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Agence France-Presse

Neonicotinoid pesticides, already blamed for short-circuiting honeybee brains, also diminish their sperm, possibly contributing to the pollinators’ worrying global decline, researchers said Wednesday.
Widespread neonicotinoid use may have “inadvertent contraceptive effects” on the insects which provide fertilisation worth billions of dollars every year, said a study in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
In their experiment, researchers divided bees into two groups.
One group was fed pollen containing field-realistic concentrations of two neonicotinoids - thiamethoxam and clothianidin.
The other group was given untainted food.
After 38 days, the male drones - whose key role in life is to mate with the egg-laying queen - had their semen extracted and tested.
The data “clearly showed... reduced sperm viability” - which is the percentage of living versus dead sperm in a sample, said the study.
Honeybee queens mate for just a single short period, but with many males in a sort of bee orgy, before storing the sperm for the rest of their fertile lifetime.
Bees have been hit in Europe, North America and elsewhere by a mysterious phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder”, which has alternatively been blamed on mites, a virus or fungus, pesticides, or a combination.
The new study adds reduced sperm quality to the list of possible causes.
“As the primary egg layer and an important source of colony cohesion, the queen is intimately connected to colony performance,” the paper said.
Previous studies have found neonicotinoids can cause bees to become disorientated to the extent that they cannot find their way back to the hive, and can lower their resistance to disease.
The European Union has placed a moratorium on the sale of neonicotinoids.
Last year, a study found that wild bees provided crop pollination services worth more than US$3,250 (2,950 euros) per hectare every year.
Bees account for an estimated 80 per cent of plant pollination by insects.


Major buzzkill: pesticides diminish bee sperm, adding to colony-collapse woes

In this photo provided by Geoffrey Williams, a drone honey bee emerges from a honeycomb. A new study out of the University of Bern in Switzerland found that the common insecticide neonicotinoid reduces the amount of live sperm in drone honey bees by 39 percent. Photo: AP

***TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY DAVID COURBET*** Apiculturists work on a beehive at the teaching farm in Lille on May 27, 2016. On the of roofs schools in Montpellier, Opera de Paris or even those of the AFP, the hives have certainly been incorporated in recent years to the city landscape, but urban beekeeping has its limits will never replace that of the fields. In Lille, for example, a municipal apiary school for individuals, located behind a train station, has been an undeniable success, with two-year waiting list for a dozen hives. Joining in 2007 the national "Bees, Sentinels of the Environment" program, the northern capital was a pioneer, with Montpellier, to fiercely defend the insect pollinators and their natural space: the city has eradicated treatments chemicals in favor of natural products and grows its own varieties of plants. One year later, it will create the first post of municipal councilor delegated to French urban beekeeping. / AFP PHOTO / FRANCOIS LO PRESTI

'Unbeelievable!': Chinese man claims world record after covering himself with a million bees

Bees are poured on to Gao Bingguo's body. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Only the beekeeper's mouth and nose were kept clear of the insects. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Gao's body is checked for stings and remaining bees. Photo: SCMP Pictures

'Everybody's been stung': 14 million bees join rush hour after truck spill in Washington