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Neonicotinoids insecticides, persist in “extremely high levels” in planter exhaust material produced during the planting of crops treated with these insecticides. This runs contrary to industry claims that the chemicals biodegrade and are not a threat.

These pesticide components are found in soil, they are also found in fields where the chemicals are not even sprayed. Bees also actively transfer contaminated pollen from primarily pesticide treated corn crops and bring it back to their hives.

C8 wrote:Bees are insects and multiply at an astonishing rate and produce, therefore, a lot of mutation that may become adaptive. I think they will do fine- much better than us. This is not a long term concern.

Bumblebees Are Getting Trapped In A ‘Climate Vise’ As Hotter Temperatures Shrink Habitats

The effects of global warming are shrinking the geographic home range of North American and European bumblebees, and the insects appear unable to adapt to the changing conditions — a troubling discovery for an important group of pollinators critical to the world’s food supply.

Unlike other animal species, the bees are not migrating northward where it is cooler, and their failure to do so is prompting dramatic losses of bumblebee species from the hottest areas across two continents, according to a study published Thursday in Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“Global warming has trapped bumblebee species in a kind of climate vise,” said Jeremy Kerr, professor of biology at the University of Ottawa and one of the study authors. “For species that evolved under cool conditions, like bumblebees, global warming might be the kind of threat that causes many of them to disappear for good.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/0 ... ge-threat/

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA) announced on Wednesday that a preliminary risk assessment of the pesticide imidacloprid shows that the chemical poses a threat to some pollinators, specifically honeybees.

Imidacloprid is one of four neonicotinoid pesticides that honey producers and environmentalists have long suspected to be linked to rapidly declining bee populations in North America and beyond, a phenomenon widely known as colony collapse disorder.

Neonictonoids are nicotine-like pesticides that attack the central nervous system of insects and are commonly used to protect seed stocks and kill unwanted foliage-eating bugs like aphids and beetles.