Cape Town - A bee farmer in Tulbagh is counting the cost after thousands of his bees were wiped out when an aerial crop sprayer sprayed nearby canola fields with pesticide.
Residents of the Cape Winelands town are angry about the potential health impacts on them and also the noise caused by the planes flying low over residential areas for up to 11 hours a day for the past three weeks.
Stean van den Berg, who farms bees with his father Pedro van den Berg, said they faced a loss of more than R1 million.
They had not only lost bees from 170 hives but 10kg of honey they would have received from each hive. He is furious he was not informed a toxic pesticide would be be sprayed near his fields.
"The canola fields are usually alive with insects - now it's a dead zone," Van den Berg said.
