A “House Moment” in a Bee Lab Continued: Making the Connection

Remember our recent report concerning pesticides? I used a chemical reference database to go through the list and see if I could find any that were lipid-soluble. While many pesticides I looked at were not lipid-soluble, the four chemicals implicated in increasing honeybee vulnerability of Nosema infection in the study above are lipid-soluble. The clearest example is with the fungicide chlorothalonil due to the molecule’s relatively simple chemical structure. The aromatic ring makes the chemical lipid-soluble and the four chlorines make the molecule stable in the environment. Not to offend any honeybees reading our blog, but honeybees have fat! Ya’ll wear it well though ;)…

Continue Reading →

A “House Moment” in a Bee Lab: Background

The Bee Informed Partnership laboratory at University of Maryland, College Park participated in research to test for the presence of a wide range of pesticides in pollen samples of commercial honeybees. We wanted to know what bees were eating, how many pesticides were present in bee food and at what concentrations, and how pesticide use might correlate to Nosema infection. Nosema is a microsporidian gut-pathogen of honeybees that causes Nosemosis, a bee disease that weakens immune systems and harms colony health. Beekeepers and many in the agricultural community are paying close attention to Nosema due to the recent discovery of a new fungal pathogen, Nosema…

Continue Reading →

Be Involved. Be Included.Bee Informed.

Donate Now ! →