A study, led by Dr Jeffrey Pettis, the head of the US Department
of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory has come up with solid evidence that pesticides may be a major cause of collapsing bee
populations. Read this against backdrop of more than 70 of the 100 crops that
provide 90 per cent of the world's food getting pollinated by bees.
Researchers found that bees deliberately exposed to minute
amounts of the pesticide were, on an average, three times more likely to become
infected when exposed to a parasite called nosema. Environmentalist has been
crying themselves hoarse for sometime that new group of insecticides called
neonicotinoids are behind a worldwide decline in honey bees. Links
between widely used pesticides and pathogens have been scientifically proved
now.
Imidacloprid is the bestselling neonicotinoid. Neonicotinoids are "systemic"
pesticides. They effectively become part of the plant, including the
pollen and nectar that bees and other pollinating insects carry away.
The new study has evinced interest worldwide
Details of the study appears in the journal Naturwissenschaften
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