Honeybees: Pesticides disrupt nursing behavior and larval development

(Goethe University Frankfurt) A newly developed video technique has allowed scientists at Goethe University Frankfurt at the Bee Research Institute of the Polytechnical Society to record the complete development of a honey bee in its hive. Researchers discovered that certain pesticides -- neonicotinoids -- changed the behaviour of the nurse bees: they fed the larvae less often. Larval development took up to 10 hours longer. A longer development period in the hive can foster infestation by parasi...