The Harmful Effects of Pesticides on Bees

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harmful effects of pesticides on bees

When it comes to modern agriculture, the use of pesticides is inevitable and highly popular and common. The use of pesticides has increased by a huge degree but this has led to many harmful side effects of which one of the most dangerous ones is the toxicity to the honey bees. There are many negative side effects of pesticides on honey bees and one of the major ones is that pesticides damage the ability of the bees to collect food and this also leads to a wide-scale killing of these beings.

Honey bees are extremely important for the environment and ecology because they are a crucial link in the natural chain of life. Bees provide many benefits to the agricultural industry and also are vital pollinators. The following are some of the many other harmful effects of pesticides on bees:

harmful effects of pesticides on bees

  • Bees are an important part of the environment and are the most important pollinators of crops. But what pesticides do is that they considerably reduce the yield which cross pollinated crops can produce.
  • Another common harmful effect of pesticides is that it can affect the quality of the many bee products through contamination and this has been seen world over.
  • The use of pesticides has affected the production of honey as well. This has led to the overall lowering down of the production of honey in the world.
  • Infact there are many types of pesticides which can kill bees directly and this is another harmful effect of these products.
  • There are also certain types of pesticides which do not affect the adult honey bees but can cause a lot of damage to immature and young bees.
  • Some pesticides have such properties that can make bees slow learners and these may also make the bees forget the floral scents. Infact, combination of certain pesticides can have stronger results and side effects than individual pesticides and may cause more damage to honey bees.
  • Some pesticides have an effect on the central nervous system of bees and these pesticides when sprayed get spread to the whole plant including the nectar and the pollen which the bees tend to eat. These bees then become incapable of producing many offsprings and are thus greatly affected.

Ways to Prevent Bees from Getting Killed due to Pesticides

There are a lot of measures that we can take in order to avoid the harmful effects of pesticides on bees. The following are the most effective ones:

  • One of the steps that we can take is to spray pesticides as well as insecticides in the evening time rather than during the day as it will help to minimize the effect that these harmful products have on bees because honey bees have a tendency to forage during the day time and also when it is more sunny than cloudy or dark.
  • Another way to prevent the harmful effects is to use pesticides as little as possible as this will directly help to bring down the number of bees that get harmed.
  • It is a fact that pesticides that are applied in the form of liquid have less toxic effects than pesticides in their dust or spray form. So efforts must be taken to use liquid pesticides more.

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