Scientists may have discovered a staggering 57 different pesticides in honeybees. The findings are important for better understanding the decline of these important insects, which help pollinate crops each year.
Honeybees are declining globally. In the United States, the worry is a condition called colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which entire colonies of bees die off while survivors leave the hive. If bees continue to decline in this way, agricultural crops could be at risk.
Previous studies have shown that pesticides could help lead to poor bee health and CCD. With that said, it's difficult to pinpoint which pesticides could be the cause. That's why researchers analyzed 200 pesticides to see which one or ones are putting honeybees' lives at stake.
"Bee health is a matter of public concern-bees are considered critically important for the environment and agriculture by pollinating more than 80 percent of crops and wild plants in Europe," said Tomasz Kiljanek, lead author of the new study from the National Veterinary Research Institute in Poland. "We wanted to develop a test for a large number of pesticides currently approved for use in the European Union to see what is poisoning the bees"
While a certain pesticide could be affecting bees, it's also likely that combinations of pesticides could be reacting together and causing this issue. That's why the researchers looked at bees themselves to detect which pesticides were in the bees at what concentrations.
For this latest study, published in the Journal of Chromatography A, the researchers used a technique called QuEChERS, which is used to detect pesticides in food. This allowed them to test bees for 200 different pesticides in all, as well as for additional compounds that were created when pesticides reacted or were broken down.
So what did they find? After testing more than 70 honeybee poisoning incidents, the researchers discovered there was a staggering 57 different pesticides present in the bees.
"This is just the beginning of our research on the impact of pesticides on honeybee health," Kiljanek said. "Honeybee poisoning incidents are the tip of the iceberg. Even at very low levels, pesticides can weaken bees' defense systems, allowing parasites or viruses to kill the colony. Our results will help expand our knowledge about the influence of pesticides on honeybee health, and will provide important information for other researchers to better assess the risk connected with the mix of current used pesticides."
