Neonicotinoid pesticides commonly used on flowering crops are not harmful when properly handled and applied, a recent University of Guelph study says.

 

Keith Solomon, a toxicologist and professor, and Gladys Stephenson, an adjunct professor, found that three widely used neonicotinoid pesticides do not pose any health risks to honeybee colonies, according to Tuesday’s university release.

 

“It’s not so much the individual bee that matters, it’s the colony or the hive,” Solomon said to Farms.com today.

 

“There is only one reproductive unit in the colony, which is the queen. All the other bees are there to support her and to raise the new worker bees. So, if a few of those die from exposure to a pesticide or from cold weather … as long as you don’t remove all of them, the hive has the capacity to tolerate that.”

 

Click Here to read more.