Investigation of carbon microparticles to protect bees against potential pesticide risks

Saffet Sansar

doi:10.7273/000004025

The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most popular commercial insect pollinator in agriculture because of the ease of transportation and placement during crop bloom. However, pesticide use is a major concern for honey bee health. The dependence of agriculture on both pesticides and pollination means that honey bees will remain at risk for exposure. Limiting the exposure to pesticides is a priority, but unintended and low level/sublethal exposure is a constant risk. We investigated a feed additive with the potential to protect bees against the negative effects of sublethal pesticide exposure. In the first experiment, caged bee trials were designed to investigate the effect of carbon microparticles on honey bee survival when the bees were exposed to different kinds of insecticides. Different groups of bees were exposed to thiamethoxam, chlorpyrifos or carbaryl insecticide. Counts of dead bees were recorded daily during the experiment and the nonparametric Kaplan-Meier estimator was used to determine the survivorship curve among groups then a Log-Rank test was used to compare group differences in survival rate. Survival rates differed significantly depending on the insecticides used. However, there was no significant difference in survival between bees in cages fed carbon microparticles before insecticide exposure and those that were not provided the carbon microparticles. In the second experiment, effects of carbon microparticles on honey bee flight behavior before and after exposure to sublethal doses of imidacloprid insecticides in the field were evaluated. A radiofrequency identification (RFID) system was used to monitor the effect of sublethal doses of imidacloprid on individual forager bees by measuring the timespan between two visits at the same feeding station. A subset of foragers from each colony was fitted with RFID tags and trained to a common feeding station. Analyses were conducted using base R functions for generalized linear models following a framework for evaluating the number of foragers visiting the feeding station. Significant differences occurred between groups exposed to different concentrations of imidacloprid. Feeding a honey bee colony with carbon microparticles did not alter the effect of imidacloprid on forager flight activity between colony and the feeding station.

Investigation of carbon microparticles to protect bees against potential pesticide risks

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