We're a little crazy, about science!


Save the bees

Die hard, the bee version.


“Our study shows that the neonicotinoid pesticides are a risk to our bees and we should stop using them on plants that bees visit,” said Christopher N. Connolly, Ph.D.

“Neonicotinoids are just a few examples of hundreds of pesticides we use on our crops and in our gardens. Stop using all pesticides in your garden and see insect damage as a success. You are providing for your native wildlife. Nasty caterpillars grow into beautiful butterflies.”

To make their discovery, researchers fed bees a sugar solution with very low neonicotinoid pesticide levels typically found in flowers (2.5 parts per billion) and tracked the toxins to the bee brain. They found that pesticide levels in the bees’ brains were sufficient to cause the learning cells to run out of energy. Additionally, the brain cells were even vulnerable to this effect at just one tenth of the level present.

When the ability of the bee’s brain to learn is limited, the bee is unable to master key skills such as recognizing the presence of nectar and pollen from the smell emitted from flowers.

In addition, scientists fed bumblebee colonies this same very low level of pesticide in a remote site in the Scottish Highlands where they were unlikely to be exposed to any other pesticides.They found that just a few of the exposed colonies performed well, colonies were smaller, and nests were in poor condition with fungus taking over.

This further suggests that bumblebees exposed to this type of pesticide become poor learners, become unable to properly gather food, and become unable to properly nurture the next generation of bees.

“It is ironic that neonicotinoids, pesticides developed to preserve the health of plants, ultimately inflict tremendous damage on plant life,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal.

“These chemicals destroy the insect communities required by plants for their own reproduction.”

Keep in mind that this does not mean the same thing applies to humans. Humans and bees are completely different entities, Neonicotinoids work by attaching to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. This is the same receptor that nicotine binds with and is also why humans enjoy smoking. This also explains why other research has shown that bees enjoy neonicotinoid pesticides.

The the big differences between bees and humans is that in bees these receptors are only found in the central nervous system (and not the peripheral nervous system). To make matters worse, the receptors in bees are slightly different causing them to bind tighter with the neonicotinoid molecule. These receptors become overstimulated and the chemical breaks down making the binding irreversible, this then causes paralysis and of course death.

This makes neonicotinoid pesticides great since they are safe for humans and work against pests, but unfortunately for us, bees are not a pest. In other words, this particular type of pesticide is causing problems for our bee population.

Honestly, the traditional farming setup has a need for pesticides, there is no way around that unfortunately. This is probably why we should shift away from the traditional farming method and start farming up instead of out. But that might just be a pipe dream for now, given the farmer lobby groups are fairly good at keeping things the way they are now.

Moffat, C., Pacheco, J., Sharp, S., Samson, A., Bollan, K., Huang, J., Buckland, S., & Connolly, C. (2015). Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids increases neuronal vulnerability to mitochondrial dysfunction in the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) The FASEB Journal DOI: 10.1096/fj.14-267179


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