A study by Scott McArt and colleagues, of Dyce Laboratory at Cornell, has been published in Nature Scientific Reports.  It is titled:  "High pesticide risk to honey bees despite low focal crop pollen collection during pollination of a mass blooming crop."  The study demonstrates that the levels of insecticides and fungicides found in fresh bee bread among colonies pollinating apple orchards are at levels of chronic effect concern or acutely toxic, even though there were no sprays during bloom.  Some of the residues were from chemicals that were not in use during that season in the orchards.  Many of the insecticides found in the pollen are known to degrade very slowly.  Much of the collected pollen was not from apples.


Synergistic interactions between the toxic chemicals collected by the bees may exacerbate or compound the negative effects on those bees, a feature of this complex problem that remains poorly understood.


https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46554


A short synopsis may be found at:

 http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/04/bees-face-heavy-pesticide-peril-drawn-out-sources



Christina

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