How AI and Simulation Technology Are Helping Uncover Pesticide Risks to Honeybee Colonies

Neonicotinoids are a class of synthetic insecticides that are heavily used in agriculture for crop protection. These systemic chemicals are absorbed by the crop plant and move through its tissues, ultimately killing pests—but they also end up in pollen and nectar, harboring residues above safety thresholds and posing a risk to harmless pollinators and other non-target insects.¹ In 2018, the EU banned the outdoor use of neonicotinoids due to concerns around bee safety.² In the U.S., several states have placed severely restrictive bans on certain types of neonicotinoids, but they continue to be widely used as pesticides in U.S. agriculture.³

While many insects are more passive pollinators—inadvertently moving pollen between flowers as they stop to drink nectar—bees are unique in actively gathering protein-rich pollen to use as the main food source for their hive’s larvae.⁴ More than one-third of global crops depend on bee pollination, but there is strong evidence that neonicotinoids can impact honeybee foraging,⁵ with subsequent effects on colony survival. Exposed bees take longer to complete foraging trips, ultimately resulting in lower pollen yields.⁶ They have also been shown to experience olfactory inhibition and cognitive difficulties.^7,8 Previous studies have identified significant changes in individual behaviors, but gaps remain in establishing a clear link between these effects and overall foraging performance at the colony level.

Researchers in Germany set out to answer this by asking how the sublethal effects observed for individual bees translate into the colony’s ability to forage as a collective unit.⁹ They provided sugar solutions to eight colonies of free-flying honeybees in an agricultural landscape. Four colonies were fed a solution containing a sublethal dose of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid, and the four control colonies were given only the simple sugar solution. Over 11 consecutive days, the team observed daily colony-level foraging activities using AI-based monitoring technology. The authors also leveraged BEEHAVE, a mechanistic simulation model, to understand the mechanisms underlying their findings.¹⁰ The model links in-hive dynamics with land use in the surrounding landscape as well as weather conditions that could impact honeybee foraging.

Their results, published in Environmental Science & Technology, showed that individual exposed bees spent longer on pollen foraging trips, went out less often, and were prone to drifting—likely due to impaired cognitive function and altered metabolism. These behavioral changes at the individual level corroborated previous model predictions. At the colony level, the reduced number of returning pollen foragers was directly associated with neonicotinoid exposure. This work builds upon and further confirms their earlier findings published in 2019, in which they equipped bees with RFID tags to track their lifetime flight behavior.¹¹ Results of the prior study showed that traces of neonicotinoid exposure at the larval stage caused bees to begin foraging at a younger age and perform fewer orientation flights, overall reducing lifetime foraging by 28%. “We were surprised that we could replicate the findings of our first field experiment in 2019,” says researcher Silvio Knaebe in a recent press release. “Honeybee colony behavior varies so much that statistically significant effects are difficult to detect.”

By integrating experimental studies with computer simulations, the researchers were able to successfully see how sublethal effects seen in individual foragers extend to the colony level, influencing efficiency, resource distribution, and overall colony dynamics. "To the best of our knowledge, the current work is the first to link effects observed at the individual level to those at the colony level in honeybees under pesticide exposure, which has implications for future pesticide risk assessment," note the authors in their article.

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References

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10. https://beehave-model.net/
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