A new study published in Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature by a leading bee expert provides damning evidence that a widely used pesticide, even at low levels, is responsible for the recent catastrophic decline in honey bees. Dr. Jeff Pettis of the USDA's Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, MD led the study.
Colony collapse disorder, as this phenomenon is known, has been getting worse since 2006.
The news has brought renewed calls for these pesticides, which only became widely used in the 1990s, to be banned as honey bees are key to human’s survival – pollinating 70 per cent of the crops which produce most of the world’s food.
The pesticide that the study (pdf) looked at was imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides worldwide. It is neonicotinoid insecticide produced by Bayer CropScience.
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