Bee Health

Colony Collapse Disorder

Majorbuzzkill: pesticidesdiminishbeesperm,addingto

Neonicotinoid pesticides, already blamed for short-circuiting honeybee brains, also diminish their sperm, possibly contributing to the pollinators’ worrying global decline, researchers said Wednesday.

Widespread neonicotinoid use may have “inadvertent contraceptive effects” on the insects which provide fertilisation worth colony collapse disorderbillions of dollars every year, said a study in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

In their experiment, researchers divided bees into two groups.

One group was fed pollen containing field-realistic concentrations of two neonicotinoids – thiamethoxam and clothianidin.

The other group was given untainted food.

After 38 days, the male drones – whose key role in life is to mate with the egg-laying queen – had their semen extracted and tested.

The data “clearly showed… reduced sperm viability” – which is the percentage of living versus dead sperm in a sample, said the study.

Honeybee queens mate for just a single short period, but with many males in a sort of bee orgy, before storing the sperm for the rest of their fertile lifetime.

Bees have been hit in Europe, North America and elsewhere by a mysterious phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder”, which has alternatively been blamed on mites, a virus or fungus, pesticides, or a combination.

The new study adds reduced sperm quality to the list of possible causes.

“As the primary egg layer and an important source of colony cohesion, the queen is intimately connected to colony performance,” the paper said.

Previous studies have found neonicotinoids can cause bees to become disorientated to the extent that they cannot find their way back to the hive, and can lower their resistance to disease.

The European Union has placed a moratorium on the sale of neonicotinoids.

Read more…

 

The Buzz About Colony Collapse Disorder | NRDC

https://www.nrdc.org/…/buzz-about-colony-collaps

 
Natural Resources Defense Council

Dec 31, 2015 –

The average person sitting down to dinner probably doesn’t realize the important role bees played in preparing that meal. Here’s something thatcolony collapse disorder definition might surprise you: One out of every three mouthfuls of food in the American diet is, in some way, a product of honeybee pollination—from fruit to nuts to coffee beans. And because bees are dying at a rapid rate (42 percent of bee colonies collapsed in the United States alone in 2015), our food supply is at serious risk.

The bee’s plight is widespread: Serious declines have been reported in both managed honeybee colonies and wild populations. Jennifer Sass, an NRDC senior scientist, says there are multiple factors at play. Each on its own is bad enough, but combined they are quickly proving too much to handle.

Pesticides: These chemicals are designed, of course, to kill insects. But some systemic varieties—specifically neonicotinoids—are worse for bees than others.

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