Bee Pollen is Full of Pesticides Like Mosquito-Repellants

[senona]

Pollen collected by bees next to corn fields in West Lafayette, Indiana, contained up to 32 different pesticides.

Oh no, this does not sound good at all for bees

In a study published May 30 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers Elizabeth Long and Christian Krupke show that bees next to corn fields collected pollen containing up to 32 different pesticides, most of which didn’t originate from crops or agricultural applications. Pollen samples were taken over a four-month period from three hives in West Lafayette, Indiana, where Purdue is located.

Some of these pesticides were expected. Neonicotinoids, for example, which some research has implicated in the decline of bees, are used to coat seeds are known to be found in corn and soybean pollen. But others came as quite a surprise. The pesticides found in the greatest quantities were pyrethroids, synthetic products generally used in households to repel insects, says Krupke, an entomology professor at Purdue University. Among these were phenothrin, which is used to repel ticks and fleas, and prallethrin, for killing wasps and hornets.

Pyrethroids are extremely toxic to bees. The researchers don’t think the quantities found in pollen are high enough to immediately kill the insects, Krupke says, but they nevertheless have the potential to impact their health and may be playing a role in their decline. Populations of the insects have been falling in recent years; this past winter, over one quarter of American honey bee colonies were wiped out.

The researchers also found the mosquito repellant DEET (also known as N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) in every single pollen sample.

Source


I had thought DEET products were supposed to be limited, guess not.
And it was not just 2 or 3 pesticides, but many

The results probably apply to large swathes of the country—anywhere crops like corn and soybeans are grown in abundance, Krupke says. He emphasizes the sheer number of pesticides honey bees are being exposed to.

“At no time did we find only one or two or three pesticides—we found multiple pesticides co-occurring in every single sample,” he adds.

And they wonder about the declining bee population.
Well.....this ought to be an eye opener.

But nothing will come of it more than likely.
Too much money being made off of pesticides.