Pesticide Exposure Linked to Bumblebee Colony Failures

Serious honey bee die-offs have been occurring around the world for the past decade, which is an alarming trend considering one of every three bites of food you eat depends on the good graces of the honey bee.

December 29, 2012 | Source: Mercola.com | by Dr.Mercola

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Honey Bee Health page.

 Serious honey bee die-offs have been occurring around the world for the past decade, which is an alarming trend considering one of every three bites of food you eat depends on the good graces of the honey bee.

 They pollinate at least 130 different crops in the United States alone, including fruits, vegetables and tree nuts. Without honey bees, farmers would have to resort to pollinating their crops by hand, which would be an incredibly expensive and labor intensive undertaking, if it could even be done on the same scale.

 No one knows exactly why the bees are disappearing, but the phenomenon, dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is thought to be caused by a variety of imbalances in the environment, secondary to current agricultural and industrial practices.

 Bees are sensitive to the constant flood of manmade chemicals into their environment and bodies, especially pesticides, many of which accumulate over time   and now new research has provided some of the strongest evidence supporting this theory to date.

Pesticide Exposure Proven to Impact Bee Colonies

 Exposure to pesticides has been associated with changes in bee behavior and reductions in colony queen production, both of which could have detrimental impacts on the life of the colony. However, the impact of pesticides on individual bee behavior, and its subsequent impact on the colony as a whole, had not yet been determined   until now.