Morning Ag Clips logo
  • Subscribe ❯
  • PORTAL ❯
  • LOGIN ❯
  • By Keyword
  • By topic
  • By state
  • Home
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • Store
  • Advertise
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Subscribe to our
    daily email
    ❯
  • Portal Registration❯
  • Login❯
  • policy
  • tractors & machinery
  • education
  • conservation
  • webinars
  • business
  • dairy
  • cattle
  • poultry
  • swine
  • corn
  • soybeans
  • organic
  • specialty crops
  • Alabama
  • Alaska
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Hawaii
  • Idaho
  • Illinois
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New Mexico
  • New York
  • North Carolina
  • North Dakota
  • Ohio
  • Oklahoma
  • Oregon
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • South Carolina
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Vermont
  • Virginia
  • Washington
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin
  • Wyoming

Morning Ag Clips

  • By Keyword
  • By topic
  • By state
  • policy
  • tractors & machinery
  • education
  • conservation
  • webinars
  • business
  • dairy
  • cattle
  • poultry
  • swine
  • corn
  • soybeans
  • organic
  • specialty crops
  • Home
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • Store
  • Advertise
Home Β» Bumblebee queens under pressure
QUEEN BEE ... Comments

Bumblebee queens under pressure

Insecticide exposure and declining floral diversity are jeopardizing key pollinator group

PUBLISHED ON June 13, 2018

A queen bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) collects floral resources for her nest. (Courtesy of Leif Richardson)
A queen bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) collects floral resources for her nest. (Courtesy of Leif Richardson)
A queen bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) collects floral resources for her nest. (Courtesy of Leif Richardson)

RIVERSIDE, Calif. β€” Spring is a busy time for bumblebee queens.

After emerging from hibernation, their to-do list includes making nests, laying eggs, and keeping their larvae warm and fed. It’s physiologically demanding, and the stakes are high: the success of the colony depends on a queen’s solitary work during this time.

In a study published today inΒ Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers at the University of California, Riverside found that environmental threats are piling onto the stress faced by nest-building bumblebee queens.

Led by Hollis Woodard, an assistant professor of entomology, the team found that exposure to a widely used insecticide and a poor diet negatively impacted bumblebee queens’ health and work, which could have dramatic consequences on an already dwindling pollinator group.

Bumblebees are workhorses of the insect pollinator world, playing a key role in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. Crops as diverse as tomato, blueberry, and red clover all depend heavily on their pollination services. Bumblebees, which are both fast and fuzzy, are highly efficient at transporting pollen from one flower to another.

Unlike honeybees, which are perennial, bumblebee colonies arise each year from the work of a single queen to establish a nest of up to 400 workers.

“Queens are probably already a bottleneck for bumblebee population dynamics,” said Woodard, whose group studies how bees are adapting to climate and environmental changes. “If a queen dies because of exposure to manmade stressors, then a nest full of hundreds of important pollinators simply won’t exist.”

Previous studies have implicated insecticides, including the widely used neonicotinoids, with a decline in pollinators. While neonicotinoids are usually applied to seeds, they contaminate soil–where bumblebee queens hibernate–and make their way into plant tissues, including pollen and nectar.

Another stressor bumblebees face is declining floral diversity, driven by agricultural land use and other global changes.

“Bumblebees are floral generalists that collect pollen from a wide variety of plant species, and there is evidence from previous studies that a mixed diet supports bumblebee colony development better than a diet comprising pollen from a single flower,” Woodard said.

Woodard’s team tested the effects of temporary or sustained exposure to the neonicotinoid imidacloprid and a single-source pollen diet on queens’ mortality, activity, and ability to establish healthy nests.

They showed bumblebee queens were far less active and six times more likely to die during sustained exposure (37 days) to the pesticide, which could be somewhat mitigated by a shorter exposure of 17 days. The surviving exposed bees also produced only a third of the eggs and a fourth of the larvae of untreated queens.

While the effects of a single-source pollen diet were overshadowed by the effects of pesticide exposure, a monofloral pollen diet alone was sufficient to negatively affect bumblebee brood production.

“Ours is the first study to explore the impact of multiple stressors on bumblebee queens during an understudied but important phase of their lives. It joins a small but growing body of research suggesting there are unique effects on queens that can have dramatic consequences for future generations,” Woodard said.

Woodard said the data support the idea that use of neonicotinoid insecticides in the U.S. should be reconsidered. The member states of the European Union recently agreed to ban neonicotinoids from all fields by the end of 2018 due to the serious danger they pose to bees.

“Our research suggests there are hidden costs to insecticide use that may only be observed if you consider the totality of an organism’s life history. This is intricately linked to human well-being because bee heath is extremely important for food production, biodiversity, and the environment,” she said.

β€” University of California – Riverside via EurekAlert!

Click Here to find out more about your favorite topics

pollinators

Spread the word

Browse More Clips

Holstein dairy cows eat a prescribed feed to support good health. USDA photo by Scott Bauer.

Dairy Margin Protection deadline extended

This is a flowering witchweed (Striga asiatica L. O. Krantz) in a conventionally-ploughed maize field on sandy soils in Madziwa, Zimbabwe. (Courtesy of Christian Thierfelder, CIMMYT)

High-protein corn also resistant to parasitic weed

Primary Sidebar

MORE

NATIONAL CLIPS

Special Investigator Act passes House Agriculture Committee
May 19, 2022
Celebrating Beef Month with a look back at cattle drives of the late 19th century
May 19, 2022
2022 Best Beef Butcher Contest crowns winners
May 19, 2022
Tractor Supply's Spring Paper Clover campaign raises nearly $1.3M for 4-H
May 19, 2022
FFA
Four FFA members named to the 58th Class of U.S. Presidential Scholars
May 19, 2022
  • Trending
  • Latest

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE...

Beyond a 'feel-good' program
May 12, 2022
Beyond honey: 4 essential reads about bees
May 11, 2022
Young Harris Beekeeping Institute celebrates 30th anniversary
May 4, 2022
S.C. crop & production report
May 3, 2022
Heroes to Hives aims to support military veterans by teaching the profession of beekeeping. (Michigan State University Extension)
Beekeeping in the Panhandle
May 3, 2022

Footer

MORNING AG CLIPS

  • Sponsors
  • About Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Customer & Technical Support

CONNECT WITH US

  • Like Us on Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

TRACK YOUR TRADE

  • Markets & Economy
  • Cattle Updates
  • Dairy News
  • Policy & Politics
  • Corn Alerts

QUICK LINKS

  • Account
  • Portal Membership
  • Invite Your Friends
  • Subscribe to RSS
  • WeatherTrends
  • Just Me, Kate

© 2022 Morning Ag Clips, LLC. All Rights Reserved.