Impact of landscape composition on honey bee pollen contamination by pesticides: A multi-residue analysis

Abstract

The honey bee is the most common and important managed pollinator of crops. In recent years, honey bee colonies faced high mortality for multiple causes, including land-use change and the use of plant protection products (hereafter pesticides). This work aimed to explore how contamination by pesticides of pollen collected by honey bees was modulated by landscape composition and seasonality. We placed two honey bee colonies in 13 locations in Northern Italy in contrasting landscapes, from which we collected pollen samples monthly during the whole flowering season in 2019 and 2020. We searched for almost 400 compounds, including fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and acaricides. We then calculated for each pollen sample the Pollen Hazard Quotient (PHQ), an index that provides a measure of multi-residue toxicity of contaminated pollen. Almost all pollen samples were contaminated by at least one compound. We detected 97 compounds, mainly fungicides, but insecticides and acaricides showed the highest toxicity. Fifteen % of the pollen samples had medium-high or high levels of PHQ, which could pose serious threats to honey bees. Fungicides showed a nearly constant PHQ throughout the season, while herbicides and insecticides and acaricides showed higher PHQ values in spring and early summer. Also, PHQ increased with increasing cover of agricultural and urban areas from April to July, while it was low and independent of landscape composition at the end of the season. The cover of perennial crops, i.e., fruit trees and vineyards, but not of annual crops, increased PHQ of pollen samples. Our work highlighted that the potential toxicity of pollen collected by honey bees was modulated by complex interactions among pesticide category, seasonality, and landscape composition. Due to the large number of compounds detected, our study should be complemented with additional experimental research on the potential interactive effects of multiple compounds on honey bee health.

Keywords: Apis mellifera; Fungicides; Insecticides; Pesticides; Pollinators; Seasonality.