Plight Of The Bumblebee Continues As Pesticides Linked To Serious Honeybee Damage

Literally hundreds of theories have surfaced in an attempt to figure out why honeybees are disappearing but a recent study looks where researchers have looked in the past for species eradication, crop pesticides.

In a new study researchers have discovered that even the most basic of crop pesticides are capable of confusing a bees navigation system, causing them to lose track of their beehives and eventually die.

Honeybees have witnessed a near 50% decline in numbers over the last 25 years in both the US and UK and those losses could affect a third of the world’s food supply which is pollinated by honeybees. Crops that include beans, apples, strawberries and tomatoes.

In their researcher scientists found that bees consuming just one type of pesticide suffered an 85% loss in the number of queens a nest could produce. Another study showed that pesticides simply caused bees to “disappear.”

The new study published in Science is the first independent research to be carried out in an open air research project.

Other theories have blamed the varroa mite and other parasites for the destruction of entire bee colonies. While other studies have blamed the destruction of flower-rich habitats for the killing off of bees.

In the meantime the UK government and pesticide manufacturers refuse to believe the chemicals known as neonicotinoids are to blame. That particular type of pesticide is a neurotoxin that is applied to seeds and then flows through an entire plants’ system, those neurotoxins then end up in the nectar and pollen for which bees feed.

When bumblebees were fed the neonicotinoid pesticide their colonies shrunk by 10% compared to those not exposed. Colonies exposed also almost completely lost their ability to produce queens. Queens are the only bees that survive the winter and establish new colonies.

In the meantime pesticide manufacturers point to various field studies that show no type of harm to bee colonies, of course many of those studies were conducted in participation with pesticide companies.