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<br><a href=http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009754><font size=3 color=blue><u>http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009754</u></font></a><font size=3><br>
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<b><br>
High Levels of Miticides and Agrochemicals in North American Apiaries:
Implications for Honey Bee Health</b></font><font size=3> </font>
<p><font size=4>Recent declines in honey bees for crop pollination threaten
fruit, nut, vegetable and seed production in the United States. A broad
survey of pesticide residues was conducted on samples from migratory and
other beekeepers across 23 states, one Canadian province and several agricultural
cropping systems during the 2007–08 growing seasons.</font><font size=3>
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<p><font size=4>We have used LC/MS-MS and GC/MS to analyze bees and hive
matrices for pesticide residues utilizing a modified QuEChERS method. We
have found 121 different pesticides and metabolites within 887 wax, pollen,
bee and associated hive samples. Almost 60% of the 259 wax and 350 pollen
samples contained at least one systemic pesticide, and over 47% had both
in-hive acaricides fluvalinate and coumaphos, and chlorothalonil, a widely-used
fungicide. In bee pollen were found chlorothalonil at levels up to 99 ppm
and the insecticides aldicarb, carbaryl, chlorpyrifos and imidacloprid,
fungicides boscalid, captan and myclobutanil, and herbicide pendimethalin
at 1 ppm levels. Almost all comb and foundation wax samples (98%) were
contaminated with up to 204 and 94 ppm, respectively, of fluvalinate and
coumaphos, and lower amounts of amitraz degradates and chlorothalonil,
with an average of 6 pesticide detections per sample and a high of 39.
There were fewer pesticides found in adults and brood except for those
linked with bee kills by permethrin (20 ppm) and fipronil (3.1 ppm).</font><font size=3>
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<p><font size=4>The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures
up to 214 ppm in bee pollen alone represents a remarkably high level for
toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator. This
represents over half of the maximum individual pesticide incidences ever
reported for apiaries. While exposure to many of these neurotoxicants elicits
acute and sublethal reductions in honey bee fitness, the effects of these
materials in combinations and their direct association with CCD or declining
bee health remains to be determined.</font><font size=3><br>
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