Bees- Beseiged by Innovations like NeoNicotinoids

World News - Honeybee die-offs linked to insecticide, study says: "A newly published study draws a stronger link between mass die-offs of honeybees and an insecticide widely used on corn.
The study sheds more light on the worrisome phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Bees play a critical role in the pollination of crops, and thus a threat to bee colonies can potentially affect entire ecosystems.
The latest study, conducted by Italian researchers at the University of Padova and published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, focuses on a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. The pesticides are popular because they kill insects by paralyzing nerves but are less toxic to other animals. Springtime die-offs of honeybees coincided with the introduction in Europe in the late 1990s of neonicotinoids as coatings of the corn seeds, according to a report by UPI, citing researchers."