In two hours, millions of South Carolina's bees were dead.
From 6:30 to 8:30 A.M. last Sunday, airplanes took to the sky and sprayed Dorchester County with Naled--an insecticide meant to kill zika-carrying mosquitoes. But insecticides aren't picky, and in a matter of hours, poisoned honey bees were dropping in incredible numbers. According to the Washington Post, at one Dorchester apiary, forty-six hives--over two million bees--died in a matter of minutes.
"Those that didn't die immediately were poisoned trying to drag out the dead," beekeeper Juanita Stanley told interviewers. "Now, I'm going to have to destroy my hives, the honey, all my equipment. It's all contaminated."
What's the takeaway from a disaster like this?
Communication.
The county notified beekeepers too little, too late. Three announcements, via a press release, Facebook, and the local newspaper, were the only warnings provided. All were posted within 48 hours before the spraying.
On the off chance beekeepers didn't pick up the paper or check their social media, the county made calls to local keepers. However, several apiaries went unrecognized on the call list, and their owners had no idea what was about to happen. Many keepers didn't know, so they didn't prepare.
Had the county put together a correct call list and notified all keepers further in advance, this situation could have been avoided entirely.
Consequences.
When I first heard this story, I couldn't help but remember DDT. The two situations are eerily familiar; in both cases, people meant well but failed to think through all the environmental consequences. And when you're misting poison from above, thinking through all the consequences is a must.
Like DDT, Naled--and any insecticide--has a ripple of environmental effects. Blanket-spraying doesn't just kill mosquitoes. It kills mosquitoes, and bees, and butterflies; insecticide isn't choosy. Honey bees can be protected, given the right measures. But wild pollinators are completely vulnerable. Aerial spraying has drastic effects on the bad bugs, and the good ones, and the balance of the environment when populations fall.
Zika is transmitted from person to person via infected mosquitoes. So far, forty-six cases of zika have been confirmed in South Carolina; Dorchester just wanted to contain the threat as quickly as possible. However, all forty-six of South Carolina's confirmed cases were foreign-travel-related.
In other words, not one case was the result of an infected American mosquito.
Zika's no joke. Maybe a local mosquito bit one of those forty-six infected people. But aerial spraying, right off the bat, seems a bit excessive. Zero South Carolina cases, so far, are the result of local mosquitoes--was blanket-spraying the entire Dorchester area really necessary? What's more, should it have proceeded with only forty-eight hours' notice? Notice that was incomplete, at best?
Two hours led to events which may take months to repair--and for Dorchester's millions of bees, it's too late to fix anything.
