If you use pesticides and DE read...Bee news!

[GwenFarms]

I suppose when I think of people raising chickens, I think of them all doing it the way I do. My chickens have a large run and coop. There is noway of keeping bees out of either. The windows in the coop are covered in chicken wire and, while they don't hang around in there, you do occasionally see them flying through. I see them all the time in my run. My chicken area backs up to my garden,where the bees are all the time, thankfully. I let my chickens free range for part of the day too. So, if I dust my chickens or coop with DE they don't absorb it. It stays in their feathers and will be shook into the bee's environment. So, there I can't see anyway DE would be a good choice for me, or anyone who keeps chickens similarly to how I do. I'm sure for those who mostly keep their chickens confined it can be used.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Gwen, as you must know perfectly well from reading this forum, most of us DO keep our chickens in windowed ventilated coops with either outdoor runs or free-range. Personally I can't say I appreciate the sarcasm.

With the whole DE thing, it comes down to DOSAGE, do you understand?

If you put DE on a flower that a bee visits, or dump a bunch on the bee itself, that is a problem because the bee gets a bunch of the DE dusted onto itself. Each little micro-particle of DE causes a little microscopic 'cut' in the waterproof outer layer of the bee's exoskeleton, and if there are too many of these little cuts, the bee dehydrates to death.

But it takes a WHOLE BUNCH of those little micro cuts, i.e. exposure to a LOT of DE particles at once, to affect a bee or other invertebrate.

So if, in contrast, you use the DE indoors, or dust it into your chickens' feathers, yes, some of that DE does 'shake off' into the environment and some relatively small fraction of it will get outdoors.... but it will be spread over a such a huge area, nearly all of which is NOT walked on by bees to any meaningful degree, that there is just no possibility that a bee is going to get a lethal dose doing any normal thing that bees do -- CERTAINLY it is not going to 'wipe out a hive' as you seem to fear.

If we drop you in a vat of road salt and leave you there a while, it will kill you. If I give one shake of a salt shaker over your hand, or if you walk barefoot over a road that had been salted in winter, it is not going to make the slightest difference. Dilution and doseage MATTER.


Pat, an invertebrate ecologist (although mainly aquatic ones) in her former career before becoming mommy and chicken-slave

 

[Guitartists]

I'm no ecologist, but based on what I have read about DE and how it functions.... I was having a hard time figuring out how it could decimate an entire hive. Even if some managed to make it to the queen, they would replace her, would they not? I would never use DE if I kept bees in any kind of close proximity to my chickens. But I would imagine the real danger to honeybees are all of the chemical pestisides that get sprayed onto so many US flower gardens. People want bug and weed free yards. I've always found it a senseless battle as the weeds and the bugs were here first

LOL I wouldn't want to risk killing beneficial bugs in my gardens. But, I would imagine that chicken coops, unless they are surrounded by landscaping are probably not going to be the biggest hangout for honeybees. If they are attracked to the water, put a butterfly dish (shallow pan with rocks and water) in a far off location for them.

 

[GwenFarms]

Quote:
Gwen, as you must know perfectly well from reading this forum, most of us DO keep our chickens in windowed ventilated coops with either outdoor runs or free-range. Personally I can't say I appreciate the sarcasm.

Any sarcasm you read was entirely imaginary. Personally, I don't appreciate being patronized!

What a rude reply to someone who had no ill intent toward you what so ever.

 

[patandchickens]

Phrasings that apparently came across as 'patronizing' were in fact just pure frustration. I apologize for that.

But I know that you are active enough on this forum to realize that the people who are explaining to you that DE in the coop is no threat to insects outside of it DO keep their chickens in windowed ventilated coops with runs. I stand behind the entire rest of the post.

There is ZERO real-world reason why DE used indoors or on chickens themselves is any threat to bees.

I give up on this thread.

(edited for grammar)

Pat, Ph.D.

 

[sundance]

I use DE in the coop when I change the hay,both in the nests and under the roosts, But I think that the hay under the roosts have enough poop in it to keep any bees from gathering there.we have humming birds and DE would probably harm the birds as well as the bees, But so far I have not seen any bees or birds in the chicken coop. Since I don't usually see enough bees to pollinate my tomato plants, when they begin to bloom,I usually roll up apiece of news paper and beat the tomato plants late in the afternoon. Pollinates the tomatoes and anything i need pollinating, like eggplant and peppers, (Old Indian trick).I usually spray my garden with tobacco tea and dawn dish detergent, doesn't harm anything but the bugs.marrie

 

[GwenFarms]

Quote:
An apology really should never contain a but. I have been active enough on the forum to know that quite alot of people here keep their chickens in very confined areas, due to their urban living. Not everyone has the same roomy area that I do and certainly not everyone's chicken area is near their garden and bee hives. Which explains how my post was factual and not sarcastic, nor should it have raised any frustration on anyone's part that I can see.

How can you definitively say that there is "zero real-world reason why DH used indoors or on chickens themselves is any threat to bees" when the manufacturers, who I have communicated with, cannot, regardless of what you may have a Ph.D. in?

I haven't tried to change anyone's mind here about their use of DE. I like to think everyone here is careful with pesticides, be them organic, or otherwise. I, and some others here, just simply choose not to use them. I have just posted information that I know some users are interested in. You may have your mind made up about this product, but everyone is not going to feel the same way as you do.