Pesticide poisoning kills millions of Cape Town’s bees

Cape Town’s bee population has taken a serious knock in recent weeks, raising fears of widespread poisoning.

As reported by eNCA, beekeepers in and around Cape Town have noticed a dire pandemic which has wiped out millions of nature’s chief pollinators. Brendan Ashley-Cooper, vice-president of the Western Cape bee association, confirmed that the erroneous use of agricultural pesticides is believed to be the cause of the devastation.

Several million bees have died

Ashley-Cooper said he was first alerted to the deaths by fellow beekeepers. Upon inspecting his own hives, he discovered millions of dead bees. Ashley-Cooper estimates that about 2.5 million of his bees have perished as a result of the poisoning. The commercial farmer explained:

“A week ago we started getting calls that be beekeepers were finding dead bees in front of their hives. I came to inspect my bee site and found similar results and found thousands upon thousands of dead bees in front of a lot of my bee hives.

This look to me, from past experience, to be poisoning of some sort. It’s a very intense poison which has killed the bees in a very short space of time.”

Pesticides containing a mixture of molasses and ant poison blamed 

Ashley-Cooper confirmed that an urgent meeting would be convened with surrounding farmers to investigate the matter further and discuss possible solutions. He maintained that the farmers themselves were extremely concerned about the decimation of the local bee population, saying:

“The farmers have been very concerned about the bee die-off. We’re having meetings with the farmers in the next couple of days to have a look if they have caused this problem and to see if we can find solutions.”

Beekeepers in the Constantia are especially distressed by the recent devastation and have blamed local farmers for spraying their crops with pesticides that contain a mixture of molasses and ant poison. The sweetness of the molasses attracts the bees.

A bee which has ingested the pesticide then returns to the hive and unwittingly infects the rest of the other pollinators.  

Watch: Cape Town’s bee die-off via eNCA

Read: South Africa’s fake honey scam leaves local beekeepers embittered