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Monday, October 22nd, 2012

Pesticides Have Knock-on Effect for Bees, Study Finds

Author:    
Source:     Phys.org
Publication Date:     21-Oct-12
 Link: Pesticides Have Knock-on Effect for Bees, Study Finds
Stephan:   This is the latest and, by now, I think, close to definitive report on the collapse of the bees -- colony collapse disorder. It is, as many have been saying for some time, the pesticides. It will now be very revealing to see whether the regulatory agencies that are supposed to protect us -- and the bees -- do their job, or whether the corruption has reached such a level that corporate profit trumps everything else. If that is how it turns out, the food crisis will take on a dimension that is hard to imagine.

Chronic exposure to pesticides has a bigger knock-on effect on bees than conventional probes suggest, according to a new study on Sunday touching on the mysterious collapse of bee colonies.

Biologists at the University of London carried out an exceptional field study into bumblebees exposed to two commonly used agricultural insecticides. They sought to mimic what happens in a real-life setting, where different crops are sprayed with different pesticides at different dosages and times.

Because bees get their food both from sprayed crops and wild plants, such variations make it hard to calculate the insects’ total exposure to the chemicals. In addition, very little is known about what happens to bees once they return to the colony after foraging, possibly passing on pesticide-laden food to larvae. A team led by Richard Gill monitored 40 bumblebee colonies, tagging 259 bees with radio frequency identification (RFID) to time exactly when the insects left home or returned. The colonies were divided into four groups. Three were allowed to access feeder boxes, set up in the path of their nest boxes, that had a sugary syrup spiked with imidacloprid insecticide and/or a filter paper laced with another agricultural chemical, gamma-cyhalothrin.

The bumblebees were not […]

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