Pollinating Bees Are The Pesticide Deliverymen Of The Future
Pollinating Bee PiccoloNamek via Wikimedia Commons Here's another reason to pay attention to dwindling bee populations: Bees might be the organic pesticide spreaders of the future. While they go to work pollinating our crops, bees could simultaneously bring natural microbial pest control agents to help those crops stave off disease. Using a technique called bee vectoring, researchers force bees to walk through a pesticide before they can exit their hives, coating them in a fungus, bacterium or virus that will then be delivered in small amounts to the plants they already pollinate. Pesticide Tray Courtesy Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada According to Les Shipp, a Canadian federal research scientist who studies bee vectoring, it has been able to reduce some fungal diseases by 80 percent in greenhouse crops....