Sygenta Website		"A-Z" INDEX &   SEARCH APHOX (Pirimicarb) Leaflet

A remnant from the 1980s, that I found among some beekeeping documents, that is recorded for information purposes.

This Insecticide was manufactured by ICI Agrochemicals at the time that the leaflet was produced. It is a Pirimicarb based product, aimed at control of aphids and was promoted by many organisations as being safer and more 'bee friendly' than many alternatives that had been in use.

In May 2005 during a discussion on the Irish List the subject came up of who promoted it and why, the exchange below is not complete, but the rest can be viewed in the archives.

The exchange between Dave Cushman, Chris Slade and Norman Carreck, that mentions APHOX starts at Message number 14124 under the heading "Bees in School"

Norman...
... Then along came more bee friendly insecticides, one of the first being the carbamate Pirimicarb, marketed as "Aphox" by ICI. From early on BBKA was promoting its use. I seem to remember yellow stickers with 'Bee safe - spray Aphox' being distributed at bee meetings. Later generations of synthetic pyrethroid insecticides have followed,

Chris...
So it is all about money and nothing about making sure that sprayers know what acceptable products are available and thus protecting bees (if it does).

Norman...
I have been reluctant to enter into this debate, but Chris is entirely wrong here.

Chris...
Thanks for the correction, Norman. I remember the Aphox leaflets, but as far as I am aware BBKA weren't paid to promote the product. Instead the motivation was protection of the bees. I agree that we have always talked to chemical companies and it is right, proper and sensible that we should do so.

At this point I entered the debate and changed the thread to RE: [IBNewList] Bees in School continued/Aphox...

I have a completely different perspective on this issue, I do not see that the BBKA took any lead at all in this promotion, they were only one of many individual promoters.

At the time, I was a Beekeeping Equipment manufacturer and I gave away many hundreds of Aphox leaflets, I still have one on my desk at this moment (I will write a web page on it sometime). [This page, Ed.]

My supplies of leaflets and the posters that I put up, came to me direct from the ICI rep, as I imagine supplies to all other promoters arrived.

I supported Aphox and it's campaign, purely from the common sense point of view of less harm.

Norman...
Thanks for your memory of the "Aphox" era.

The Leaflet takes the form of a card that can be filled in with personal details, folded and stuck together and then posted to a 'Spray Liaison Officer' in order that you can be notified in advance if there are to be any spraying operations in the vicinity of where your hives are kept.

There were other leaflets, fliers and posters that were similar in style. The first picture is a facsimile of the outer surface (when folded), [It may take a few seconds to load as it is a large file.]

The inner surface was aimed at educating both beekeepers and farmers about bee friendly sprays and could be posted to anyone that you wished should be informed about the product. Both of the images on this page are facsimiles that have been generated in order to reduce the file size and thus load as quickly as possible, but they do remain quite large files.

Written... 23 to 28 May 2006,