back to article Your squirty insecticides make bumblebees SHRINK, warn boffins

Bumblebees could be shrinking because of exposure to a widely-used pesticide, according to new research. Bumble bee Boffins from the Royal Holloway University in London reckon that running into the pyrethroid pesticide - used on flowering crops to prevent insect damage - all the time could be causing individual worker bees …

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  1. Semtex451
    Megaphone

    OY You lot, over here.

    We're Doomed with out these little buggers, Doomed I tell you.

    Pleased its an important subject in Vulture Towers, but it wont attract 90 odd comments from the 'tards will it?

    Too busy over there NSA bashing too worry about their food supply I see.

    Priorities?

    1. ukgnome

      Re: OY You lot, over here.

      It will attract my comment...

      Frankly without the bees we might as well take ourselves out into the pastures and blow our bloody brains out. It's time to give these happy insects a helping hand.

      1. BillG
        Holmes

        Re: OY You lot, over here.

        I recall reading a convincing article from the 1990's that stated cell phones and cell phone towers would screw with bee's navigation systems and cause bees to disappear. Everyone laughed.

        But now:

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7778401/Mobile-phones-responsible-for-disappearance-of-honey-bee.html

        The problem with the mobile phone angle is that there is no target for 20-something activists to target their rage at, because we all know 20-somethings are addicted to their mobile phones. Best to blame it on someone you want to hate, like Microsoft or big chemicals or Belgium.

        Cell phones killing bees is VERY unpopular with these kids. They are happy with any excuse.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: OY You lot, over here.

          That's because the idea of cell phones harming bees is utter bollocks. There is no scientific evidence for it. There isn't even a theoretical mechanism of action! Every hypothesis I've read on the subject is facile and easily debunked.

          That's a ridiculous as "cell phones give you brain cancer." And frankly, if you believe cell phones give you brain cancer you know so little about science that I demand you isolate yourself on a lonely island north of Ireland and never interact with humanity again. The ignorance of such an individual is a far greater risk to our species than non-ionising radiation emissions ever will be.

    2. Richard Taylor 2
      Facepalm

      Re: OY You lot, over here.

      What are you worried about?

      We have been assured (at least in the UK - or maybe that is just Wales and England or maybe just England) by DEFRA and their tame minister for farmers (well wealthy ones anyway - cuts down the workload dontchano) that bees are safe in their hands and there is no reasonable evidence (at least none that an English graduate could understand) that bees and other useful insects are affected by organ phosphates or other insecticides such as pyre thins.....

      1. hplasm
        Happy

        Re: OY You lot, over here.

        They mustn't use it around here- not on the sheep anyway- as some of the bumblebees are as big as buses.

        Cargo bees, I reckon.

    3. Hud Dunlap
      Mushroom

      @semtex451

      No it is global warming they talk about here. The farmers here have been trying to get the Bee issue addressed for a number of years, but there is no way for politicians to make money out of it.

  2. JP19

    could be shrinking

    Could eh? More speculation which gets press coverage because in a self flagellating way some people would like it to be true,

    If being big is so great why did normal bees evolve to be the size they are?

    1. Triggerfish

      Re: could be shrinking

      But the article says being big (or at least for them big) is more efficient, so if they are shrinking there's got to be a factor that causing it.

      So its possible pesticides could be the reason and its worth investigating since bees are rather important. Unless you are suggestion some rapid evolution but if that was the case surely the bees would be becoming more successful due to shrinkage?

    2. Chris 244

      Re: could be shrinking

      Bumblebees are solitary. Honeybees are not. Bumblebees use size to gain an edge. Honeybees use numbers. One dead bumblebee is the end of the genetic line, equivalent to killing the Queen bee. One dead small worker bee is but a minor energy cost to the hive to replace. Solitary bees are very different from colony-forming ones.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: could be shrinking

        Not all bumblebees are solitary.

        I would be interested to know if the dose these bumblebees were exposed to, because IIRC the neonicotinoid ban came in because of 'research' that massively overdosed the honeybees and then claimed it 'proved' such pesticides were toxic.

  3. A Long Fellow

    No surprises here

    Unintended consequences, anyone? I am increasingly depressed at the blunt stupidity of people who think they can cause large-scale disruption to biological systems without incurring long-term damage.

    I would like to see the end of efforts by marketing departments (a.k.a. government rubber-stamping agencies) to assure us that their concentrated concoctions are anything other than deferred debts.

    I'm not (yet) a luddite, but I would like to see a greater willingness by industry participants to project the consequences of actions beyond a simplistic "this miracle powder will keep bugs off your plants and doesn't have any long-term effects on rats that we could observe in a two-week test period and we don't care what happens beyond our next quarterly earnings call anyway".

  4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    About time someone started looking at this.

    Title says it all.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm...

    Pyrethrin is a naturally occurring insecticide from Chrysanthemums.

    Bees have been pollinating those since the year dot without problems.

    Seems to most of us in the pest control industry that there is no solid evidence either way.

    What is in no doubt is that with no bees, we are fucked and with no means to control pests we are as fucked anyway...

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Hmm...

      "What is in no doubt is that with no bees, we are fucked and with no means to control pests we are as fucked anyway..."

      Bullshit. Without bees we are royally, completely, hopelessly, eternally fucked. Without a means to control pests our crop yields will be lower and we will be less profitable.

      Do not conflate the two, they are not remotely equivalent.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There are a surprising number of food plants that are not Bee-pollenated... Pretty much all cereals and cabbages/ brassicas are wind pollenated, most fruit trees will wind or self pollenate (not as efficiently, granted) and most peas and beans don't need pollination to produce fruit. Peppers, aubergenes and others of that family often produce less fruit once pollenated...

    We won't *all* be fucked. But there will be less variety of food available, and less of it.

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      A significant chunk of the world's ecosystems will collapse without bees. That means not just a loss of things plants we eat, but a loss of plants that our prey eats. Worse, the ecosystem change may well be large enough to drive climatic shifts (via changing of hydrology due to alteration in ground cover) which could result in massive changes in "what is arable land."

      Short version: humans may survive without bees...but if so, there will be a hell of a lot fewer of us, and I doubt our civilization would make it through the bottleneck. Long version: it would precipitate a mass-extinction event. An even bigger one than we as a species are already responsible for.

      So here's a thought: let's just avoid running the experiment, and keep the bees, eh?

  7. Al Zheimer

    C/o Titling Department

    If ever there was a story where a title in the form "Honey, I shrank the [bumblebees]" was justified, this was it. "Honey", get it? Nevermind...

    1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: C/o Titling Department

      Well, bugger. Wish I'd thought of that now :(

    2. David Pollard
      Coat

      Re: C/o Titling Department

      You forgot your coat.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't have any scientific references, but a friend of mine holds bees in a forest. Of course, there are no insecticides there. His bees are doing very well. The organic farm where I get most of my vegetables also holds bees. They are also doing very well.

    Somehow this makes me think that all those GMO-happy, spray-happy farmers and corporations complaining about a lack of bees have only themselves to blame.

    This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest reasons for buying organic food. Not only is it more healthy, but you support the bees, thereby helping to avoid the enormous food shortage we'd get without bees.

    1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

      "Organic food is more healthy ..."

      And my name is Nellie ... why do people believe this hippie twaddle? *Fresh* food is more healthy and restricting the indiscriminant use of pesticides and herbicides may be more healthy for the environment and reduce residues (which may or may not be harmful). Organic food per se has been proven to *not* be 'more healthy' or taste any different to 'non-organic' in like-for-like taste tests.

      I had bees and they were specifically moved next to extensive rape fields (canola for the hard of English) for many years before the EU organo-phosphate regs came in and never had problems - apart from coping with the massive honey yield! Pyrethroid use has increased *since* that time yet the honey bee population problems were seen long before that. I think researchers must look more holistically at the reasons for the reduction in bee numbers not pointing fingers at individual things ...

  9. ChrisMcD

    Its the Neonics again, not pyrethroids

    If the paper you are referring to is:

    http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/files/10621848/Gill_etal_2012_Nature.pdf

    Then what they appear to be saying is that synthetic pyrethroids make the damage from the neonicotinoids worse. Nothing new there, it has been know for years that even some fungicide tank mixes potentiated the effects of the neonicotinoids.

    Synthetic pyrethroids have been used on flowering crops for some 30 years, so if there were major problems for bees we should have spotted them by now. Apart from anything else we treat honeybees in their hives with slow release pyrethroid strips to kill parasitic varroa mites.

    As one of your other respondents pointed out. The synthetic pyrethroids are based on natural insecticides and the bees seem able to avoid them (also they lock into plant waxes as they dry and most farmers treat early to make sure the spray is dry before bees start foraging).

    Oilseed rape is the only UK crop where bees and pesticides really come into contact. Bee pollination does increase yield by a useful amount, but the bulk of pollination is by wind borne pollen. Fruit trees are more dependant, but again solitary bees are better than honeybees or bumble bees.

    Oh, one last thing. That is one weird bee in the photo! IMHO it is either a bumblebee drone or a fly passing itself as a bee mimic. Anyone else know better?

  10. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    "Oh, one last thing. That is one weird bee in the photo! IMHO it is either a bumblebee drone or a fly passing itself as a bee mimic. Anyone else know better?"

    That started some conversation! It is a bee (not a fly as it has 4 wings), probably female (appears to have rudimentary pollen baskets) and likely a carder bee or similar but it's incredibly hard to tell from that picture ... certainly not an average "bumble bee".

    Very good spot ChrisMcD!

    For the record, I believe that's the first time bee anatomy has ever been discussed on El Reg!

    1. TheRealRoland
      Happy

      i think the flower is a 'texas blue bonnet' (not an expert, but i seem to remember this name somehow). That would narrow down the area in which this bee would live.

      Nice (large!) download of bee species in the US: http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/features/posters/EasternBumblebeesPoster_print.pdf

      And more about western state bees: http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/Western_BB_guide.pdf

      (apologies for not narrowing it down more - have to work ;-) )

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