The Tangipahoa Mosquito Abatement District recognizes the importance of the European honey bee (Apis mellifera) as pollinators and in honey production, and makes every effort to ensure that our applications have a minimal impact on honey bee colonies and beekeepers.

Those efforts are two-fold:

• Avoidance – We time our spray operations to commence after the bees have returned to the hive and would therefore be far less likely to be exposed to our mosquito control insecticides. Accordingly, our spray trucks do not begin operations until sunset. Our aerial applications do not begin until Civil Twilight (approximately 20 minutes after sunset). Further, if a beekeeper has notified us that their hives are within 300 feet of the road, our drivers will turn off their spray before reaching the beekeeper’s property line and will not turn it back on until they have reached the other side of that property.
• Notification – We notify all beekeepers in our database whenever an aerial application is scheduled for their area. We are committed to providing this notification at least 24 hours in advance unless there is an immediate threat to public health from a mosquito-borne disease which would require a rapid response.

We wish to have our efforts be as transparent as possible, and we have attended area beekeeper association meetings to discuss our protocols and to address any concerns which might be raised. We value our partnership with area beekeepers and are always willing to speak at these meetings, if invited.

Each year, we obtain a list from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF) of all registered beekeepers within the District to see if there are any new apiaries. We will then contact those beekeepers to determine the exact location of their hives so we can add them to our GIS mapping system.

Any area beekeeper can sign up to be added to our notification list. Sign up at the blue button below.

NOTE: You will need to provide the physical location of your hives in order to receive these notifications.

RESEARCH ON PESTICIDE EFFECTS ON HONEY (Conducted by the LSU AgCenter)

https://www.lsuagcenter.com/profiles/rbogren/articles/page1469716014252