[ExI] Bee deaths - More research points to insecticides

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Sat May 10 07:29:33 UTC 2014


Harvard study shows neonicotionoids are devastating colonies by
triggering colony collapse disorder.
Damian Carrington 9 May 2014

<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/09/honeybees-dying-insecticide-harvard-study>

Quotes:
The mysterious vanishing of honeybees from hives can be directly
linked to insectcide use, according to new research from Harvard
University. The scientists showed that exposure to two neonicotinoids,
the world's most widely used class of insecticide, lead to half the
colonies studied dying, while none of the untreated colonies saw their
bees disappear.

In the new Harvard study, published in the Bulletin of Insectology,
the scientists studied the health of 18 bee colonies in three
locations in central Massachusetts from October 2012 till April 2013.
At each location, two colonies were treated with realistic doses of
imidacloprid, two with clothianidin, and two were untreated control
hives.

"Bees from six of the 12 neonicotinoid-treated colonies had abandoned
their hives and were eventually dead with symptoms resembling CCD,"
the team wrote. "However, we observed a complete opposite phenomenon
in the control colonies." Only one control colony was lost, the result
of infection by the parasitic fungus Nosema and in this case the dead
bees remained in the hive.
------------

BillK



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list