An updated rant on LAWN POISON

I posted a rant a few days ago about lawn poison companies. It needs to be updated.

My three daughters took off for a walk about 11:00 this morning. An hour or so later, my youngest begged us to come immediately as there was a bumble bee in distress. It was indeed in distress, thrashing around and probably on the path to death. I've seen this sort of behavior many times, and only rarely after a fight where the thrashing one had been stung. This wasn't the case here. It had visited a poisoned yard and was suffering nervous system meltdown.

Call us bleeding-heart liberals if you will, but she spent an hour sitting on the back porch in a frump and actually broke down in tears over this little bee. It was not having a normal bee death.

Lawn poisons are evil.

FUCK Tru Green (a.k.a. CHEM LAWN). FUCK Lawn Doctor. FUCK ALL of the lawn poison companies.

If you work for a lawn company, change jobs now or face the wrath of ten thousand poisoned bumblebees when you are greeted at the gates of HELL! Oh, and FUCK YOU PERSONALLY!

End of rant.

tree out back is blooming. Number of honey bees sighted in the course of a week: 1!


I don't know what's killing them , but all the lawn chemicals aren't helping any!

because I'm away from home months at a time. They do a good job.

How do you know that a pesticide had been applied? How do you know that the bee had not been struck by a car or was dying from some natural malady?

:cry:

Must make your heart sore to see her hurting over the bee's plight.

No wonder you are ranting.

And I agree. Law care companies spreading poison chemicals are evil.

My neighbors were using them one spring and I kept finding sick baby raccoons and sick or dying birds on my property. I took three baby raccoons and one adult plus one surviving but ill boat tail grackle to a wildlife rehab center for treatment. They put down the adult raccoon and two babies, managed to save the bird and sent the last baby raccoon to a private home to live out the rest of his life as a pet because he was brain damaged from the poison. They said that the cause of all this suffering was lawn fertilizer.

My God, if that stuff will cause animals that EAT GARBAGE to become brain damaged or die, then what do you think it's doing to US? I'll live with my weeds, thanks!

also indoor pesticides. Then seven years ago he started having muscle weakness/numbness - turned out to be ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). As of this year he's hanging in there but has lost the use of his hands and can't stand up or walk on his own. I don't think they've been able to come up with concrete proof that exposure to chemicals like these would cause ALS, but it damn sure seems like it to me.

surprise me if pesticides play a role in ALS:

http://www.panna.org/files/Tyler.Pesticides&Parkinsons20080917.pdf

My dad grew up in a small town surrounded by wheat fields in western KS. He died 10 years ago of Parkinsons and his doctors told him there was a strong connection to exposure to agricultural chemicals in childhood and Parkinsons.

I believe the crap those farmers put on their crops killed my dad.

have a high rate of ALS. Their major exposures were from nerve gas and organophosphate pesticides. Organophosphate pesticides are weaker nerve gas agents.
It is unlikely anyone will officially make the connection between pesticides and any illness for fear of rattling the cages of corporations fearing liability. Doctors do not want to get involved in such things so shy away from making connections.
Parkinsons is another pesticide linked illness.

There are lots of them. Check out the environmental health literature. Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmnetal Health, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, is a good place to start. (try googling)

"perfect lawn" obsession and one has to wonder how many pay for it with serious illnesses like ALS. I read in a magazine not long ago that cancer rates are often highest in the most affluent neighborhoods. The researchers still hadn't come to any conclusions as to why that was, but lawn care products topped the list of possible causes.

My dad used to live down the road from a Scottslawn plant. He would say that the area needed "a visit from Erin Brockovitch". He swore that the Scottslawn company had caused the sky high cancer rates in his neighborhood, so he moved.

Is a brain damaged raccoon more or less vicious than a normal one? I know that sounds mean, but I was wondering.

There is lots of information out there you can use yourselves, and give to your neighbors. Here are just a few:

Lawn Care Without Pesticides: How to keep your grass healthy so that you can reduce or eliminate the need for lawn chemicals (NY focus but general info) - http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/lawn_care/default.asp

Certified Organic Lawn Care Information and Directory of Professionals (northeastern U.S.) - http://www.organiclandcare.net/

Safer Pest Control Project - http://www.spcpweb.org/resources/#factsheets

SafeLawns.org - http://www.safelawns.org/

I tell people I don't like to be around poisons because I am

Allergic to poisons!!

From personal experience in the lawn maintenance industry, I have observed at least one rather large colony of bumble-bees which had nested in the ground, almost directly under the turf or ground.

It's possible that an application of insecticide was recently sprayed in the area, not to kill bees but to kill more destructive pests such as chinch bugs, sod web worms, fleas, or any number of undesirable insects that may or may not have been infesting the turf.

I don't know if it is possible to design an insecticide which will be harmless to beneficial insects. They do have selective herbicide which is designed for specific weeds. Whether there is some molecular engineering which can be done in the future, I can hope that technology will be helpful in this regard.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is practically impossible to successfully maintain a monoculture of desirable lawn turf (St. Augustine, Zoysia, Bermuda, Pabscalum, ect.) without repeated applications of herbicides and insecticides. And if you live under restrictive constraints of a local homeowners association, you really have no choice, unless you want to be legally evicted.

It's up to counties in New York, and I think it should be required everywhere. Individual homeowners often fail to do it, but the lawn care companies do. Sometimes you can smell it even before you see the signs, but if not, at least there is a warning (yellow signs) to keep kids and pets off the grass.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/8529.html

Of course, I preferred the signs I used to see in Minneapolis in competition with the ChemLawn signs - "Touch my lawn! It's pesticide free!"

I've never understood the blanket application of pesticides in a preventative fashion.

edit to add:

The same companies that manufacture pesticides also make pharmaceutical drugs, own medical imaging technologies, and a wide range of medical devices and services. When chronic illnesses develop from pesticide exposure, the same companies that make pesticides profit from our illnesses.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/05/29/poison-profit.aspx

There are many ways to prevent pests without using petrochemical poisons.

we don't give a fuck. we get lots of bees with all the flowers. and when there is nothing at all, my pussy willow TREE is always buzzing when it goes to pollen. and dandelions are HERBS. heck, we get dragon flies. all sorts of bugs. and vermin. haven't seen any mice in a while tho.

I live in a community where we have very strict codes on how our lawns are supposed to look. People here take immense pride in their properties and spend a lot of money on lawn services to maintain not only the look and value of their own property, but the overall look and value of the community and town we live in.

I too, live in an 'association.' We have a lawn. We have a garden. And we don't use chemicals that kill living creatures.
It takes a little more time to take care of our yard, but it is worth it to know that we are not killing the very creatures that we NEED to keep our yards and gardens growing.

We ALL have to be responsible for this planet. There are no excuses.

No obsession here over a perfect lawn. I always know when I have been away and "they" have come through the neighborhood, Not the little warning flag but the smell!

:kick:

I'm allergic. It's bees or me.

Hmmmmm, maybe time to switch to Tru Green.

right? It seems silly to kill them if you're allergic to them. Just go indoors or stay away from the flowers they pollinate; getting close enough to kill them puts you at risk, especially if you miss.

...than if you just leave them alone.
A foraging HoneyBee will not sting unless trapped (stepped on, caught in clothing, slapped, etc.).


We have 150,000 HoneyBees in our back yard.
The only time we are ever stung is when messing with the hives, and that is rare.

My wife and I feel so strongly about the over abundance of toxins in our environment that we sold everything and moved to The Woods. ALL non natural Pesticides, Herbicides, Fertilizers are permanently BANNED from our little Hilltop. Our Neighborhood Association (My Wife & I) absolutely insist on this. (My wife is a cancer survivor).



The Coal Mine Canaries(Bees, Butterflies, Healthy Frogs, Hummingbirds) are abundant here .
So are Wildflowers and Herbs. (If you're in the suburbs, you call them weeds.)

It is NOT just the Lawn Care Companies that are the problem. Many "homeowners" spray powerful toxins all around and inside their homes. Most exceed the recommended dosage ("If a little is good, a lot is better").
Many (most) backyard gardeners, even some who talk "Organic", will pour on the pesticides if their little squash crop is threatened.
One grain of Sevin carried back to a beehive in the pollen sac of a foraging HoneyBee can kill the hive.

Those of you who live at the mercy of Neighborhood Associations, or Condo Boards, or other such groups have my deep respect.
I wouldn't last one day.

They've landed on me, I weed the vegetables while they are busy doing their bee business in the blossoms, and we mostly just leave each other alone. They are not aggressive in any way. Now, the European hornets are a different story, but I've never been stung by one of those either - they are just aggressive.

a variety of ground covers and flower beds are most attractive and require no chemicals or poisons to thrive. There are a variety of deterrents and organic solutions for dealing with garden pests. I have bees, wasps, butterflies and hummingbirds as well as a variety of other birds who visit as a result.

worked for ended up with a LOT less lawn then they started with.

Not only can you convert lawn to beds of groundcover with paths and patio areas going through them- you can easily add bulbs that grow up through the groundcover and also smaller flowering evergreens like azaleas, camelias, daphnes, heather.

It's so much prettier, so much less work. All you have to do is occasionally pull up some weeds that start poking through the groundcover.

that are more drought tolerant because we have experienced a noticeable climate change toward hotter and drier.

I live in an apartment now, so it is someone else's problem.

Still I think acres of grass is kind of boring. Our obsession with green lawns also is responsible for water shortages in places where water is scarce to begin with. They have green lawns in Arizona and I just have to say WTF?

I especially despise neighborhoods that require lawns instead of other kinds of landscaping. I would never live in such a place.

These people are as close to dictators and a totalitarian regime as any feudal lord in the Middle Ages ever was. Arizonans will probably have to face up to karma when the Hoover Dam and Colorado River can't deliver water anymore. I find all the lush green golf courses in Arizona and throughout the arid West including my state of California obscene because they require so much water and so many pesticides. The climate where I live is changing and getting hotter and drier. I am looking more and more towards natives and any plant that is drought tolerant.

Even though you live in an apartment, there is a lot you can do to influence your city parks and recreation department to start thinking in a more earth friendly way, not to mention the landscaping that is around your apartment that you can nag your apartment manager about.

And they miss being catty and ruining people's days, so they force their way into homeowners' associations.

We had one crazy woman who was freaking out about some sailboats on the side of one of the streets (the side that was specifically designated for boat parking). "Whose boats are those? Why are they out there? What if somebody from another neighborhood is parking boats there; how would we know?"

It's an idiotic pastime for people with no lives.

We have a green green yard and never used pesticides. (I realize how silly the old conventional BIG GREEN LAWN is but we have too much yard to cover with shrubs and our neighbors are pressuring, competitive assholes about the yards looking JUST SO :eyes:)

Your daughter knows in her heart how important the bees are, and what we're doing to them.

to drive all over town to find the clover seed but it is wonderful and drought resistant. Looks really green all the time too if you mow the flowers down - so it's self seeding too.

Pisses the shit out of my neighbors too which is an added plus.

Fuck pure green grass lawns. As someone else recently posted, "grass is the only crop we grow where we throw away the harvest". Fuck yards like that. They are ugly and functionally dead.

Our bees love the clover, and we rotate mowing areas so there is always a bunch in full flower.
A field in full flowering clover is beautiful, and smells clean and wonderful.

Clover lawns used to be very desirable until poison companies got into the act.

Home Depot and Lowe's guys were like...."why would you want to but that"?? I finally found a farm feed store that sold it - I guess farmers grow it for cows to munch on?

Glad to find another clover lover!!

Gardens Alive. They don't carry it this year. I was able to find it at Agway which is a farm feed/garden center store.

:toast:

Best place I ever found for lawn seed is Nichols. They have heirloom seeds of all kinds and sell herbal lawns for every zone (but MINE). I'm just stuck letting the weeds go nuts (I pull the really tall, obnoxious ones) because the soil is so sandy I'd have one big bare patch otherwise. Thankfully, my neighbors are all equally lazy, so I don't stick out so much.

Personally, since I've been stuck in FL I have yearned for a yard full of dandelions like I grew up with in IA. (I have my gran's amazing dandelion wine recipe, but no plants to make it. :( ) I saw a dandelion here years ago, but for some reason it never took off. Weird, because this is where all the non-native species become invasive.

My kids love to blow on the seedheads for dandelions, and so I have a plethora of them all over the place (one of my neighbors absolutely hates it--he only has dandelions on my house's side of his lawn :) ). I refuse to spend money on the lawn unless I really have to (did have to attack the grubs this year, but that's because of the dang squirrels ripping up my entire front yard), so I have the most dandelions in the whole neighborhood.

In the fall, if you plant clover in the garden beds with expired plants it will grow enough greenery to till under and enrich the soil but it won't go to seed because it doesn't have time to flower. The material you till under enriches the soil. I use radishes the same way.

My neighbors don't like it, but my kids love the violets in the spring, the dandelions all season, and now the forget-me-nots are spreading out of the front plantings into the lawn. And the wild strawberries and apple mint. They all mow decently but smell nice and look pretty. I say what's the difference? :shrug:

after a couple years of struggle and massive invasion by this year i finally had to call a lawn person to come in to try and gain some control adn save some grass.

thanks a lot to those that do nothing but weeds in their yard.

my rant

:evilgrin:

On edit: Grammar police: it is "THEIR", not "THERE" in that context.

And fuck lawn poison companies. You're wasting your money on that poison and actively contributing to the demise of honey bees (and countless other beneficial creatures). Redeem yourself, while there is still time. You may still be forgiven, but I can't vouch for that.

thank you. secondly... wtf.... grass is the weed. you make your choice of lawn, i will make mine but i prefer my kids outside playing on grass and not weeds that have assorted types of stickers that i then have to spend hours picking out of their clothes. i also like the looks of my green grass over my acre of land and spend the time mowing it down. aesthetically it is pleasing

and thirdly, fuck the people that allow the weeds to become the lawn that then blows out of control in my yard.

and lastly.... oooosh, i am hoping the redeeming stuff is in pure jest cause i gotta say, putting the grammar police, the fuck the neighbors with your weeds, the fuck the lawn company, the girl crying over bumble bee cause momma convinced her it an unnatural bee death

accident waiting to happen

Man, that's fucked up.

I make the dogs walk on the sidewalk when I pass a yard that has been poisoned. I don't want them walking through that stuff. And yes, I do pick up after them ;}

I don't know why some people go to such lengths for an allegedly beautiful lawn. The poisoned lawns I see don't look so great. :shrug:

And, I always worry about my cat eating some outside, but none of my neighbors seem to put any down thankfully.

Um, sorry about the dandelions. The kids really love making wishes on the seedheads, see, and I love the violets every spring and my other flowering weeds in my lawn.

Oh, and if you find any mint or strawberries, they're from my house, too. I think they're trying to take over the world, but they sure are nice to have around. :)

and it is cute, ... after ten years of trying to do it without spraying, i am losing my lawn and have no choice to thicken up the grass so i can have better control again. so if my neighbors were responsible with their own lawn, i wouldnt be spraying in the first place.

:crazy:

Your goal is to have thick, pretty grass. Mine is to keep it cheap (to the point of really not spending anything on it at all--no room in the budget), soft enough for the kids, and short enough not to get in trouble with the city. I don't have the money for the spraying, to be honest, and I'm uncomfortable with all those chemicals to begin with (grew up on the farm--almost lost a dog to pesticide and have lost many, many, many family members to cancers of all sorts).

i have been about 8 yrs doing that and did a lot fo damage to the yard. (actually, i didnt like wasting the water on the grass, conservation). spent a couple years trying to get it healthy with water, but the empty patches started filling with weeds. 3 are different sticker weeds so we are all having problems being barefoot in yard. i have to get it back healthy to get off the chemical. too big a yard and will never be one of those perfect yards, not my goal.

but having never used the stuff before, one application, wow.... all that it did. it is just amazing the fixer it was in getting grass healthier, taking out the weeds and a month, many of the empty spots are filling in.

not my intent to do this forever, or more than a year.

but then that is more of an explanation i would generally put in a thread like this. your just special.

i do like the idea of trying the vinger on the weeds thru out the gardens. and a way to control the carolina creeper. hate the stuff

We have poison ivy in the woodlot to the side of the house, and the kids want to put a fort in there this summer. Not until I get rid of the poison ivy, though!!

My neighbor told me that the best thing to do is keep putting grass seed down. I bought some on sale to fix where the squirrels dug up my lawn looking for grubs (all that's in that huge area now are violets and some other weed that isn't as pretty). It's on my list for today or tomorrow.

I use that on my lawn and it is lush and green. it also requires less water. I have lots of bees, birds, frogs, lizards, snakes, armadillos, skunks, opossums, squirrels making use of my yard. They love it. i always set out water for them to drink.

i have a veggie garden. i tilled in organic manure compost. i just got a rotocomposter so i can make my own. i'll get my cow poop from my sister's animals. I've already harvested cherry tomatoes and jalepenos. The big tomatoes are pink. i love homegrown tomatoes.

The little tiller i purchased has been a very good investment.

has nto been a hot spring. all this week is in the 50's, lol. not much winter, spring seems almost as cold

i really dont know if i buy into the kid/pet health thing. you water pretty soon after, so not like the kid is following in the sprayers wake, rollin in the shit and chewing on the grass. will remember you brand though, for when we take over

I see people buying seeds and I feel i should tell them it is too late. i followed the Farmer's Almanac and planted during the recommended moon phase. It seems to have worked or maybe it was the manure. I planted in a new spot and the ground was like concrete. It is beautiful now. There are tons of worms in the soil, just loosening it up.

good for you. we are in the panhandle. i turned on heater today after freezong yesterday. lol

My neighbor saw my son and I pulling up dandelions yesterday and offered to lend me his spreader. I said no thanks. He said but you will never get all of them. I said it's good exercise and I don't want to put any chemicals on my grass. He walked back over to his perfect green yard shaking his head.

My friend told me vinegar kills dandelions. It has to be at least 70 degrees and you need to spray the flower. I have been trying it and hope it works. :)

Full strength, it will kill just about anything, but it does not discriminate. If you get it on grass around the dandelion, you will have a brown spot.

It is probably easier to just pull it.

With flowering weeds, it is best to pull them before they flower.

You have got to be kidding me....a bumblebee. Geez. I spray my own lawn with fertilizer and bug spray. Kids and dogs are doing just fine. Green as can be. Keeps the ticks, fleas, and all the ants away.Get a grip
:eyes:

About 18 years ago I drove past my kids waiting at their school bus stop and saw that they were being gassed by some Lawn Doctor idiot. The guy was standing not even 10 feet away from the kids (about 8 0r 9 kids) and the wind was blowing the poison right at them. And they couldn't go inside to get away from it.

I stopped the car, got out, and demanded that the guy stop spraying and wait until the kids had been picked up by the bus. I also asked him what he was spraying. He showed me the list of chemicals and I wrote them down. One of them was 2,4D, which is suspected of causing cancer.

Next, I called the school principal and the president of the board of education and told them we needed some kind of rules to protect kids from being poisoned at bus stops or as they were walking to or from school. They agreed, and the school board contacted every lawn company in the county to tell them. I wrote letters to the editor about this too.


I am convinced the reason we lost our beautiful Samoyed dog to a horrible nasal cancer at the age of 7 was because she sniffed at lawns that were chemically treated, and licked rain puddles containing who knows what kind of poisons.

"she spent an hour sitting on the back porch in a frump and actually broke down in tears over this little bee."

:spray: :rofl:

fertilized or poisoned. It turns white as snow all winter but in the middle of April it turns a beaytiful green and when it's mowed it's as perfect as a putting green. No weeds ever grow in it because it is so dense they can't get through. It has to be planted in plugs not seeded.

environment HopeHoops. I used to get so frustrated with the poison people in my neighborhood but by me not poisoning my yard, I am making up for one of those assholes who are adding to the poisoning of our lakes, rivers and wildlife and justifying their actions with the lame excuse of wanting a "green" lawn. You would think people would have evolved a little bit more than that but we can only do what we can.

Bravo to your raising 3 environmentally sensitive daughters!!

you are just guessing.

you don't like lawn chemicals. (i agree with you on that.)

but putting that bee's death on lawn chemicals is just your silly, uninformed, "want it so" projection. you don't know that. you don't. you couldn't.

that bee could have died from a thousand of reasons.

so stop with your lawn hate. bees die. every day. and you cannot tell me why the bees die.

so stop...

i concur wholeheartedly.

and yes our obsession with pretty lawns is one of the reasons. We are so far removed from awareness of healthy living that we are killing the bees and much of our environment. Bees are our canary in the mine, so to speak. Eliminating dangerous chemicals that seep into our water sources and kill vital insects and other life should be paramount.

because you have no fucking idea why this bee died. neither does the op. and to pretend that you do is bullshit.

but let's go on and on about why you "think" this bee died. let's just make shit up! and wring our hands and whine and suffer so...

you want it to be because of the chemicals on pretty lawns. you hate them. you have an agenda. you want it to be because of the chemicals on pretty lawns.

but you have no fucking idea why that bee died.

when we inject our offspring with ill-informed nonsense as does the fundamentalist religious person, it is wrong. all fear, no facts. exactly the same situation here. we denounce the fundamentalists. we should also denounce those that spout their obvious ignorance to our youth as the truth. bad fucking parenting.

spreading illogical bullshit to children should be a crime in whatever venue...

Who ever came up with the idea that a green-carpet monoculture, cut and trimmed to a precise height, is a thing of beauty? I see it as evidence of some weird human pathology - the insane desire to sanitize and tame nature. Decades ago I came to the conclusion that the whole "lawnmowing" obsession had its roots in the Neanderthal days, when long grass might hide a predator - and to this day there's the urge to cut it down. But it's escalated well beyond that.

I like my mixed-species lawn with plenty of dandelions. Those have been a great food and medicinal source for me and my family, and it boggles my mind that people consider them weeds.

Although right now he is mostly getting garden thinnings - baby lettuce, a wee bit of spinach (they aren't supposed to have too much of that), bok choi, radishes, etc.

I hate Round-Up, Weed-Be-Gone, Lawn Doctor and all the untested, unregulated shit from Monsanto and other companies being dumped on lawns, washed into the spillways, and probably killing insects and amphibians. You know, what the hell is so wrong with dandelions and other real plants?

I hate to use the word "hate" but I "hate" my neighbors who insist upon spending their money on poison companies who make their grass look green and it flows down to my organic garden. I'm going to approach them. Not gonna be easy.

Just to provide perspective, how are you going to respond when they approach you about your "weeds"? Are you going to change? Doubt it. But you will expect them to.

Little by little I have cleared areas of grass and planted a wide variety of clover. It is beautiful nestled among the arugula gone wild, fava beans that reseed with a little help from me, and radishes gone bonkos.

And guess what? There was a guy nearby drinking diet soda.

Fuck aspartame.

Fuck George Rumsfeld.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Thanks for the laugh out loud, Hanse.

I hope your daughter grows to be an activist exposing the dangers of pesticides and herbicides. Tell her that I worked with Scientists at Michigan State University years ago proving that organic farming allows a natural balance in the ecosystem we live in. When pesticides kill the bugs we don't want, they also kill the ones we need. Our "radical ideas" about balance and treading lightly have all turned out to be truth and will continue to do so. Anyone that cares for the bees is a friend of mine!

I grab a kleenex and put it outside. The kids freak out. "BUT IT'S A SPIDER AND THEY ARE GROSS!" I tell them all about the good things spiders do for us. And usually the next time we see an insect someone grabs a kleenex and gently picks up the insect.

I will kill roaches though. :)

I pull the weeds and dig the dandelions. Our yard is a mixture of grassed from thin to broad leafed. It is a mosaic of grasses if you will.

... we're seeing an unusually high number of dead birds. It's either west nile or those chemicals.

I don't understand people who are willing to spread POISON on their lawns.

Here in SC there has been a outbreak of salmonella among goldfinches and other species which frequent feeders, Need to keep those feeders clean.

Not in any way defending the use of these poisons. For that matter, fuck lawns.

to the list of lawn care services to avoid along with the ones that use chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

Just couldn't help yourself could ya?

Don

won't use chemicals, I think this thread is a bit over the top. Telling people who work for lawn companies to fuck off? Then of course some asshole decided to talk about how lawn companies hire illegals... Gimme a break. With all the shit going down we are going to debate lawns?

There are so many reasons why this conversation is important-
Companies that hire illegals, usually do so because of money; they can exploit the workers and pocket more money for themselves. We don't have a problem with people here in the U.S. wanting to work, only with companies that don't want to pay a fair wage to those workers.
Excessive pesticide and herbicide use does harm the environment, works its way into water supplies and harms beneficial insects, animals and people.
Bees are dying at abnormal rates for many reasons, one is overuse of chemicals. We absolutely have to have bees and other insects to pollinate our fruits and vegetables.

It is important to teach our children care and empathy for the earth and all of its inhabitants. I am almost 60 and just in my lifetime have seen and experienced a dramatic change in the quality of life that most people experience. We have learned(maybe better said, been forced) to adapt to a much lessor quality of life. I want somehow to change that so my grandkids can smell clean air, eat healthy food, not be afraid to drink the water, climb trees and like each other...

but somebody got busted big-time last year when it was found that the "inert" ingredients for their products were 70% formaldehyde - Hardly an "inert" ingredient.

Despite the fact that the EPA, FDA, etc... haven't been allowed to do their jobs for a very long time, the laws these corporate giants were ignoring were still on the books all that time. Since the ONLY thing they understand is $$$$$, let's take a couple of billion off their books as punishment for what they've done.

What do you do when you discover your home is being invaded and taken over by termites, ants, mice, or some other disease carrying pest?

How do you deal with something like that?

Don

my concern is for the rampant overuse and excessive use of pesticides and herbicides. One of the reasons that we have some problems is because of the imbalance that we have created. There are many ways to rid pesty critters and insects without chemicals, and in some cases small amounts chemicals can be productive and not horrible. We just need to be considerate and mindful of the big picture. Lots of plants will repel insects. Best way I have found to get rid of mice and pesky squirrels is with a bucket of water with bait and ramp... many techniques can work to keep life sane without chemicals that also give us cancer, make it hard to breathe, pollute our water supply, deform our children, etc...

Is that correct?

Don

and it appears you are baiting me :-) ...that being said, a technique to rid an area of rodents is to 1/2 fill a 2-5 gallon bucket(depending on size of pests), position a wooden plank going up to bucket and strategically place nuts, crumbs, etc on the plank....

I mentioned to him that if one of toddlers who live in the neighborhood happened to fall in his squirrel trap and drowned I was not going to be responsible for my actions as I might go temporarily insane if that were to happen.

He put his squirrel killing toys away that same day.

Don

locked attic for example. I understand your concern and I would be everybit as concerned if your neighbor was putting out poison to kill rodents.

So bees good, mice bad. Want to give me the full list so I can fall in line?

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/PI128

Table 2. Boric acid wildlife toxicity ranges.
Common name
Bird acute oral LD50 (mg/kg)*
Fish (ppm)**
Bee†

Boric acid
PNT
PNT
PNT

*Bird LD50: Practically nontoxic (PNT) = >2,000; slightly toxic (ST) = 501 – 2,000; moderately toxic (MT) = 51 – 500; highly toxic (HT) = 10 – 50; very highly toxic (VHT) = <10.

**Fish LC50: PNT = >100; ST = 10 – 100; MT = 1 – 10; HT = 0.1 – 1; VHT = <0.1.

†Bee: HT = highly toxic (kills upon contact as well as residues); MT = moderately toxic (kills if applied over bees); PNT = relatively nontoxic (relatively few precautions necessary).


Table 3. Cross reference list of common, trade and chemical names of boric acid products.
Common name
Trade names*
Chemical name

Boric acid
Boric acid®, CB®, Drax®, Eco®, Hot Shot®, many others
Boric acid, borax, sodium polyborate, sodium tetraborate, many other forms of boron

*Does not include manufacturers' prepackaged mixtures.



I bet you never even considered the posibliity that the bee you were imortalizing in your OP may have died from your use of Boric acid around your own house.

Don

It is very effective if you can find the path the ants or roaches are using.

tell me how I can get rid of it without using Round Up or something?

While I've been trying to find something non-toxic to try to get rid of it there are even more plants sprouting up. Help!

I'm very allergic to it.

depending on where it is growing...

get someone willing to eraticate it by the roots (wearing protective clothing) and bag up
smother it by using black plastic or other material that doesn't allow it to get sun or breathe
some say a mixture of salt, vinegar and a little dish detergent works

nasty stuff - find someone not as allergic to deal with it.

But it WILL raise the acidity of the soil in that area for a while. After the poison ivy is gone, frequent soakings will restore the pH in a few weeks.

put it in a spray bottle, straight, I guess. Problem is, the vinegar you get at the store is only 3%, but mixed with lemon juice may do the trick.

I was thinking of a strong salt solution, or maybe clorox, but that may be as bad as the Round Up.

I don't care about the naysayers here. I think our prolific use of pesticides and herbicides is responsible for a lot of medical problems.

by a combination of a sort of hazmat outfit he rigged up to deal with it manually (heavy gloves, coveralls etc.) and once he pulled up the majority of the weeds, he mulched and then carefully monitored any new growth. Five years later we have no poison oak on our property and new plants are not sprouting up. It doesn't mean they won't in the future, but it requires vigilance. Other native non-toxic plants have replaced the poison oak so I don't think it will return on our property.

I put on rubber gloves and used a spade to dig it up, then grabbed it with a pair of clippers and put it in a bag, then washed the clippers and spade and THEN the gloves before I took them off.

My daughter pulled some weeds at her house. Apparently some ivy got mixed in. Her eyes swelled almost shut and she had to go to the doctor for medication.

herbicides as if they had no ill effects on our lives. They do. Serious ill effects.

So, thank you for bringing up this topic again, HopeHoops.

On a slightly different note, I am considerably allergic to poison ivy and poison oak. My yard was one of those poison ivy horticulture plots like you'd see at an ag university, so I decided to use the most benign herbicide I could find--the common garden hoe.

It took me two years of dedicated chopping of the leaves and the runners in early spring when the bastards first rear their glossy, monstrous, little triple-leaf heads, but I've damn near wiped them out. Now, all I have to do is get out my garden hoe in April and I can hear the baby poison ivies start screaming. (Just kiddin')

But seriously, I still have the occasional volunteer from a runner I missed, but it takes a grand total of about an hour's work on a two-acre wooded area with small lawn and I'm done for the year.

In case anyone was wondering.

but I only go after the carpenter bees that eat my house.

chemicals have. They seep into the ground water
and water treatment plants do not even have
up to date information to be sifting through
all the new chemicals on the market. But nothing is done.
The chemical corporations are a huge problem.
We have an acre we are free of any chemicals. Our yard
is always buzzing with wildlife.
I love your daughters are aware.
I feel their pain. My condolences. One love.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK-Uk-VULvk

But kicking anyway!

I love bees and butterflies and even the @##$@@!!ants that are after my firebush.

I'm glad your bee is dead and I hope it burns in hell.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=280x34941

So do our Hummingbirds, Butterflies, and Frogs (Coal Mine Canaries).

I have little respect for those who take pride in their willful ignorance.

The lawn and landscaping company for the medical building had signs surrounding the building, saying that the lawns had been treated.

And you certainly could tell even if you hadn't seen the sign. Phew. x(