Nature: Toxins used to protect crops from insects keep bees awake at night

Bees are kept awake at night by poisons used to protect crops from pests – and this reduces their survival rates, a study has warned.

Researchers from Bristol have warned – just like us as humans – the vital pollinators need a good night’s rest to function properly.

However, with the introduction of so-called neonicotinoids – the most common insecticide in the world – it has the ability to eliminate the circadian rhythms of bees.

This causes the insects to lose their time and, as a result, they get poor sleep and the ability to both communicate and navigate suffers.

Experts have found that neonicotinoids reduce the quality of both bumblebees and fruit flies – shedding new light on why the first ones leave the desert.

‘The neonicotinoids we tested had a significant effect on the amount of sleep taken by flies and bees,’ said the paper’s author Kiah Tasman of Bristol University.

‘If a beast had discovered the same thing as it could on a farm where the beast had been introduced, it slept less, and its daily behavioral rhythms went up. set out of synchronization with the normal 24-day cycle of day and night. ”

With a circadian rhythm similar to ours, honey bees sleep between five to eight hours a day. In the case of hunting bees, the same happens in daytime walks.

This means that the bees get more rest at night, when darkness blocks their rounds to collect nectar and pollen.

‘Being able to tell time is important for knowing when they should be awake and supplying, and it seemed like these drug-insecticides were unable to sleep,’ said an author paper and neurologist James Hodge, who is also from Bristol University

‘We know that quality sleep is important for insects, just as it is for humans, for their health and to be lasting memories.’

In their study, experiments on fruit flies showed how insecticides – in those concentrations commonly used for agriculture – interfered with the insects’ brain’s ability to remember and throw off any clock. Cognitive.

‘Bumblebees and flies have brain-like structures,’ explained paper author and ecologist Sean Rands, also from Bristol.

‘This suggests [that] One reason these drugs are so bad for bees is that they stop the bees from sleeping properly and then being able to learn where there is food in their environment, ‘he said.

‘Neonicotinoids are currently banned in the EU, and we hope this will continue in the UK as we leave EU legislation.’

Despite the continental ban, neonicotinoids still make up nearly a quarter of the global insecticide market – worth around £ 730 million annually.

Intensive use has been linked to the global decline in insect pollination – as they affect their nervous systems, stimulating similar receptors in the brain bees to those on which nicotine targets in humans and provides the same ‘buzz’.

Last year, a study by a U.S. team found that low levels of neonicotinoids caused bees to barely get any sleep.

Scans have shown that the chemicals accumulate in the bees ‘brains – damaging the neurons that control the insects’ body clock.

Previous research has also shown that insects can’t communicate properly if they don’t get enough sleep – with the performance of their information spreading ‘waggle dances’ becoming sloppy as a result.

As other bees use dance to learn where profitable food sources have been found, sleeping bees can take away their mates – wasting time and energy and causing the entire colony to suffer as a result. on that.

Sleeper honeybees can also find it difficult to return to the beehive when visiting new flowerbeds. Many even get lost and never return.

In humans, deep sleep reinforces memories, moving them from short-term to long-term memory. The same process is thought to occur in bees.

The full results of the study have been published in the journal Scientific Reports.