Did the reliably lame Orange County Vector Control District screw up and poison our local honey bees?
One of our readers, David Marder, is a beekeeper, and he runs a bee control company here in Orange County, called Bee Busters. In fact he is the one who took care of the Africanized honey bees that killed three dogs in Santa Ana lost week.
Marder and his colleagues started noticing earlier in this month (with a huge spike right around the weekend of the 7-8th of March) unusual numbers of people calling about swarms and colonies of bees which upon their arrival they found to be dying from apparent pesticide exposure. So they immediately called the offices of the Orange County Vector Control District, because they seemed like the most plausible cause of bee deaths all over the county.
The Vector Control bureaucrats immediately began to evade – first the said they hadn’t been spraying anything – just putting mosquito fish in pools and some kind of brickettes.
A week or so later Marder and company were pulling their hair out because the been were still dying, when one of his guys found a recent “application map.”
Marder called Vector Control again, talked to their overpaid District Manager and again they denied spraying anything until the beekeeper asked “what about this map,” whereupon the District Manager said “oh, yeah, that,” and then he finally admitted that the Vector Control District had been applying an insecticide called Sumithrin. No bueno! Sumithrin is highly toxic to bees.
How did the OC Vector Control District forget that they had been spraying a poisonous chemical that kills bees – until they were cornered and had to fess up?
Marder has requested their application logs multiple times but most of a month has gone by without them coming through on that. He believes that the Vector Control District got the dosage or application method wrong and now they’re covering up what they did!
If only their screw-up ended there – but as it turns out Sumithrin is even more toxic to fish!
It is apparent that the OC Vector Control District has caused an ecological disaster here in Orange County and they know the kind of trouble they’d be in if it came out. By now most folks know that if you kill off the honey bees then there will be no pollination of local fruits and vegetables, not to mention flowers. It will start a chain reaction that will devastate our local plant life – and all the critters and people who depend on these plants.
Obviously mosquitos have to be controlled but it doesn’t usually result in this kind of bee kill which is why Marder is certain that the OC Vector Control District did something wrong.
Remember that we stopped the OC Vector Control District, last year, from spraying dangerous chemicals into the backyards of homes in Santa Ana’s poorest neighborhoods. They were at the time trying to scare us about the West Nile Virus, which is spread by mosquitoes. However what we found out was that the people getting sick were mostly the homeless, who live outside and don’t have shelter. What they needed was mosquito repellent!
The OC Vector Control District takes money from all of us via property taxes. They have to scare the population periodically in order to beg for more tax revenue. You should see how much these people get paid – and what kind of benefits they are earning, including huge pensions! You would expect that they would know what they are doing – but apparently that is not the case.
We have been saying this for some time – the O.C. Supervisors should dissolve the OC Vector Control District and subcontract out any necessary spraying to professionals who actually know what they are doing, not the overpaid empty suits at the OC Vector Control District!
Please contact your local politicians and let them know that you are not happy about what the OC Vector Control District is doing to our honey bees!
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I looked everywhere on the vector control site for the OC application map for May, June, July and August. I couldn't find anything after April. Does that mean that they stopped making applications for the rest of the year?
I just want the information so I know when to stay inside. I just want to observe if it is the explanation for the chronic, mystery headaches and nausea I endure for several days straight.
I work in a location east of two sites on the April Application Map.
This guy that is complaining has been keeping bees (legally) on County property next to a business complex and residential properties. When those bees swarm out it creates more business for him. If you live by Molten Parkway and Ridge Route Dr. and a swarm lands on your property they may have come from his legal hives. They may even be Africanized.
Wow! Some real nuts in santa ana.. Leave vector control alone!! They are not killing your bees theres is no evidence. When they dont spray or do their jobs you will all be crying about how many mosquitoes there are.
Their jobs should be outsourced to contractors. The Vector Control staff is overpaid for what they do.