Hobby beekeeper, Janelle Crawford is heartbroken at the sudden death of a million bees overnight in Corowa.
It will be another week before the cause of a mass bee kill in Corowa is known with beekeepers fearing public health could also be at risk.
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Samples were sent to a Sydney laboratory on Friday after a million bees were found dead last Tuesday morning.
Beekeeper Alex McGillivray said it was the fourth time in five years that the same thing had happened, at the same time of year.
“Somebody is doing something very wrong,” Mr McGillivray said.
“If bees come into contact with a pesticide, they will drop dead but whole hives died overnight, all in the north and central part of town.
“Bees only go to flowers as their food source; they don’t all go to one yard overnight and sit on the same flower.
“Something is in the air.”
Staff from the NSW Environment Protection Authority travelled from Wagga Wagga last week.
Samples were immediately taken by plane to Sydney where results were expected within 10-14 days.
The 13 affected hives were owned by hobby beekeepers in town where bees remain within a three-to-four-kilometer radius of the hive.
Mr McGillivray now questions safety to humans if large quantities or aerosols are being released into the air.
“Logically, something was released into the air on Monday night,” he said.
“What is it doing to us?
“Bees are like the canary in the mine; if we’re breathing it in, it can’t be good”
Beekeeper Alex McGillivray removes a hive from inside the wall of a home.
Hobby beekeeper, Janelle Crawford was at a physiotherapy appointment last Tuesday morning when her phone “started going ballistic”.
“I had voice messages from my son and my dad, both frantic that the bees were dead,” Ms Crawford said.
“I go home and, sure enough, they were all dead and dying on the ground.
“I was heartbroken.”
Ms Crawford’s bees were a present to herself after surviving a stroke at 47.
She has three hives and another at her father’s house, three doors down, where he lives with his sister in her 90s.
“Every morning and night she goes to see ‘her bees’,” Ms Crawford said.
“She was in tears too, she was devastated.
“I love nature, our garden is a wildlife habitat for insects, frogs and birds.
“It’s beautiful, I’m really proud of it…we’re nothing without our insects.”
Now it’s a waiting game until results come back from Sydney, and a lot of work and expense to beekeepers to clean out the hives and replace the frames.
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