Bees help to pollinate 90% of the world's major food crops. Swiss researchers sample 198 types of honey from around the world and found traces of pesticides in 75% of the samples. The pesticides act as nerve agents on bees.

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The concentrations of pesticides are considered to be too small to be a harm to humans.

The researchers also found that 34% of the honey samples contained concentrations of neonicotinoids which are known to be detrimental to bees.

2 minute video published 5 October 2017 by Science Magazine

The recorded pesticide levels (up to 56 nanograms per gram) are within the bioactive range that has been shown to affect both bee behavior and a colony's health. Pesticides levels of just 9 nanograms per gram have been shown to reduce reproductive success in wild bees. Researchers have been looking into bee colonies dying off in recent years and pesticides could certainly be a contributing factor to the colony collapse disorder.

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The highest frequency of contamination were found in North American honey samples (86%), followed by Asia (80%) and Europe (79%).

Felix Wackers, a professor at Lancaster University, thinks that the bees exposure to harmful pesticides may be far higher than what the Swiss researchers measured in the honey samples.

Sources and Full Articles

Bee-harming pesticides in 75 percent of honey worldwide: study, Phys.org, 5 October 2017

Not so sweet: 75 percent of honey samples had key pesticide, Associated Press, 5 October 2017

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