Hi all
It was mentioned that the use of pesticides may actually benefit bees which work on those crops. This idea is not really new, in 2013 this was presented:

> Pollination is a key ecosystem service which most often has been studied in isolation although effects of pollination on seed set might depend on, and interact with, other services important for crop production. 

> There was a synergistic interaction between the two services: the gain in seed set obtained when simultaneously increasing pollination and pest control outweighed the sum of seed set gains obtained when increasing each service separately. 

> This study shows that interactions can alter the benefits obtained from service-providing organisms, and this needs to be considered to properly manage multiple ecosystem services.

Lundin, O., Smith, H. G., Rundlöf, M., & Bommarco, R. (2013). When ecosystem services interact: crop pollination benefits depend on the level of pest control. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1753), 20122243.

More recently:

>A factor that is often overlooked in the currently rapidly expanding research on ecosystem services linked to agriculture, is that different resources delivered to the crop plant, either as an ecosystem service provided by biodiversity (e.g. crop pollination, or nutrient cycling), or as an external input applied by the farmers (e.g. chemical fertilizer, water), might interact in their relative contribution to crop yield.

> In a factorial field plot experiment, high and low levels of inorganic nitrogen and of insect pollinators visiting the crop were manipulated and their combined effects on oilseed rape yield were quantified. A third factor was also included, testing whether different cultivars responded differently to the tested factors.

> Integrating conservation, environmental and agronomic sciences is therefore crucial to sustain agriculture productions through optimized management of agronomic inputs and biodiversity-based ecosystem services.


Marini, L., Tamburini, G., Petrucco-Toffolo, E., Lindström, S. A., Zanetti, F., Mosca, G., & Bommarco, R. (2015). Crop management modifies the benefits of insect pollination in oilseed rape. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 207, 61-66.

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