Bee Pollen Is Full of Pesticides Like Mosquito Repellents

Read the full story in Newsweek.

Bees that live next to cornfields and soybean fields spend only a minority of their time feeding on these crop plants; instead, they mostly seek out pollen from flowering weeds, trees and gardens nearby. In the course of their foraging, they are exposed to a surprisingly wide and concerning range of pesticides, new research shows.

In a study published May 30 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers Elizabeth Long and Christian Krupke show that bees next to cornfields collected pollen containing up to 32 different pesticides, most of which didn’t originate from crops or agricultural applications. Pollen samples were taken over a four-month period from three hives in West Lafayette, Indiana, where Purdue University is located.

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