THEY鈥橰E not called worker bees for nothing. Bumblebees buzz from plant to plant collecting food, and plans are afoot to give them another task while they do it 鈥� carrying pesticides to where they are needed. in Mississauga, Canada, has this month in the hope that the tactic will lure farmers away from indiscriminate crop spraying.
The idea involves placing a tray of organic pesticide powder inside a commercially bred hive. The powder contains a substance to help it stick to bees鈥� legs and a strain of Clonostachys rosea fungus that is harmless to these insects but attacks crop diseases and pests. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a perfectly natural fungus found very commonly throughout the world. We鈥檝e just developed a way to grow and harvest it efficiently,鈥� says Michael Collinson, CEO of BVT.
The bumblebees walk through the powder as they leave the hive. When they land on flowers to gather nectar and pollen, they leave a dusting of pesticide to protect the plant and future fruit.
Advertisement
Many crops can be protected this way, including blueberries and bell peppers. BVT plans to provide its dispensing system to a number of companies that have developed biological controls for other pests such as fireblight, which affects apples and pears. 鈥淔armers usually spray the whole orchard and 99 per cent of it ends up in the wrong place,鈥� says Collinson. 鈥淲e can deliver it locally and use 20 grams as opposed to 2 kilograms. It鈥檚 much better for the environment.鈥�
鈥淭hese bees fly for us, delivering pesticides to targeted crops. It鈥檚 better for the environment鈥�
David Passafiume, an organic farmer near Toronto, has been using the system for five years on 8.5 acres of strawberries and raspberries. 鈥淲e were losing a significant portion of our crop each year to Botrytis and tarnished plant bugs,鈥� he says. Now those losses are negligible and profits have gone up by a quarter, he says. 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 even try to grow without it now.鈥�
The idea of using bees to carry pesticides isn鈥檛 new, but BVT is one of the first to attempt to commercialise the approach.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a good idea. It鈥檚 better than spraying highly toxic chemicals over acres of land,鈥� says , an entomologist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. 鈥淎s long as it doesn鈥檛 have a bad effect on the bees.鈥�
, a biologist at the University of Ottawa in Canada, thinks it should only be used inside greenhouses, away from wild bees. If used outside, he says, it could have unintended effects on non-target plants or other pollinators.
Another concern relates to BVT鈥檚 use of commercially bred insects. 鈥淒omesticated bumblebees carry pathogens that can be transmitted into the wild,鈥� says Sydney Cameron of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 鈥淭hat issue has not been resolved.鈥�
The company plans to work with other companies to deliver inorganic pesticides that have been deemed safe to bees by the US Environment Protection Agency. But the agency typically tests only on honeybees, using them as surrogates for all pollinators, despite differences between bee species.
鈥淗oneybees and bumblebees to pesticides in ways that can be hard to predict,鈥� says Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. What鈥檚 more, the EPA generally tests only to see if chemicals are acutely toxic, rather than looking at the effects of long-term exposure.
Collinson says the company is 鈥渧ery cautious鈥� about the insects鈥� well-being. 鈥淥ur business is bees. We need these guys to fly for us.鈥�
His company now plans to add more biocontrols to its pesticide mix to create broad-spectrum crop protection.
(Image: Bee Vectoring Technology)
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淏ees put to work lugging pesticides to flowers鈥�
