A study published in Nature looked at a new class of pesticide, sulfoximine, and its potential impact on bumblebee colony health. read more

Further restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides have been approved following a vote in the European Commission. read more

The European Food Safety Authority has published a new assessment that concludes that most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides represent a risk to wild bees and honeybees.  read more

For years the media interest on pesticides has focused almost exclusively on whether neonicotinoids are implicated in bee decline. Now … read more

A new study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, reports neonicotinoid pesticides and nutritional stress synergistically reduce survival in honey bees. 
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The UK’s environment secretary Michael Gove, has announced that the UK will back a total ban on neonicotinoids across Europe. read more

Scientists publishing in Science examine the exposure of honeybees to neonicotinoids. read more

Last week we ran press conferences on climate change and CFS/ME. The subjects are complex and contentious, and there is always the potential for jarring or simplistic headlines and strong reactions from the vocal critics of research in these fields. But it was the criticism from within the scientific community that we had not anticipated. read more

In a new paper published in Science researchers assess country-specific effects of chronic neonicotinoid pesticides on honey bees and wild bees. read more

Neonicotinoid pesticides have been widely used to enhance crop production in the UK and around the world since the 1990s. … read more

Publishing in Journal of Applied Ecology, a group of researchers examined the effect of exposure to three specific neonicotinoid pesticides on bumblebee colonies in a field setting and reported changes to colony numbers with some pesticides (for imidacloprid or thiamethoxam) more than with others (clothiandin). read more

Neonicotinoid insecticides have been implicated in the decline of bees, yet the evidence is derived from short-term laboratory studies on honeybees and bumblebees. Publishing in the journal Nature Communications scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology have investigated the long term, large scale impact of neonicotinoids on 62 wild bee species across England. read more

Neonicotinoid insecticides have been implicated in the decline of bees, yet the evidence is derived from short-term laboratory studies on honeybees and bumblebees. Scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology have investigated the long term, large scale impact of neonicotinoids on 62 wild bee species across England and are publishing in Nature Communications on August 16th. read more

The effect of neonicotinoids on the fertility of male honeybees is examined in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B in which the authors report that the insecticide reduced lifespan of the bees in question as well as sperm viability but not sperm quantity. read more

There is growing concern over the impact of the neonicotinoids to insect pollinators and how their loss may limit the ecosystem services that are vital to our food production (globally worth US$215 billion) and the stability of our natural environment. In a new study, published in Scientific Reports, researchers directly relate the effects of three neonicotinoids, at the level of individual brain cells to their impact on whole colonies of bumblebees placed at 5 different sites across Scotland. read more

There is growing concern over the impact of the neonicotinoids to insect pollinators and how their loss may limit the ecosystem services that are vital to our food production (globally worth US$215 billion) and the stability of our natural environment. In a new study, published in Scientific Reports, researchers directly relate the effects of three neonicotinoids, at the level of individual brain cells to their impact on whole colonies of bumblebees placed at 5 different sites across Scotland. The conclusions from this study demonstrate that these three neonicotinoids must be considered individually for their risk to bees. Most importantly, the research asks whether they are all toxic (when exposed chronically to field-relevant levels) to bumblebees under the conditions of a field experiment. read more

One of the concerns of the use of pesticides has been its impact on insect pollinators in ecosystems. Publishing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal a group of researchers have reported that the pesticides that they tested affected the learning of honeybee and bumblebee differently and that this should be accounted for when creating accurate pollination models. read more

The US Environmental Protection Agency has released a risk assessment for a specific neonicotinoid which reports that the insecticide may pose a risk to hives. The agency is due to deliver three other such assessments later in the year. read more

Publishing in the journal Environmental International a group of scientists has published their work investigating bees’ collection of pollen and their exposure to pesticides. read more

Publishing in the journal Nature, a group of scientists has described their research into neonicotinoid pesticides and bumblebees, reporting that bumblebees exposed to such pesticides visited apple trees less frequently and collected pollen less often. read more