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"Effects of coated maize seed on honey bees"

Report based on results obtained from the second year (2010) activity of the APENET project

In recent years numerous and sometimes severe bee die-offs have been reported in Europe and in other countries. The investigations conducted to date have shown that the most likely risk factors include bee diseases, pesticide treatment, bee management practices and climatic trends. Pesticide treatments play a particularly critical and influential role, above all if carried out in the springsummer season in areas devoted to intensive cultivation. The majority of the active ingredientsutilized in pesticides exert some degree of toxicity on bees, and the effects can be immediate and extremely evident if the bees are directly affected. But in the case of products used in seed coating (eg. neonicotinoids), microencapsulated formulations and growth regulators (IGR), the effects may be more insidious and difficult to link specifically to the cause.