Special Report

FFA experiment proves fruit repels, does not kill bees

Severe bee allergies prevented Cole Diggins’s four-year-old cousin from swimming where the insects swarmed. Diggins’s grandfather recommended cutting hedge apples and scattering them near the pool. It worked. “All the mud daubers left too and I was a little curious, so I started this experiment,” Diggins told Brownfield Ag News. Diggins, from Bronaugh, Missouri, won first in the FFA Environmental Services and Natural Resource Systems Division One competition in Louisville, Ky. His experiment proved that hedge apples, a somewhat unpleasant smelling green fruit, repels, but does not kill many insects. “I see this as something that could maybe help with colony collapse disorder,” said Diggins.

AUDIO: Cole Diggins (5 min. MP3)