Pesticides in honey bee colonies: Establishing a baseline for real world exposure over seven years in the USA

Traynor, Kirsten S.; Tosi, Simone; Rennich, Karen; Steinhauer, Nathalie; Forsgren, Eva; Rose, Robyn; Kunkel, Grace; Madella, Shayne; Lopez, Dawn; Eversole, Heather; Fahey, Rachel; Pettis, Jeffery S.; Evans, Jay D.; vanEngelsdorp, Dennis

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2021.116566

Cited by 81 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While fulfilling agricultural pollination services, honey bees are often exposed to agrichemicals, including pesticides [10, 15–17]. Moreover, the transport of commercial colonies to multiple farms within a single pollination season can further increase the potential for contact with pesticides [10], as pesticide exposure risk varies among different land uses [17, 18]. Foragers collect and store residue-containing food (nectar and pollen) inside the hive; therefore, pesticides present in the ambient landscape are therefore commonly found as chemical residues in beeswax and food resources [10, 17, 19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the transport of commercial colonies to multiple farms within a single pollination season can further increase the potential for contact with pesticides [10], as pesticide exposure risk varies among different land uses [17, 18]. Foragers collect and store residue-containing food (nectar and pollen) inside the hive; therefore, pesticides present in the ambient landscape are therefore commonly found as chemical residues in beeswax and food resources [10, 17, 19]. Additionally, miticides applied directly into the nest as a control measure against the parasitic Varroa mite (V. destructor) are found as chemical residues in wax [10, 17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Foragers collect and store residue-containing food (nectar and pollen) inside the hive; therefore, pesticides present in the ambient landscape are therefore commonly found as chemical residues in beeswax and food resources [10, 17, 19]. Additionally, miticides applied directly into the nest as a control measure against the parasitic Varroa mite (V. destructor) are found as chemical residues in wax [10, 17]. While both beekeeper-applied miticides and agrichemicals are detected in hive matrices from commercial colonies, miticides tend to be the most dominant residues [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…High exposures to these miticides in beeswax during development have been shown to influence queen health, including effects on pupal weight, sperm count, and sperm viability [8, 25]. For example, topical treatment of queens with imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide, has been previously shown to reduce stored sperm viability [1]; however, this is not one of the most common pesticide residues found within hives [10, 17] especially in wax because it is hydrophilic. Aside from mating flights early in life, queens typically remain within a colony, but they may still be exposed to inhive pesticide residues from food (through the workers) and wax (the nest substrate).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Honey bee queen health is unaffected by contact exposure to pesticides commonly found in beeswax

McAfee

Milone

Metz

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Honey bee queen health is crucial for colony health and productivity, and pesticides have been previously associated with queen loss and premature supersedure. Prior research has investigated the effects of indirect pesticide exposure on queens via workers, as well as direct effects on queens during development. However, as adults, queens are in constant contact with wax as they walk on comb and lay eggs; therefore, direct pesticide contact with adult queens is a relevant but seldom investigated exposure route. Here, we conducted laboratory and field experiments to investigate the impacts of topical pesticide exposure on adult queens. We tested dose-response relationships of six pesticides commonly found in wax: coumaphos, tau-fluvalinate, atrazine, 2,4-DMPF, chlorpyriphos, chlorothalonil, and a cocktail of all six, each dosed up to 32 times the concentrations typically found in wax. We found no effect of any treatment on queen mass or sperm viability. Furthermore, none of the 1,568 proteins quantified in the queens' fat bodies (a major site of detoxification enzyme production) were differentially expressed. In a field trial with N = 30 queens exposed to either a handling control, a solvent control, or a pesticide cocktail, we again found no impact on queen egg-laying pattern, mass, or emergence mass of daughter workers. Further, of the 3,127 proteins identified in fluid from the spermatheca (sperm storage organ), none were differentially expressed. These experiments consistently show that at realistic exposure levels, pesticides commonly found in wax have no direct impact on queen performance, reproduction, or quality metrics. We suggest that previously reported associations between high levels of pesticide residues in wax and queen failure are most likely driven by indirect effects of worker exposure (either through wax or other hive products) on queen care or queen perception.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Honey bee queen health is unaffected by contact exposure to pesticides commonly found in beeswax

McAfee

Milone

Metz

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Exposure to Pesticide Residues in Nectar and Pollen in Urban and Suburban Environments from Four Regions of the United States

Démares

Schmehl

Bloomquist

et al. 2022

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

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The risk of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) exposure to pesticide residues while foraging for nectar and pollen is commonly explored in the context of agroecosystems. However, pesticides are also used in urban and suburban areas for vegetation management, vector control, and the management of ornamental plants in public and private landscapes. The extent to which pesticides pose a health risk to honey bees in these settings remains unclear. We addressed this at a landscape scale by conducting pesticide residue screening analyses on 768 nectar and 862 pollen samples collected monthly over 2 years from honey bee colonies located in urban and suburban areas in eight medium to large cities in California, Florida, Michigan, and Texas (USA). A risk assessment was performed using the US Environmental Protection Agency's BeeREX model whenever an oral toxicity value was available for a compound. Chemical analyses detected 17 pesticides in nectar and 60 in pollen samples during the survey. Approximately 73% of all samples contained no detectable pesticide residues. Although the number of detections varied among the sampled regions, fewer pesticides were detected in nectar than in pollen. Per BeeREX, four insecticides showed a potential acute risk to honey bees: imidacloprid, chlorpyrifos, and esfenvalerate in nectar, and deltamethrin in nectar and pollen. In general, exposure of honey bees to pesticides via nectar and pollen collection was low in urban and suburban areas across the United States, and no seasonal or spatial trends were evident. Our data suggest that honey bees are exposed to fewer pesticides in developed areas than in agricultural ones. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:991–1003. © 2022 SETAC

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Mutations associated with pyrethroid resistance in Varroa mite, a parasite of honey bees, are widespread across the United States

Millán-Leiva

Marín

Christmon

et al. 2021

Pest Management Science

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BACKGROUND: Managed honey bees are key pollinators of many crops and play an essential role in the United States food production. For more than ten years, beekeepers in the United States have been reporting high rates of colony losses. One of the drivers of these losses is the parasitic mite Varroa destructor. Maintaining healthy honey bee colonies in the United States is dependent on a successful control of this mite. The pyrethroid tau-fluvalinate (Apistan®) was among the first synthetic varroacides registered in the United States. With over 20 years of use, mites resistant to Apistan® have emerged, and so it is unsurprising that treatment failures have been reported. Resistance to tau-fluvalinate in US mite populations is associated with point mutations at position 925 of the voltage-gated sodium channel.RESULTS: Here, we have generated a distribution map of pyrethroid resistance alleles in Varroa samples collected from US apiaries in 2016 and 2017, using a high throughput allelic discrimination assay based on TaqMan®. Our results evidence that knockdown resistance (kdr)-type mutations are widely distributed in Varroa populations across the country showing high variability among apiaries. We used these data to predict the phenotype of the mites in the case of treatments with pyrethroids. CONCLUSION: We highlight the relevance of monitoring the resistance in mite populations to achieve an efficient control of this pest. We also put forward the benefits of implementing this methodology to provide data for designing pest management programs aiming to control Varroa.

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Pesticides in honey bee colonies: Establishing a baseline for real world exposure over seven years in the USA

Cited by 81 publications

References 44 publications

Honey bee queen health is unaffected by contact exposure to pesticides commonly found in beeswax

Honey bee queen health is unaffected by contact exposure to pesticides commonly found in beeswax

Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Exposure to Pesticide Residues in Nectar and Pollen in Urban and Suburban Environments from Four Regions of the United States

Mutations associated with pyrethroid resistance in Varroa mite, a parasite of honey bees, are widespread across the United States

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