Honeybees and Tansy Ragwort...
Don Bruder
Anybody here know anything about Tansy Ragwort and honeybees?
I'm in the Seattle area, dealing with a nasty infestation of Tansy
Ragwort on a "horse oriented" piece of land. By "dealing with", I mean
"attempting to totally exterminate" - the stuff is a nasty poison for
horses. As far as I've been able to find out, there are basically two
ways of dealing with it: (A) The "nuclear option" - Chemically sterilize
the areas where it's growing with 2,4-D, RoundUp/Glyphosate, or a couple
others, and (B) Hand-pull and compost/bag the stuff. (Can't "just cut" -
The stuff re-grows, and if it has flowered before it's cut (which most
of this has), it behaves like dandelion or thistle - Even though the
plant is cut, the flowers will still go ahead and turn to seed - 10-40K+
seeds per plant, according to my reading... Talk about a great way to
make a bad situation worse...)
Since option A is less than desirable (due to the fact that it pretty
much means "spray down the entire area and get bare dirt in a couple of
weeks") I've been going at it by pulling the plants and burying them in
the manure pile by the wheelbarrow full.
Which leads me to the question...
While out pulling, I've noticed large numbers (Depending on where I'm
working I might see none, or anywhere from 5 to 20 per plant) of dead
honeybees "stuck to" the flower-heads. If you've ever seen a mass-kill
of bees due to them feeding on Buckeye, then you've seen exactly what
I'm seeing on the Tansy - It looks like they touched down to
feed/gather, and something just "zapped" them, without causing them to
fall off the plant.
I've been doing some reading on the Tansy, and all the information I've
seen so far is consistent: Besides being toxic to horses, cattle, and
goats (and humans, although cases of human Tansy Ragwort poisoning are
extremely rare) the toxic compound is also found in honey made by bees
near large stands of the stuff.
Which leads me to wondering...
Is Tansy Ragwort known to be bee-toxic?
If so, it would go a long way to explaining the large number of dead
bees I'm seeing. For what it's worth, the vast majority of them look
like they're in very good shape - only a very few have any sign of the
ragged wings, hairless thorax, etc, that are the hallmark of a forager
getting set to die of old age, so I don't think I'm seeing bees from a
"tired colony", or anything like that. I'm also not seeing any corpses
on the various other plants and weeds (particularly the Bull Thistle and
Queen Anne's Lace that are almost as thick as the Tansy, both of which
have live bees working them heavily) that are nearby, which leads me to
think that the Tansy is probably responsible for the kill.
Any solid information on the topic here?
--
Don Bruder - dak...@sonic.net - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
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terryc
(A) The "nuclear option" - Chemically sterilize
> the areas where it's growing with 2,4-D, RoundUp/Glyphosate, or a couple
> others, and (B) Hand-pull and compost/bag the stuff. (Can't "just cut" -
If pulling is hard*, have you tried cut and paint?
Cut the stem and then quickly dab to stem with glycophospate(sp?). We have
some weeds over here that can only be pulled the day after soaking rain.
> I've been going at it by pulling the plants and burying them in
> the manure pile by the wheelbarrow full.
unless that manure pile gets steaming hot for afew days, you are just
creating a great new sources. Stuff in garbage bags and leave in sun for
a week would be better.
Don Bruder
terryc <newssixs...@woa.com.au> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:16:41 -0700, Don Bruder wrote:
>
> (A) The "nuclear option" - Chemically sterilize
> > the areas where it's growing with 2,4-D, RoundUp/Glyphosate, or a couple
> > others, and (B) Hand-pull and compost/bag the stuff. (Can't "just cut" -
>
> If pulling is hard*, have you tried cut and paint?
> Cut the stem and then quickly dab to stem with glycophospate(sp?).
With the sheer numbers involved, that would likely take years.
> We have
> some weeds over here that can only be pulled the day after soaking rain.
That's not an issue with these particular weeds. Grab and pull, and with
only occasional exceptions, the whole plant is out.
> > I've been going at it by pulling the plants and burying them in
> > the manure pile by the wheelbarrow full.
>
> unless that manure pile gets steaming hot for afew days,
That's not a problem either - The last time I stuck a thermometer in it,
it went off-scale at 130F, with the needle still moving so fast it was
almost a blur. I work this pile with a front-end loader, and once I cut
past the the first foot or so of dried-out "shell", it's like stepping
into a sauna - After the first couple scoops, the steam rolling out of
the pile is often enough to make it impossible to see the bucket of the
loader from the seat, and once I've cut a "trench" large enough to hold
me and the loader, it's too hot to stay put for more than the time it
takes to get my scoop and back out. It's cooking quite nicely. Which, in
combination with the sheer amount of the weeds I need to get rid of, is
the exact reason I chose burial in the pile rather than trying to bag it.
kauhl-meersburg
> much means "spray down the entire area and get bare dirt in a couple of
> weeks") I've been going at it by pulling the plants and burying them in
> the manure pile by the wheelbarrow full.
hello,
you should try the so-called "touch method" of Roundup, spotting each
plant with a wet sponge - your agro-shop should know the special
equipment, a long tube filled with this liquid at a recommended
concentration and at the lower end a fixed circle of wool stripe
we here in Europe face the same problem with canadian goldenrod: at at
certain level of infestation the plant behaves like grass, i. e. the
soil is totally filled with little revitalizing roots - no chance with
pulling
cheers kauhl
Don Bruder
kauhl-meersburg <OFFka...@t-online.de> wrote:
This stuff comes up pretty easy, and the area I'm working is getting
pretty close to being cleared - I'd say another day or so will see me to
the end of dealing with it other that catching any stragglers I missed,
or re-sprouts that come back up.
The weeds and how to deal with them really aren't my main concern,
though - I'm more interested in whether the Tansy is known to be
bee-toxic, or if I'm just seeing some sort of flukey thing.
Charlie Kroeger
I read that all parts of the plant are toxic and yet you say the dead bees
you see are not evenly distributed across the flowers indicating something
else. Maybe you're seeing the end of the line for bees that are suffering
from CCD. Is there a lot of this decline reported in your area?
I believe you're right to dig out the Tansy Ragwort. It's good exercise and
the results will be more satisfactory than laying waste with herbicide that
will adversely effect the beneficial microbes and worms.
There's one thing you might consider in your attack on Tansy Ragwort.
They are a biennial short-lived perennial as it were, meaning the plant
produces seeds in its second year. A sensible plan would involve removing
first the blooms before they produce seeds. Put on your nitrile gloves high
quality dust mask and bag up all the blooms, leaving them in the bag until
they could be buried in the compost. Wait for a good rain to soften the
ground then start forking out the plants. Do this for a couple of years and
they will be gone.
The poison in Tansy Ragwort is a toxic alkaloid. This means it can be
'neutralized' by an acid like vinegar. You could improve the quality of your
compost by adding vinegar to the pile.
By the way, weeds like you've described are a sure sign of overgrazing.
After you've removed the weeds it would be ideal to let the area rest a
while letting the natural grass become re-established. Where I live that
process would take about 20 years. I shit you not pardner.
--
CK
Don Bruder
Charlie Kroeger <ckr...@frankensteinface.com> wrote:
> > Is Tansy Ragwort known to be bee-toxic?
>
> I read that all parts of the plant are toxic and yet you say the dead bees
> you see are not evenly distributed across the flowers indicating something
> else. Maybe you're seeing the end of the line for bees that are suffering
> from CCD. Is there a lot of this decline reported in your area?
Don't really know. The honeybee population seems to be fairly light, but
that may be only because I'm not actually looking for them. Or it could
be that this area is too urban for much of a honeybee population - I'm
south and east of Seattle, probably about a 45 minute drive to get to
downtown.
> I believe you're right to dig out the Tansy Ragwort. It's good exercise and
> the results will be more satisfactory than laying waste with herbicide that
> will adversely effect the beneficial microbes and worms.
>
> There's one thing you might consider in your attack on Tansy Ragwort.
> They are a biennial short-lived perennial as it were, meaning the plant
> produces seeds in its second year.
I've already "done my homework" as far as controlling the Tansy goes -
I'm quite aware of the biennial "rosette"/"seed stalk" cycle. Doing said
homework is also why I'm yanking them out instead of mowing or "nuking"
them.
As of today, I've got things *PRETTY MUCH* under control as far as the
Tansy goes - I've removed pretty darn close to all of it. I *MUST* have
missed at least some, but right now, I can't see it. I'll be checking
back for the next few weeks to spot any stragglers, but at least for the
moment, it looks like the Tansy is pretty much toast. The last of it got
buried in the heart of the manure pile about 3 hours ago. Found a *VERY
FEW*, barely recognizable stalks of the last batch I put in while I was
opening up the pile to put this latest bunch of it in - The pile is
eating it *REALLY* quick, which I count as a Real Good Thing(TM).
> A sensible plan would involve removing
> first the blooms before they produce seeds. Put on your nitrile gloves high
> quality dust mask and bag up all the blooms, leaving them in the bag until
> they could be buried in the compost. Wait for a good rain to soften the
> ground then start forking out the plants. Do this for a couple of years and
> they will be gone.
>
> The poison in Tansy Ragwort is a toxic alkaloid. This means it can be
> 'neutralized' by an acid like vinegar. You could improve the quality of your
> compost by adding vinegar to the pile.
Truth be told, I'm real hesitant about messing with what seems to be
working well - Yesterday I went out and picked up a cheap candy
thermometer (reads 100-400F, where the one I used before was scaled from
-50 to 130 F) I could shove into the pile to see what the internal temp
*REALLY* is (closer than "the scale ends at 130, and the needle was
still going up fast when it passed that point", anyway) and found out
that the pile is running in the 155-165F range anywhere deeper than the
outer foot or so - which tells me it's cooking along almost perfectly -
The pyrophilic bugs that you want in a manure/compost pile are
apparently QUITE happy in mine, since everything I've ever read about
composting says that the pile should be hitting 150-170F when things are
working the way they should be.
(Got an interesting surprise while I was digging one of the holes this
morning - found a large rock - I'd estimate its volume to be a bit more
than a basketball, though the shape was irregular - that had gotten
stirred into the pile. Rolled it aside, and half an hour, maybe 45
minutes later when I grabbed it to move it someplace useful, found that
it was still so hot I couldn't hold on to it with bare hands for more
than a few seconds - yow... TOASTY!)
> By the way, weeds like you've described are a sure sign of overgrazing.
> After you've removed the weeds it would be ideal to let the area rest a
> while letting the natural grass become re-established. Where I live that
> process would take about 20 years. I shit you not pardner.
Actually, in this particular case, the weeds are the result of the
previous owner and/or contractors hired by the previous owner scraping
the top 18 inches or so of soil into a pile, putting down a layer of
large (3-6 inches) broken stone and drainage lines, adding a 6 inch
layer of 5/8-minus gravel on top of that, scraping the piled up soil
back across the area, then running out of money to level, seed, and
otherwise finish the job. Let sit for almost 3 years with "whatever
floats in" taking root, and it's now pretty much a jungle - Blackberry,
Bull Thistle, the Tansy, Queen Anne's Lace, some morning glory,
"regular" (as in "not ragwort") tansy, sweetpea, field mustard, etc -
all surrounded by fairly scraggly grass that, given a chance, would
likely take off pretty well. The weeds are so thick right now, though,
that the grass is struggling (and that's putting it charitably...)
I'm in the process of TRYING to fix the problem I've "inherited".
Next step is to get a set of welder's leathers or similar "armor" and a
heavy pair of leather gloves, and start ripping out the thistle -
hopefully before this year's seed crop emerges - Most of it has already
flowered, so like the Tansy, I can't get away with just mowing it, and
even if it wasn't in flower, I know only too well how quick that stuff
will regrow from the taproot it sinks.
kauhl-meersburg
>> Is Tansy Ragwort known to be bee-toxic?
>
> I read that all parts of the plant are toxic and yet you say the dead bees
> you see are not evenly distributed across the flowers indicating something
> else.
hi,
I dare to contradict, what I can find in one of my books about plant
pharmacy is that rabbits like to consume senecio's herb without damage,
what brings me to the conclusion that the toxic is to be found in the
phloem / plant sap ascending the main stem up to the flower and ending
in nectaries
allow me a joke: letal dose for mices = 0,08 g / kg, compared with 90 mg
of honeybee gives 7 μg alkaloid?
hoping that soneone in the NG brings me back to reality, meanwhile I'll
continue to investigate
cheers kauhl
terryc
> the exact reason I chose burial in the pile rather than trying to bag it.
Okay, different scale.
If they are an annual, try slashing them when 50% of flower is open. The
idea is to make them do maximum work, then rob them of seed replentishment
stock.
You could also try the glycophospate wiper bar trick. Rather than
spray and nuke it, you wipe the tansy plants be running a bar they
drips glyciphospate. The plants takeit in throught the leaves by
contact and die. Doesn't nuke everything, you are not distubing the
ground, especially lower shrubs.
Charlie Kroeger
Right
>the pile is running in the 155-165F range anywhere deeper than the
> outer foot or so - which tells me it's cooking along almost perfectly
Yes that's a good compost heap.
>found a large rock - I'd estimate its volume to be a bit more
> than a basketball, though the shape was irregular - that had gotten
> stirred into the pile. Rolled it aside, and half an hour, maybe 45
> minutes later when I grabbed it to move it someplace useful, found that
> it was still so hot I couldn't hold on to it with bare hands for more
> than a few seconds - yow... TOASTY!)
Stones are great things to store heat. I read a thing once where a person
had a wall of big rounded rocks he continually doused with solar heated
water in the day. At night he stopped the circulation and the stones then
gave off heat, sounded like it worked pretty well.
> previous owner and/or contractors hired by the previous owner scraping
> the top 18 inches or so of soil into a pile, putting down a layer of
> large (3-6 inches) broken stone and drainage lines, adding a 6 inch
> layer of 5/8-minus gravel on top of that, scraping the piled up soil
> back across the area, then running out of money
This is another type of overgrazing but just as destructive you can file it
under 'stupid fucking white men'
Your thoughtful procedure will pay off someday. In that area with so much
rain it won't take 20 years to put things right.
--
CK
Charlie Kroeger
> pharmacy is that rabbits like to consume senecio's herb without damage
Rabbit digestion should be studied. I know they can eat poison ivy and Rats
make nest from it, a plant some would fear more than Tansy Ragwort.
Senecio from what I read, is a 'genus' of the daisy family that includes
ragworts and groundsels. This genus contains a 'vast' number of species.
Some species produce a natural pesticide which is the alkaloid that is
damaging to the livers of livestock when they eat the species: Tansy
Ragwort. I found this interesting site about 'tansy.' People have been
using it since Athens was a city state:
http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/t/tansy-05.html
> brings me to the conclusion that the toxic is to be found in the
> phloem / plant sap ascending the main stem up to the flower and ending
> in nectaries
That would seem most likely.
> cheers kauhl
guten Tag kauhl
--
CK
16:28 UTC
Don Bruder
Charlie Kroeger <ckr...@frankensteinface.com> wrote:
> > previous owner and/or contractors hired by the previous owner scraping
> > the top 18 inches or so of soil into a pile, putting down a layer of
> > large (3-6 inches) broken stone and drainage lines, adding a 6 inch
> > layer of 5/8-minus gravel on top of that, scraping the piled up soil
> > back across the area, then running out of money
>
> This is another type of overgrazing but just as destructive you can file it
> under 'stupid fucking white men'
That would be PRETTY close to the tab I used for filing. Yours is
phrased to be a little more suitable for polite company than mine, but I
can see that essentially the same thought is being expressed. :)
> Your thoughtful procedure will pay off someday. In that area with so much
> rain it won't take 20 years to put things right.
Nah, I expect that if I can get rid of the weeds, then maybe hit the
high spots with the arena drag and/or a railroad tie/chain-link fence
drag strung off the back of the tractor, maybe put some more grass seed
in, I can have it a *MOSTLY* happy pasture in a year or two. Get some
good turf going to keep the weeds choked back, and it'll start shaping
up even faster. It's just that I'm dealing with 3-ish years of
completely ignored growth on what was essentially a weed heaven. I
shudder to think what the weed-seed count in the dirt over there is! But
if I can get a decent turf going, that'll cease to matter.
Fortunately, I've got climate more or less on my side. There's a reason
this area is not-so-jokingly referred to as "The Pacific NorthWet" :)
Vegetation gets LOTS of irrigation, and with the reasonably mild temps,
does its best to use it all.
Don Bruder
Charlie Kroeger <ckr...@frankensteinface.com> wrote:
> > I dare to contradict
> > pharmacy is that rabbits like to consume senecio's herb without damage
>
> Rabbit digestion should be studied. I know they can eat poison ivy and Rats
> make nest from it, a plant some would fear more than Tansy Ragwort.
>
> Senecio from what I read, is a 'genus' of the daisy family that includes
> ragworts and groundsels. This genus contains a 'vast' number of species.
> Some species produce a natural pesticide which is the alkaloid that is
> damaging to the livers of livestock when they eat the species: Tansy
> Ragwort. I found this interesting site about 'tansy.' People have been
> using it since Athens was a city state:
>
> http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/t/tansy-05.html
Careful - Wrong Tansy - that's Common Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), and
yeah, I've heard of it being used in herbal treatments.
The stuff I'm getting rid of is Tansy Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), and
the only thing I need to know about it is that it's poison for horses,
so it must die Die DIE *DIE*!!!!!111eleventy-one1!! Oops... Got a little
too enthusiastic for a second there - I'm OK now. Honest... Hey - Wait!
What are you doing with that butterfly net? :)
But seriously...
While the Common Tansy's leaves look *SOMEWHAT* like Tansy Ragwort (or
vice-versa) the flowers are quite distinct: Common Tansy flowers have no
petals at all - They look almost exactly like a smaller version of a
daisy that's had all the petals plucked off a blossom. Tansy Ragwort, on
the other hand, has flowers that resemble a small (about 1/2-3/4 inch
across) yellow-petaled daisy.
See 'em side-by-side (as I have been in the pasture I'm trying to fix
up) and I guarantee that if you've got functioning vision, there's
simply no hope of mistaking them for each other. :)
Charlie Kroeger
> yeah, I've heard of it being used in herbal treatments.
Understood.
I'm off to acquire a swarm of bees, the game is afoot.
--
CK
nicho...@gmail.com
Julian Macassey
toxic to cattle and horses.
Tansy ragwort honey is bitter.
http://www.nwcb.wa.gov/publications/Tansy_brochure.pdf
+ Also, honey containing nectar from tansy ragwort tastes so
+ unpleasant it can’t be sold.
http://bcinvasives.ca/invasive-species/identify/invasive-species/invasive-plants/tansy-ragwort
+ Tansy ragwort reduces forage production of pastures by up to 50%,
+ and alkaloids in the plant taint honey produced by bees so that
+ it is too bitter and off-color to market.
Tansy ragwort is invasive throughout the Pacific North
West and should be pulled.
--
“Advice is a cheap commodity some seek it from me about crime — I know only one
thing for sure — If you want to make crime pay — ‘Go to Law School.’ ”
- Whitey Bulger, Boston Gangster
mason....@gmail.com
p.s... livestock know not to eat tansy and will leave it alone, unless it's dried and baled in their hay.
Julian Macassey
> Hello! Obviously this is a very old thread, but... I manage
> pasture in the Portland area pulling tansy ragwort, and have
> also noticed dead honeybees on the flowers, but have ALSO
> noticed discrete, pale yellow spiders lurking on the same
> flowers, camouflaged in the tansy. Every dead bee I've found,
> to my knowledge, has been a victim of these spiders. I also see
> plenty of honey and other bees coming and going without
> apparent issue. However, I've never seen more than maybe 3 dead
> on the same set of flowers.
>
--
"That's not the way the world really works anymore, We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create our own reality." Karl Rove to Ron Suskind