Post by William Hatton on Jun 25, 2013 17:41:51 GMT
I'm about to set up my first hive within a field border - nice site with the farmers full blessing and permission.
My concern is this years crop in said field is potatoes - a good crop seems to be growing very well.
Many years ago I used to work on a research farm which were reasonable for producing two of our best known potatoes "Marris Piper & Pentland Squire. So I was used to potato harvesting.
My problem is I remember 10 to 14 days prior to the harvest we had to smear vast amounts of heave grease over the tractors as we sprayed the potato leaves (shaws) with a pretty powerful acid in order to kill the leaves off prior to harvest 10 to 14 days later.
How can I protect my bees during this acid spraying, do I keep them in? if so for how long as the acid is active until after the harvest when the farmer ploughs the rotting shaws into the ground which can be anything up to 8 weeks later.
I don't want to alienate myself from the farmer by asking for another site on his land as he could tell me to go forth and multiply.
My concern is this years crop in said field is potatoes - a good crop seems to be growing very well.
Many years ago I used to work on a research farm which were reasonable for producing two of our best known potatoes "Marris Piper & Pentland Squire. So I was used to potato harvesting.
My problem is I remember 10 to 14 days prior to the harvest we had to smear vast amounts of heave grease over the tractors as we sprayed the potato leaves (shaws) with a pretty powerful acid in order to kill the leaves off prior to harvest 10 to 14 days later.
How can I protect my bees during this acid spraying, do I keep them in? if so for how long as the acid is active until after the harvest when the farmer ploughs the rotting shaws into the ground which can be anything up to 8 weeks later.
I don't want to alienate myself from the farmer by asking for another site on his land as he could tell me to go forth and multiply.