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Ct

If I spray some sevin on my grape vine in the backyard to keep the japanese beetles from pulverizing it, will the sevin keep the bees away from the pumpkin patch in the front yard? The grapes are about 200 feet from the pumpkin plants.

7/11/2008 3:42:26 PM

Farmville, Virginia (mfowler@hsc.edu)

Are you planning to self pollinate all your pumpkins? If so the bees are not essential to the plant.

7/11/2008 5:24:21 PM

Okla

But bees are essential to a lot of other growers and farmers, so don't do anything to harm the bees. Now days with a large number of bees dying we need to do what we can to not harm the bees. The bees are after the blooms and spraying the plants will not usually harm the bees. If you spray early in the morning and get it on the bees or flowers then it will do harm to the bees. That is a good reason to spray late in the evening or at night! Or better yet use a product that will not do harm to bees.

7/11/2008 7:57:47 PM

Menomonie, WI (mail@gr8pumpkin.net)

Spray right before dark....

7/11/2008 8:53:29 PM

porterville, calif.

Sevin is really toxic to bees, bumble bees . It really plays heck with them. Look for something that won,t harm them.

7/13/2008 2:05:28 PM

Ct

How does this harm the bees? For instance, if I spray the three small grapevines that I have { they are about 3 feet each}, does the excess windblown sevin mist kill any bees in it's path or does it kill the bees after they land on a recently sprayed plant with sevin?

7/14/2008 8:28:24 AM

Rocky-r@stny.rr.com

Sevin is an ingested type pesticide. THey have to eat the sevin which then creates gaseous type reactions and actually kills the bugs from the inside out.. Bees fly almost up to a quarter mile away for pollen each day, so yes, they could be affected by the grapevine spraying. I remember spraying my hedgerow infected by thousands of gypsymoth caterpillars and coming back out an hour later to listen to them pop like Rice Krispies.

7/14/2008 11:26:44 AM

Westford, MA

The next incarnation of Sevin is Eight and isn't supposed to be harmful to the bees.

7/14/2008 2:07:52 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Always spray insecticides at sundown. Certified applicators are required by law to not spray in the morning to prevent killing bees. It avoids spray injury on plants too.

Eight kills bees too.

7/15/2008 9:02:22 AM