[Pollinator] New research article finds 121 Pesticide residues in Bees, wax, pollen, and bee hive samples in US

[Steven B Hilburger]

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009754


High Levels of Miticides and Agrochemicals in North American Apiaries: 
Implications for Honey Bee Health 
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. 
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). 
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.
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