Pesticide Risk to Honey Bees: Does the Landscape Make the Poison?
Food and seed production relies on the pollinating force of European honey bee colonies to facilitate fruit and seed set in a diverse range of crops. Yet, colonies in agricultural environments may stray from the crop and forage on wild plants and other nearby food sources. This leads to a complex pesticide risk profile that includes pesticide risk from the products applied to the crop and the potential for honey bees to be exposed to chemicals applied to other attractive plants within their foraging radius. In this presentation, we will review the pesticide risk to honey bees in four pollinated crops of Oregon from March to August of 2020; sweet cherry (The Dalles and the Willamette Valley), white clover and meadowfoam (Willamette Valley), and carrot seed (Madras). In total, thirty-one agricultural sites were monitored for pesticides to understand pesticide risk to honey bee colonies moving through these pollination systems. Pollen samples, collected at early, peak and late bloom for each crop, were analyzed for over 250 pesticide residues.
Emily A Carlson is a Graduate Research Assistant and PhD student at Oregon State University in the Honey Bee and Pollinator Health Labs. For her current work on the ecology of pesticide exposure in honey bees and native bees, she has been awarded the National Science Foundation fellowship for Graduate Research, USDA Future Leaders Award, and is an Entomological Society of America’s Science Policy Fellow. Emily has a passion for working with diverse stakeholders towards the common goal of pollinator conservation. Her background includes writing and delivering natural resource education to landowners in King County, wetland restoration for a non-profit nature preserve, and grant writing. Outside of the lab and the field, Emily enjoys participating in outreach opportunities and sharing her love of all six-legged creatures. She has two cats, a curly-haired tarantula, and enjoys rollerblading and kickboxing.