Landmark Study Shows Soil Pesticide Reduces Wild Bee Reproduction by 89%
When you think of bees, a hive humming with activity probably comes to mind. But most of the world's 20,000 bee species don't call a hive home. These wild species lead solitary lives instead, and around 70 percent of them build nests underground where they raise their offspring on the nectar they gather from flowers.
Neonicotinoids can be sprayed on plants, but are most commonly used to coat seeds. Since their introduction in the late 1980s, robust scientific evidence has emerged to suggest these chemicals impair learning and memory, foraging behaviour, and pollination in bees.
The EU banned neonicotinoids in 2019.
In a landmark study published in Nature, researchers have shown how neonicotinoids affect bees not just by accumulating in the plants pollinators visit, but in the ground where most wild bees build their nests.
The researchers studied nest building, foraging and reproduction in these bees and found imidacloprid in particular – one of the most widely used neonicotinoids worldwide – had a devastating effect on all aspects of a native bees life. Compared to insects living on untreated cropland, the hoary squash bees exposed to imidacloprid in the soil created 85 percent fewer nests, left 5.3 times more pollen unharvested and produced a staggering 89 percent fewer offspring. #savethebees photo @shane.dighton