> This review summarizes, for the first time, 15 years of research on the hazards of neonicotinoids to bees including honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees.  Although environmental residue levels of neonicotinoids were found to be lower than acute/chronic toxicity levels, there is still a lack of reliable data as most analyses were conducted near the detection limit and for only few crops. Many laboratory studies described lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids on the foraging behavior, and learning and memory abilities of bees, while no effects were observed in field studies at field-realistic dosages.

Neonicotinoids in bees: a review on concentrations, side-effects and risk assessment
T. Blacquiere, Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands 
http://www.springerlink.com/content/743617mk35kl4313/fulltext.pdf
published online 18 Feb 2012

This work was supported by the Ministry of
Economic affairs, Agriculture and Innovation of the Netherlands
and the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO)-Flanders (Belgium).

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