A commonly used insecticide, and possibly an increasingly widely used form of that pesticide, could be causing bee colony collapse. It is not 100% certain that this pesticide causes this problem, but there is a very good chance of a relationship. From the paper's abstract:Nonlethal exposure of honey bees to thiamethoxam (neonicotinoid systemic pesticide) causes high mortality due to homing failure at levels that could put a colony at risk of collapse. Simulated exposure events on free-ranging foragers labeled with an RFID tag suggest that homing is impaired by thiamethoxam intoxication. These experiments offer new insights into the consequences of common neonicotinoid pesticides used worldwide.
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