Comment by red-indian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by red-indian | Hacker News Reader

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Neonicotinoids are one of the best and safest pesticide treatments for termites. You dig a narrow ditch around the building's foundation, you mix in the neonicotinoid with the dirt, and you refill the ditch. Used this way there is absolutely no risk to bees or aquaculture.

Neonicotinoids are one of the best and safest pesticide treatments for flea and ticks on cats and dogs. You apply it to the back of their neck and it lasts 30 days. Used this way there is absolutely no risk to bees or aquaculture.

Neonicotinoids, although effective, are not suitable for use in fruit orchards or golf courses, or where they can enter water systems, yet are used in these contexts.

When you buy a neonicotinoid for termite control the instructions explain that it is illegal to use it for those other things. Yet you can instead buy the exact same neonicotinoid for fruit trees where the instructions explain that it is legal for that use. This makes little sense.

Losing neonicotinoids for termite, tick and flea control would be a grave mistake and loss and give no advantage.

Modifying neonicotinoid instructions to ban usages that are obviously causing problems is reasonable.

you mix in the neonicotinoid with the dirt, and you refill the ditch. Used this way there is absolutely no risk to bees or aquaculture

Does this mean it's not possible that e.g. it starts raining, the neonicotinoid mixes with the water which then eventually makes it into a nearby stream? I.e. just like your thrid paragraph describes?

The trench is about 4 inches wide. It's under the eaves. You can also do it on the inside of the building if you have a crawl space. Dig 10 ft of trench. Pour 5 gallons water in trench mixed with something like 1 oz neonicotinoid. Then backfill the trench. The neonicotinoid bonds with the soil and remains active for about a decade, stopping termites from entering the building. Any house meeting building codes is going to have a roof and eaves that prevent large amounts of rain from entering this area. The area has non-neonicotonoid soil on top of it so there's no casual run off. You'd have to have leeching through the soil to whatever watershed you have. This is impossible because the neonicotonoids bond with the soil and do not move once set.

With fruit trees it also has long lasting action, bonding with the very bark of the tree and remaining for many years. This is a problem since honey bees come to the tree and get microdoses which appear to mess with their navigation. But the interesting part is other pollinators don't show these effects. Which is perhaps because honey bees have the food they store (honey) harvested by their "keepers" and are then given commercial corn syrup mix (grown with pesticides and including residue) as their only food. The simplistic nutrition of this substance compared to real honey weakens these fellows, compounding the disorienting effects of the neonicotonoids.

In OP's Japanese study they are mass applying neonicotonoids directly to the surface of a watershed, which resulted in huge problems to the down stream aquaculture. This use of neonicotonoids is a terrible idea and the adverse effects were not surprising. I'm quite surprised that mass application of neonicotonoids to a watershed isn't considered a criminal act.

> stopping termites from entering the building.

Do the termites in your location not fly? In Fiji we have termite swarms once a year. Millions of them will show up at every light they can get to in the evenings. Everyone is advised to turn off their lights for a few hours and light a fire outside so as to get the termites to kamikazi. These are the Asian Subterranean Termites that arrived here via Australia.

Pesticide in a ditch around a house isn't going to stop these buggers.

The idea is the poison kills them if they set up a nest next to the foundation.

Termites only fly when a colony has reached a limit on number, and pairs fly off to start new colonies.

unless they start a new colony inside the barrier, the barrier is still effective.

The barrier is only affective against burrowing, but termites don't start new colonies by burrowing. They swarm (usually once annually)... fly off and build new colonies. If only the method described here actually worked, we'd save billions of dollars a year in damage.

Subterranean termites.

> Modifying neonicotinoid instructions to ban usages that are obviously causing problems is reasonable.

I don't think the bees care very much if that particular use of neonicotinoids was legal or not. If widespread misuse exists, there is a problem.

It seems to me that pet and termite formulations could be delivered in a way that makes it impractical to apply as a broad spectrum insecticide applied by sprayer.

But I'm not sure you're right about the termite application presenting no risk to bees. The EU banned neonicitinoids used to protect seeds from insects. On the grounds that the neonics end up in the pollen.

It's not uncommon to have flowering plants next to a foundation.

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