The Deadly Effects of Pesticides on Honeybees

Honeybees serve crucial roles as pollinators and are beneficial to us by pollinating foods that we eat. Bees are known for learning quickly, having a good memory, and being able to communicate with each other by shaking their bodies. However, studies have shown that pesticides impair honey bees' memory and learning. This might be contributing to a disorder where many honeybees die fairly quickly. Honeybees connect floral colors and odors with food, but the pesticides found in plants damage the nerve cells needed to make this connection. This causes deficiencies in pollination because a bee can no longer remember that flowers are a source of food. Also, the decrease in neuron activity makes it hard for bees to communicate with each other. In an experiment conducted, it has been found that mixed pesticides are more damaging to the bees' memory than a single pesticide. Overall, bees are fundamental producers of food and their habitats need to be innocuous so that they can carry out their responsibilities. Some themes of the nature of science found in this article are role of motivation and curiosity and science is based on evidence. Since many bees have been dying rapidly since 2006, scientists were motivated to find the cause of this colony collapse disorder in order to find solutions to it. Also, an experiment was used as evidence to state that mixed pesticides are more harmful to a honeybee's memory than one single pesticide.
-Abby Rechkin
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130213-honeybee-pesticide-insect-behavior-science/