment for the sole purpose of a greener, lusher LAWN.

Like Cemetery Rose, I do not have to deal with Japanese Beetles and the like. And I cannot say for sure what I would do if I did have that problem. But you know, we have very little rust, very little mildew, very few thrips problems -- and the ONLY spraying we do here is an occasional use of hort oil.
We used to spray. I understand why people spray.
Perhaps if garden chemicals hadn't triggered seizures in our dog, we might still spray.
When we stopped, it took about 3 years for the garden to come into balance, and there are some roses we no longer grow. But our garden is a happier, healthier place now, and I would never go back.

YMMV -- Jeri Jennings

We are blessed to have a wonderful climate and conditions, as well as a neighborhood with (mostly) conscious neighbors who are committed to avoiding toxics. So we have yard full of birds, lizards,squirrels, beneficial insects, and earthworms galore. Life is good.

We never spray anything. So my almost 3 year-old can play on the lawn with out fear. Our bunny can nibble, the bantams can graze. And the eco-system feels alive and in balance. And we simply don't have disease issues.

But we do have one neighbor who is firmly committed to "the chemical path". They even use a service called "ChemLawn" (can you imagine such a thing?) While the rest of the neighborhood is full of wildlife, their yard is strangely silent. The birds...everything in fact...avoid this neighbors home.

And they spray for everything. And they need to. It's unbelievable how many diseases, infestations and blights they get hit with. This year it's "Fire-blight". But it is ALWAYS something!!!

Their yard is a "dead-zone", you can feel it as you pass by. Sure the grass is "green" but there is a sterile nature to the place that is quite chilling.

And there is no good suggesting that maybe all the chemicals maybe causing all the problems...rather than curing them. But what can you do?

BTW...Soybean Meal and (no salt) Alfalfa Pellets are awesome for a lush green (and healthy) lawn.

Peace all,

Bill (who came here to share a love of beautiful old roses...not to...well you know)

Knowledge sets us free.

Discussing information that explains that chemicals are not harmless is not criticism of those who use the chemicals. Perhaps Bill's comment got Buford going. IMO sometimes cavalier attitudes have been demonstrated by posters here. I think of postings by those who tout spraying barefoot in shorts and tee shirts or those who get their mixing information on gardenweb to give to their gardener because the label is missing from the fungicide bottle.

Allegra provides this information for those who might not be aware of it. The press spread the cell phone issue around but none of the rest, not even in California, where this is a very real issue because agriculture is a multi-billion dollar business.

The label stops at a certain point. The information provided by Allegra points out that there may be sub-lethal effects from some commonly used materials. Cumulative, sub-lethal effects become important to those of us as we accumulate years. After you or your parents suffer their first little neurological or breathing disorder, it may be easier to understand why some of us are cautious.

Repeatedly we learn there is no chemical free ride. When I was a kid, people killed weeds by spraying diesel on the sides of the road. For another perspective, read the glowing reports in the American Rose Annuals in the 1950's recommending DDT for aphids. Read how many spray materials are harmful to aquatic organisms and then ponder the impending worldwide extinction of frogs and other amphibians.

Freedom can be an overwhelming responsibility at times. Is that why we don't want to know these things?

I have been reading about the bee situation as well and it is alarming.

I always have tons of bees in my yard of all kinds, and wasps too (and birds, and toads, and snakes, and even a frog that hung out in my fountain last year, Bill, despite my daily spot spraying of Bayer on the JBs). So far there seems to be as many bees this year but it is still early to tell.

From everything I've read, the bee scientists don't seem to know what's causing it. If it is from a pesticide (or fungicide, or weedkiller) it must be from one whose use has just begun in the last few years, or had an increase in use. Cell phones have been around for quite a while, but not as much as the volume we have of them today.

I am hoping someone figures it out soon.

It is extremely hard for me to understand that after clearly expressing above "Please understand that this is neither a condemnation nor do I condone the usage of pesticides, my little acre in this planet is my responsibility and I would never pretend to tell anyone what to do with their lives or with their roses, but it is important to disseminate this information because many of us believed that some products would not harm any part of an ecosystem as the manufacturers would want us to believe until we found disoriented and paralyzed bees inside a rose. I was brought up to believe that with knowledge comes responsibility." that someone would read my contribution to warrant "But please don't criticize the rest of us. ".

I am married to a Physicist and I myself have a Ph.D in Psychology, which would qualify us I believe to be considered "educated" and to a certain extent, intelligent people, yet both of us were unaware of the long term effects of those chemicals. He was perhaps smart enough to use a respirator and a tyvek suit while mixing the chemicals as any chemistry student would tell you, when dealing with concentrates you are breathing through evaporation synthesis the strongest form of the contents. So please, this is was never intended to begin a flaming war or a string of misunderstandings.

As far as the "cell phone" theory, once again I will let the facts speak for that. I believe the operative word is "cell phone".
As stated in the article linked below the word use in German for cell phone is not Mobiltelefon but Händi. What was used in this so called "limited" study was not a cell phone but the base to a cordless home phone and it was placed directly in the bee hive. Please read it if you are not interested in promulgating a mistake made by the press that these days appears to be less interested in informing with the truth than just simply disseminating information without the proper and required investigation through responsible channels. Here is the article with photographs to drive the point home, from a source described as "Events on the world lines of two theoretical physicists, from the horizon to timelike infinity. A scientifically minded blog with varying amounts of entertainment, distractions, and every day trivialities."

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/04/einsteins-bees.html

For those who believe that once you have sprayed you will have no more thrips in a couple of weeks, this information may help dispell that myth: http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/entomology/444-281/444-281.html

Once again, please understand that I am neither condoning nor criticizing the use of chemicals in the garden. Awareness and the acceptance of responsibility as to how we treat the gifts of the Earth is entirely as it should be, a matter of personal choice. Each one of us learns and applies what we know according to our own capacity to understand and to accept responsibility for our role in the entire ecosystem. The process is usually a difficult one, as if learning was an empirical process human beings would have ended all wars after the first one.

Allegra

How many of abandoned their cell phones? I would be willing to bet there are more cell phone users than insecticide users. How many? Waiting, waiting, waiting. They killing bees and people on the highways.

I think it's a good rule never to spray insecticide on a flower that is open enough for a bee to wiggle into (and they do wiggle in). The exception would be spraying pyrethrins after sunset. Patricia43 found this effective during a very severe thrips infestation. If people feel they need to spray beetles instead of collecting them, they could remove all open and semi-open blooms. That will reduce the attraction to beetles as well. For thrips, buds and a few upper leaves could be spot-sprayed at sepal-crack and sepal-drop. I've stopped spraying for thrips, but previously I found that early-only spraying of buds helps a lot. In our climate, predators usually catch up with thrips after a while if thrips are not sprayed, so I just wait them out and root for the pirate bugs.

Robin:
I keep a heavy mulch on my beds, and it keeps the bindweed manageable if not eliminated. Perhaps one day: the area was infested when we planted the beds, so I'm engaged in a war of attritrion. We fight Bermuda grass the same way, and I think we're winning the war.

I don't do any disease or pest treatment in our garden, and I think that if no one did the world's home gardens would probably be healthier, though I'm not ready to swear that they'd be prettier. Some people have a lot worse disease problems than we have here; generally, since I'm not in other gardeners' situations, I don't consider myself qualified to tell them what they should do. But, it is interesting to see what Nature can do if you allow her to take a hand. We have abundant nasty beetles that destroy a lot of our light-colored roses, ruining much of our spring bloom. I don't like this, and so far the birds and other predators haven't solved the problem. I believe the population of caterpillar-eating wasps is growing, however; I see a lot of their nests on the rose bushes themselves. I don't know whether they eat beetle larvae or not (what a delicious thought if they did). I'm hoping that one day something that eats beetles will come along and discover this marvelous buffet. Meanwhile I get a lot of pleasure out of my roses, bugs and all.

Melissa

Sorry William, but you are an alarmist. My yard is filled with birds, bugs, butterflies, rabbits, chipmunks etc. And I do have Chemlawn come 3 times a year to put down pre-emergent and fertilize and I use fungicide on my roses and insecticide when warranted.

Just because people use spray does not mean they are ignorant of the results or are cavalier about it. I tend to go middle of the road and not react to an extreme on either end.

It's not the information I am objecting to. It's the pontification and the almost religious indignation of those who wish to condemn those of us with less blessed growing conditions.

The link goes to a Blog on the subject--which in turn goes to others--there's useful information coupled with divergent viewpoints.

One of the blogs makes note (anecdotally) that most of the collapsing colonies are composed of bees that have been selectively bred to new standards and are thus the weaker for it.

I happen to find that very plausible, as should all rosarians, given what we know firsthand about hybridizing roses for form and color, to the exclusion of disease resistance.

Those who breed animals for show will be familiar with that scenario as well.

Still, excellent cases are made for a multitude of potential causes. Similar die offs occurred about fifty years ago and coincided with a cyclical increase in solar activity. A similar cycle is underway now.

This is the first time I've posted a message and I want to start off by saying I have learned a lot from just reading your messages. Thanks for all of the helpful info.

I really feel I need to share my reasons for having a strictly organic garden.

#1 My son-in-law used insecticides for the bees around a pear tree in their yard. My 2 year old grandson started having seizures. After many years of meds and moving to another house he finally stopped having the seizures.

#2 My best friend at work used insecticides for the ticks in her yard and she started having seizures. She finally had to take early retirement because of the seizures. Between the seizures and the meds for the seizures she spends her days in bed sleeping or sitting around in a mental fog.

#3 My sister wanted a nice garden and yard with pretty, green, weed-free grass. She had a lawn care company come take care of her lawn and with their spray program she got her pretty, weed-free, green, lawn. She also used herbicides and insecticides in her flowerbeds to control the unwanted weeds and bugs. She died 3 years ago after suffering for 7 years from panceratic cancer that moved to her lungs. There had never been any cancer in our family before this.

I can't tell anyone what to do in their own yard but I can beg you to consider your health and the health of your loved ones. I WILL NOT use chemicals on my property. I love the time my grandkids share with me pulling those pesky weeds as we talk and make memories. Thanks for letting me share with you. If I save one person it will be worth the heat I may take for disagreeing with people who choose to use these products.

God Bless
Betty

Please forgive me for posting my previous message in 2 different places. I said I was new to this!!! Remember!?!

Thanks
Betty

Thanks, MichaelAT, for the blog link. Imadacloprid is certainly mentioned - as are many other things. Lack of diversity - factory approach to bees, and everything else agricultural - maybe even geneteric engineering - the reasons for the decline in bee colonies may be very complex.

The bee scientist whom I heard speak is an expert on native bees. He said that the problem with honeybees has been observed in commercial hives, and that the way that they are shipped around the country to pollinate crops makes it much easier for maladies to spread through them. Honeybees aren't native to this country, by the way, hence his interest in native bees and their role in pollination.
Anita

Anita,

We have been getting a lot of Valley Carpenter Bees in recent years as my California Natives section of my gardens has expanded. The male looks like a large golden colored bumble-bee. I was amazed when they started showing up, as I've lived in this area my whole life and had never see one. And when you see one...you know it. Wow!

Also, made some Mason Bee "housing" by drilling proper sized holes in cedar posts and hanging them in good spots around the yard. No takers yet. But I'm doing what I can.

Bee happy :-)

Bill

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_508326.htm

The same problem with the cats and dogs is affecting the bees. Beefeeds being tested for toxins similar to what was causing kidney failure in our pets.

Hi, Bill -
Watch your wood with those carpenter bees. They pretty well demolished my deck (it took years). I love watching them, though - hard to believe that they can fly! There's a pest note on carpenter bees on the www.ipm.ucdavis.edu website, just like there is on thrips and dozens of other pests.

I was so excited to find those pest notes when I took my master gardener training, because there is so much info in them. Then I discovered that some people don't want to take time to read them, or to learn about anything very complex. Lots of them just want an easy answer to a complex question - just tell me what to spray, they say, and the problem will go away. I even had a guy tell me that he thought that Scotts knew more about lawn care than the University of California did, because it was their business! When I pointed out that their business was to SELL CHEMICALS, he got mad at me.
Anita

Bill, my carpenter bees bong my head every time I exit my house; they're telling me I don't belong here, I guess. Anyway, they are harmless.

I can remember a time when we had an overwhelming gypsy moth invasion here. Everyone panicked. The county started an overhead spray program, supplemented by street-level spraying. Residents who thought this wasn't enough warfare hired their own crop dusters to spray even more. The gypsy moth were winning, though. They were not being eradicated.

Our property was a mess. Dead oak and maple trees everywhere. Caterpillar frass all over the ground. When I told my mother-in-law, who was visiting, that we hired a pilot to spray our hedgerow trees, she was horrified. "You hired WHO to do WHAT???"

As a professional horticulturalist, she explained to me that insects have a cycle. The gypsy moth caterpillars "knew", by instinct, that if they defoliated a tree for three years in a row, it would die. They can't eat dead trees. So, if left undisturbed, they will devour leaves for two years, make a mess of your property, but then move on.

What if the colony IS disturbed? Sprays won't kill ALL of them. Let's say, for example, that the chemicals kill HALF of them. Now there is less competition for food, more leaves are left for the survivors to keep eating, and so they will stay.

I don't know if the county ran out of money, or if everyone just gave up in frustration, but the spraying stopped. The next year, there was a significant drop in the number of gypsy moths. The year after that, there were even fewer.
They had moved on. An added benefit to the cease fire in the chemical warfare was an influx of yellow-billed cuckoos. I never spotted one, but I heard them all the time. Their diet consists mainly of hairy caterpillars.
After the spraying stopped, they moved in to eat up the stragglers.

I needed no more proof than this to realize that nature, left to its own cycles and devises, will be balanced. When we interfere, it can lead to a nightmare.

Someone please tell me what the Japanese Beetle cycle is. I'm just dying to know.

I work as an X-ray tech. I have seen the effects of pesticide from a plane has on the bones in the skull of the children that live near the orchard .

I posted the article about cell phones and imported food and there was absolutely no interest so it is a matter of "I will use what I want and demand you get rid of everything I do not like," just like it always has been. No one cares if it means they have to give up their cheap imports or convenient telephones they use while running up and down the roads veering from lane to lane, doing 20 in the left lane on the interstate and endangering everyone out there, or the cheap imports from China. Grrrr.

This reminds me of the carbon footprint prouncements by the worst offenders of carbon footprint,who board jets and fly millions of miles annually, demanding you give up your small car that gets you to your job.

Patricia43, this link doesn't go to an article at all:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_508326.htm

As for the cell phones, I agree that they are a menace on the highways. In my state a law is about to go into effect making it illegal to drive while on a cell phone, unless you use a hands-free device. That should at least help a bit.

As for cell phones and bees, there is some question as to the validity of the "science" behind that. Did you read the OP's followup on May 17th, with a link to an interesting bit of reading on the cell phone/bee issue? Here it is again.

Personally, I doubt that the situation with the bees has a single cause or solution. I wouldn't be surprised if it's discovered that this is the result of many years of general environmental disregard, a side affect of the "better living through chemistry" ethos that began in the 1950s.

I have faith that Mankind has the ability to discover the cause/causes of the bee issue, among myriad other pressing environmental issues, and devise a way to deal with the situation. What I doubt is our willingness to do it.

I read it all, Patricia, with interest, especially after reading that the organic beekeepers aren't seeing colony collapse. I want to read the solar activity stuff, too, but didn't have time to do a google search last night. Cell phones....that seemed pretty sketchy from the outset, like the press reading the press.

I think the most interesting part is that bees are inbred, that they're dosed with insecticides to control the mites, and that organic beekeepers aren't seeing collapses. That should give researchers a place to start. I wonder how we can tell which bees we find in our gardens, dead in the flowers. There aren't any commercial agricultural operations in this county other than one olive farm. How or why would commerically raised bees get here? There's obviously a lot about bees we don't know. I do know that I've seen two swarms this spring, one that went right through me in the garden and a second a week later that was thinking about building its hive in the crawl space above my bedroom (but reconsidered, no doubt when it experienced temps around 130).

I'm not real sure what the active ingredients in Conserve are, but is this form of insecticide safer to use?

It is supposed to spare most beneficial insects, but I am still interested in finding out if it has any harmful effects on humans, pets, lizards, etc., or any of the good insects out there? Obviously precautions while applying it are to be assumed.

I'd like to hear what any scientific studies have shown.

I'd also be interested in hearing if anyone has tried using Messenger ONLY, not in conjunction with fungicides or insecticides, with any success in controlling disease and significant insect damage. I do realize Messenger is neither a fungicide, insecticide, or fertilizer.

Thanks in advance.
Sandy

cell phones may kill more people thru car accidents as they are yaking away. And now people are text messaging while driving? and watching DVDs? Have we all gone insane?

I am curious if anyone has a answer to this question about the Messenger? I have thrips and lots of aphids..and BS but I am determined to be organic..I have not used Messenger..

Up until my first rosebush this spring I didn't spray-OK-maybe an occasional squirt of round-up-but that's all. Then the Chinese Rose Beetles came. I tried a few different things, none of which worked, before spraying something containing Merit. Still get the blasted beetles but have seen two honeybees so far as you describe-slow, disoriented-dying. Can't imagine it's a coincidence-no more spraying for me...

I used Neem this spring and I've seen 8 dead and dying bumblebees on our rosebushes, within the last 6 weeks.
There are several recent newspaper articles about a greatly increased mortality rate of bees in NOrth America. I wonder if the increased awareness of the harmful effects of artificial pesticides has led to an increased use of Neem,which is made from a culinary herb, and if Neem is what is killing the bees. I've gone back to using Cornell spray. I use a garlic, jalepeno,onion spray against thrips on my white and light pink and yellow roses.
Luxrosa
Cornell Spray. Prevents mildew, rust and b.s..
baking soda 1 to 2 tsps. I use 2 on the few roses which require the extra amount.
1 tsp. of canola oil ( it disperses in water)

Thrip spray.

1/2 head of garlic (you don't need to peel it.
1/2 onion
2 whole jalepenos.
1 quart water.
1 tsp canola oil.

Blend everything, let sit for 4 hours at room temp. Strain with cloth twice. Keep any extra in the refrigerator.
Lux.

I am going to try this mixture. We take what the product says on the label as fact. How many of us have taken that SAFE organic product and sprayed it on a bee?

Hi there, I am new to the forum (and to gardening) and I don't really want to use chemicals in my yard.

But! I have two trees that are INFESTED with what I think are thrips (see pictures) and I am about to put in a vegetable garden. I am worried that they will move over and destroy the veggies, even though they haven't left the trees yet.

I am going to try the garlic / jalepeno spray, but the leaves are so damaged and curled that I don't think any spray can get in there.

Please help!

Sandy,

I think Conserve's main ingredient is Spinosad which apparently has deleterious effects on bees. It was initially touted as a less toxic more organic alternative to typical pesticides so this is sad news.

I plan on trying Peter Beales' natural rose care products one of which supposedly works on thrips (my nemesis- or is it my nemesii?)

Oh bug!

We must teach you to want a new name.

Okay, post your photos so people who know about these things can tell you what they are and offer advice on possible solutions.

Now I think of it, you're probably on the wrong forum, as you don't say a word about roses. Why don't you take a look at the other Gardenweb forums and try one that deals with vegetable gardening or garden pests or trees (whatever kind of trees you have)?

Good luck!

Melissa

I don't spray because of the bee problem. By this time of the year, we used to have bees buzzing all over the cherry blossoms. Not this year; their numbers have been reduced significantly.

My neighbor uses chemicals to spray on his plants and all the weed on his property. Last year, the chemicals drifted over and settled on my roses, resulting in mottled and discolored appearance on my rose foliage. This year, I am going to tell him to be more careful and less cavalier in his application of the products. The shocking thing is that he would be spraying on a windy day, with his children playing in the yard.

Jeff

Jeff,
Your neighbor does sound sad. I love all the bumblebees and flies buzzing around the wisteria this time of year, with the common sage loaded with buds waiting to open and offer its nectar. I love the birds singing and pecking aphids on the plants, and later on the paper wasps (unaggressive and they prey on caterpillars), the butterflies hovering around the buddleia, and the swallowtail butterfly caterpillars on the fennel, and the evil-eyed praying mantises lurking in wait for victims. What is a garden without insect and bird life? You risk this when you spray. I have my share of weeds as well. If I don't want them in that spot, I pull or dig them up; and my garden looks fine.

Melissa

P.S. Have you tried talking to your neighbor about the dangers of herbicides to his children?

Melissa, no I never discussed this issue with them. I've resolved to talk to him about the spraying though this year; we live in a small rural community, and I always try not to make anybody mad and feel that prying eyes are on them.

Jeff