FLICKR, MONICA R.
A new study from Harvard University researchers is stirring the controversy over the cause of honeybee deaths across the United States and Europe by pointing once again to pesticides. The study, publishing in the June Bulletin of Insectology found that small levels of a widely used class of pesticide called neonicotinoids fed to the bees over their lifespan, replicates some of the colony-collapse behaviors, such as males abandoning their hives in the winter. The study adds to the findings published late last month that bumble bees exposed to neonicotinoids produced fewer queens and exposed honey bees had trouble finding their way home, and gives insight on how lower doses can impact the insects.
Although the pesticides, which act on the nervous system of insects, may ...
