Great article by Tom Philpott about recently released studies about the effects of pesticides on bees. It reinforces the wisdom of avoiding pesticides for unknown consequences.

Excerpt below --

Do Bayer's Pesticides Make Worker Bees Lazy?

—By Tom Philpott

| Wed Oct. 24, 2012

 

Must. Avoid. Corn. Spacial Awareness/Flickr

 

 

Corn prices remain quite high, driven up by the summer's prolonged drought. And since the United States is by far the globe's largest corn producer, prices will likely stay high until the next bumper crop in the Midwest replenishes global corn reserves. To take advantage of high prices, US farmers will likely plant a whole lot of corn in spring 2013—at least as much as they did in 2012, which marked a 75-year high in corn acreage. And that could be bad news for bees, commercial honey-producing ones and wild bumblebees alike, both of which have experienced severe declines in recent years.

What does the health of bees have to do with the corn crop? A growing weight of evidence links a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are used on nearly the entire US corn crop, to declining bee health. In March, I looked at three studies that had just been released, two of them published in the prestigious journal Science, making the link. Those papers came on the heels of a damning one from Purdue University researchers (which I discussed here). And now comes yet another, this one (abstract; I have the full study but can't upload it because of copyright issues) published by UK researchers in another prestigious publication, the British journal Nature.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/10/yet-another-study-links-bayer-pesticide-bee