Abstract
BackgroundRecent 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.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe 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).Conclusions/SignificanceThe 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.
Highlights
One third of honey bee colonies in the US were lost during each of the last three winters between ’06-’09 [1,2,3]
Multiple residues prevailed in the bee, pollen and wax samples, with 2 or more pesticides detected in 92.3% of 749 analyzed (Table 4)
We have found unprecedented levels of miticides and agricultural pesticides in honey bee colonies from across the US and one Canadian province
Summary
One third of honey bee colonies in the US were lost during each of the last three winters between ’06-’09 [1,2,3]. The enhanced sensitivity provided by LC/MS-MS allows measurement of residues at the ppb level known to affect bees sublethally, not killing them outright, but rather impairing behaviors or immune responses [9,10,11]. Other systemics such as aldicarb and its toxic metabolites, and numerous polar pesticides and their degradates could not be analyzed at ppb limits of detection without LC-MS technology [12,13]. 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
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