Pesticides : three-fourths of the honey being contaminated

Irochka/epictura

Published the 06.10.2017 at 13h12

A A

Keywords :

pesticideabeillemielpollution

The use of honey for pesticides. This is what ingest all of the fans of this highly contaminated, according to the results of a study published in the journal Science. Harvesting honey around the world, researchers have discovered that three-quarters of their samples were of the same pesticide suspected to be behind the decline of bee populations.

The bees are contaminated when they feed in fields treated with neonicotinoids. Of the 198 samples analyzed, 75 % of samples had at least one type, compared to 45 % who had two or more.

86 % of honeys north american

The honey of North America was a dismal figure : the samples drawn from the continent were contaminated in 86% of cases, compared with 57 % of those from South America. The honeys asians, on the other hand, had a contamination rate of 80 %. In Europe, 79 % of the honeys tested were polluted by the pesticide.

Traces of neonicotinoid have even been found in honey from the island of Tahiti, in the heart of the Pacific ocean — and this illustrates its invasiveness, underline the authors of the study.

The analysis of the researchers “shows the extent of the contamination,” they write, pointing out that it is not, in the state, a public health issue since rates detected were within limits tolerated by the governments.

The man depends on the bee

So far, this problem remains, and its consequences, deleterious. Because honey bees do not produce honey. Nearly one-third of the power of humanity depend of the plants that they pollinate.

In recent years, several studies, both in the laboratory and in the field, have established a link between the neonicotinoids, which attack the nervous system of insects, and the weakening of the hives.

In France, the neonicotinoids have been banned. The measure will come into force in 2018.