View Full Version : Neem

Kingfisher Apiaries
06-23-2010, 05:18 PM
We have a large garden 50-60 yards away from my main bee yard. We are spraying with NEEM tonight. Will it affect the bees if we spray at dark? Please advise ASAP as we are planing to spray at dark tonight if it (NEEM) is not a issue.


06-23-2010, 06:55 PM
From Wikipedia...

Neem oil is not used for cooking purposes, but in India and Bangladesh, it is used for preparing cosmetics (soap, hair products, body hygiene creams, hand creams) and in Ayurvedic, Unani and folklore traditional medicine, in the treatment of a wide range of afflictions. The most frequently reported indications in ancient Ayurvedic writings are skin diseases, inflammations and fevers, and more recently rheumatic disorders, insect repellent and insecticide effects.[1]

Traditional Ayurvedic uses of neem include the treatment of Acne, fever, leprosy, malaria, ophthalmia and tuberculosis. Various folk remedies for neem include use as an anthelmintic, antifeedant, antiseptic, diuretic, emmenagogue, contraceptive, febrifuge, parasiticide, pediculocide and insecticide. It has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of tetanus, urticaria, eczema, scrofula and erysipelas. Traditional routes of administration of neem extracts included oral, vaginal and topical use. Neem oil has an extensive history of human use in India and surrounding regions for a variety of therapeutic purposes. Puri (1999) has given an account of traditional uses and therapeutic indications and pharmacological studies of this oil, in his book on neem.

Formulations made of neem oil also find wide usage as a bio-pesticide for organic farming, as it repels a wide variety of pests including the mealy bug, beet armyworm, aphids, the cabbage worm, thrips, whiteflies, mites, fungus gnats, beetles, moth larvae, mushroom flies, leafminers, caterpillers, locust, nematodes and the Japanese beetle. Neem oil is not known to be harmful to mammals, birds, earthworms or some beneficial insects such as butterflies, honeybees and ladybugs. It can be used as a household pesticide for ant, bedbug, cockroach, housefly, sand fly, snail, termite and mosquitoes both as repellent and larvicide (Puri 1999). Neem oil also controls black spot, powdery mildew, anthracnose and rust (fungus).

06-23-2010, 07:23 PM
mold was taking its toll on our garden. so friday night we sprayed our garden w/neem. i got up at 5am saturday morning and washed everything down. the only ill effects i saw was one bumblebee that didnt look well. i saw no problems with our bees and the garden is much better.

Kingfisher Apiaries
06-23-2010, 08:53 PM
Went and spayed 125 tomato plants with it tonight. It says on the label that it is harm full to bees when sprayed directly on to a bee. I found this info online-

Neem Oil Uses & Benefits
Effects of Neem Oil on
Honey Bees and Beneficial Insects

Does neem oil hurt honey bees and other beneficial insects?

Insecticides kill insects. That's why they are called insecticides.

Usually pesticides make no difference beween pests and beneficial insects.

But neem oil is different.

As explained on the page about neem insecticide, neem oil is not really a knock down, kill-on-contact insecticide like the chemical poisons. Neem must be ingested (eaten by the bugs) to be effective.

If bugs don't eat leaves they don't get hurt. Simple.

In reality it is a little bit more complicated than that, but the fact remains that neem oil is impressive: it really does hurt bad bugs while sparing the good bugs.

Researchers have looked at it and found that neem oil is non toxic for example to spiders, butterflies and to insects that pollinate plants.

Scientists looked especially at how neem oil affects honey bees, since bees do eat plant matter, the pollen.

That's why reaseachers studied what happens if flowers get sprayed with neem oil.

And what they found is very reassuring. To see any effect the scientists had to use very high concentrations of neem. They used a lot more than you would ever use for pest control.

Only if they constantly hit the flowers with a very concentrated neem oil spray did they see an effect, and only in some small hives (medium sized and larger hives were still unaffected.)

What happens is that the bees carry contaminated pollen back to the hive and feed it to the brood. In the small hives some of the new bees could not emerge from their cells (Schmutterer and Holst, 1987).

Weekly use of a neem oil spray at a normal concentration (0.5% - 2%) will not hurt honey bees at all.

You can also rest assured that while neem hurts aphids, whiteflys and the like, it does not harm ladybugs and other predators that eat the aphids, or the tiny wasps that are parasites on many pests.

In one field trial researchers collected and counted aphids and their parasites and predators from fields. In the neem treated field there was the same amount of predator activity as in the untreated fields, and the aphids carried even higher numbers of parasites!

As I already mentioned above, the reason is that the beneficial insects don't eat the leaves and so never consume enough neem to be affected.

But you still need to be careful when you spray neem oil in your garden.

Any oil spray can smother and suffocate insects, and in that respect neem oil makes no difference between good and bad bugs.

So when you spray neem oil, please do it first thing in the morning or late in the evening, when the good bugs are least active. That way you won't hit any bees or other beneficial insects directly. The neem oil spray will dry before they land on the plants, and only the insects trying to eat your plants will die.

I hope I do not have issues. I still have my doubts even though I was "assured" in this article that it isn't a issue. Hope it doesnt affect my nucs etc. Wasn't my decision to use this to begin with. Anyone else used this?