Plan Bee

This week in London a national conference on bee health is taking place, and new research shows it's not just nasty pesticides like neocontinoids (banned in the EU but not in US) that affect bee health, but also the pyrethroid pesticides.  Why does this matter? Because of the EU moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids, the use of others such as pyreththroids are likely to increase.

We’ll pause here to point out the scientists tracked how the bee colonies in the study exposed to the pesticide grew over a four- month period, weighing bees on appropriately tiny and no doubt adorable bee-scales.

Anyone who eats food should care about downsized bees. Scientists fear smaller bees will be less effective at foraging for nectar and carrying out their essential-to-the-food-chain task of distributing pollen.  Read more.  -- B.B.