Science reports:

Honey bees have a reputation for working hard, but carpenter bees and other bee species that don’t live in colonies might be even more industrious. For these so-called solitary bees, there is no dedicated worker class to help with rearing young and foraging. “Each female is kind of like a lone wolf,” says Clara Stuligross, a Ph.D. student at the University of California (UC), Davis.

Now, a study by Stuligross and colleagues tallying the detrimental impacts of a key pesticide on reproduction of a solitary bee species adds to growing evidence that such insects, which make up the vast majority of bees species, are vulnerable to the compounds just like their more social counterparts. Their finding suggest the harm of pesticides can accumulate over multiple generations, which could exacerbate the loss of species that provide valuable pollination for farms and ecosystems.

The work demonstrates that chronic pesticide poisoning can cause “meaningful and significant impacts” on bees, says Nigel Raine, a bee ecologist at the University of Guelph who was not involved with the study. “That’s really quite important.”

Of all the types of pesticides that harm bees, one is particularly insidious. Known as neonicotinoids, they are coated on seeds or sprayed on soil. Then they permeate the tissue of plants, eventually showing up in pollen and nectar. The pesticides disrupt learning and memory in honey bees and several studies have shown solitary bees suffer the same kind of damage. At higher levels, the chemicals impair reproduction, such as by reducing the viability of sperm, leading to fewer offspring. Yet little research has examined how neonicotinoids might harm pollinators throughout their life cycle. [Continue reading…]