"BRIGHTON, UK -- Controversial pesticides ingested by bumble bees can seriously impact the insects’ ability to collect food, even at very low levels of contamination, finds new research from the University of Sussex and the University of Stirling."
"Scientists and biotechnology companies are developing what could become the next powerful weapon in the war on pests — one that harnesses a Nobel Prize-winning discovery to kill insects and pathogens by disabling their genes."
"Researchers in the key corn-growing state of Illinois are finding significant damage from rootworms in farm fields planted in a rotation with a genetically modified corn that is supposed to protect the crop from the pests, according to a new report."
"Honey bees are being fitted with tiny radar antennae to find how disease and pesticides are effecting the insects as they hunt for food."
"In response to a massive bumblebee die-off blamed on pesticides, the Oregon Department of Agriculture issued a temporary restriction Thursday on 18 insecticides with the active ingredient dinotefuran."
"Bee keepers' use of corn syrup and other honey substitutes as bee feed may be contributing to colony collapse by depriving the insects of compounds that strengthen their immune systems, according to a study released on Monday."
"Drivers who end up behind John Cooley this week will quickly lose their patience. Cruising around the eastern United States with his car window open, he slows down or stops every few hundred metres, cocks an ear and taps on a data-logger strapped into the passenger seat."
"In the 1980s, manufactures began making cockroach baits that combined sweet glucose with deadly insecticides. By 1993, many cockroach populations somehow developed an aversion to the bait. Now, 20 years later, scientists finally understand how the roaches beat these traps."
"WARM SPRINGS, Ore. — The sky was not exactly dark in a blotting-out-the-sun sense, but the salmon flies were certainly thick above central Oregon’s Lower Deschutes River. Thousands of female specimens circled 30 feet above the water’s surface, preparing to descend and drop their eggs. Occasionally, a bug would spiral slowly down to the river, flutter awkwardly on the surface, then disappear in a sudden splash."
"PARIS -- Will Brussels try to give bees a break? In a case closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic, European officials plan to vote Friday on a proposal to sharply restrict the use of pesticides that had been implicated in the decline of global bee populations."
