honeybees

A year-old study by Washington State University researchers suggests that honeybees face little risk of harm from neonicotinoid pesticides in everyday settings. The study, which examined 149 apiaries in rural, urban and agricultural areas around the state, was published in the Journal of Economic Entomology.

An 18-year study of 60 wild bee species in Britain found that populations declined when the bees foraged on crops treated with neonicintinoid pesticides, according to the Washington Post. "The study provides some of the first evidence that the effects of neonicotinoid exposure can scale up to cause major damage to bees," the Post said.

Pesticides applied to honeybee hives to kill Varroa mites and other parasites may actually be hurting the bees by damaging bacteria in their guts, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

New research suggests that neonicotinoids, a leading culprit in the ongoing decimation of honeybee populations, may also be snuffing out the next generation of bees by cutting the quantity and viability of sperm in male bees by nearly 40 percent, writes The Guardian.

Virtually no organic honey sold commercially in the U.S. comes from domestic hives, as commodity-crop farmers convert ever more grassland into cropland, leaving honeybees with fewer pesticide-free fields to forage, reports Civil Eats. North Dakota, for instance, which produces more honey than any other state, lost more than 100,000 acres of grassland over the past decade.

Honeybees and other insect pollinators rely on scent to find plants from thousands of feet away while foraging for food, but air pollutants break down the scent molecules, says a team of researchers led by Penn State. As a result, bees spend more time searching for food and less time pollinating.

Three of every five acres in the long-term Conservation Reserve provides "healthy habitat and forage" for honeybees and other pollinators, said USDA, as part of National Pollinator Week. Some 269,000 acres are enrolled in a program that focuses on pollinator health but a review found 15 million of the 23.4 million acres in the reserve have wildflowers, shrubs and safe nesting places conducive to pollinators, which include birds.

The Cape bee, a subspecies of honeybee from the southwestern tip of South Africa, sometimes breaks the rules of the bee world. "Female worker bees can escape their queen’s control, take over other colonies and reproduce asexually — with no need for males," reports the New York Times, a strategy that may assure survival in dire times but also reduces genetic vigor.

Between December and March this year, prime pollinating season, 1,734 beehives were stolen from almond groves in California, the nation’s largest producer of the nuts. It is part of a troubling, and relatively new, criminal enterprise that has caught both growers and law enforcement by surprise.

Honeybees are exposed to an astonishing range of chemicals, not just the neonicotinoid pesticides often tabbed as the cause of population declines, says a Purdue study. The research suggests honeybees in the Corn Belt are exposed to considerably higher overall level of pesticide exposure than previously thought.

More carbon dioxide in the air is decreasing the amount of protein in pollen and may be contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder, says Yale Environment 360. Researchers compared samples of the plant goldenrod – a staple for wild honeybees – collected from 1842 to 2014 and found that protein levels in the most recent goldenrod samples were lower by 30 percent.

The world's largest manufacturer of lawn and garden care products, Scotts Miracle-Gro, said it will "immediately begin to transition away from the use of neonicotinoid-based pesticides for outdoor use" sold under the Ortho brand name.

Last November, the EPA cancelled the registration of the pesticide sulfoxaflor, a step required by a U.S. appeals court decision. However, the agency has now granted an emergency exemption sought by the Texas Department of Agriculture for use of sulfoxaflor this year against the sugarcane aphid on up to 3 million acres of sorghum, said Agri-Pulse.

California farmers are turning to a new variety of self-pollinating almond tree, says NPR. With Independence almond trees, farmers don't have to hire commercial beehives.

Minnesota compensated two beekeepers for severe damage to hives caused by neonicotinoid insecticide dust from the field where a neighbor was planting corn, says the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It was the first test of a landmark environmental law, says the newspaper.

France’s National Assembly narrowly passed a total ban on neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides that has been implicated in the Colony Collapse Disorder that has devastated honeybee populations, says Reuters.