title: Neonicotinoid pesticides severely affect honey bee queens.
abstract: Queen health is crucial to colony survival of social bees. Recently, queen failure has been proposed to be a major driver of managed honey bee colony losses, yet few data exist concerning effects of environmental stressors on queens. Here we demonstrate for the first time that exposure to field-realistic concentrations of neonicotinoid pesticides during development can severely affect queens of western honey bees (Apis mellifera). In pesticide-exposed queens, reproductive anatomy (ovaries) and physiology (spermathecal-stored sperm quality and quantity), rather than flight behaviour, were compromised and likely corresponded to reduced queen success (alive and producing worker offspring). This study highlights the detriments of neonicotinoids to queens of environmentally and economically important social bees, and further strengthens the need for stringent risk assessments to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem services that are vulnerable to these substances.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.|Agroscope, Swiss Bee Research Centre, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Geoffrey R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.|Agroscope, Swiss Bee Research Centre, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Aline
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Troxler
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.|Agroscope, Swiss Bee Research Centre, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Gina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Retschnig
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.|Agroscope, Swiss Bee Research Centre, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Kaspar
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Roth
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.|Agroscope, Swiss Bee Research Centre, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Orlando
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Yañez
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia B4P 2R6, Canada.
authors.forename: Dave
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shutler
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.|Agroscope, Swiss Bee Research Centre, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.|Social Insect Research Group, Department of Zoology &Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0028, South Africa.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Neumann
authors.affiliation: Agroscope, Swiss Bee Research Centre, 3003 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gauthier
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000187:drug effects*; D005260:Female; D007538:Isoniazid / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000494:pharmacology; D008297:Male; D010575:Pesticides / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D010575:Pesticides; C061382:methaniazide; D007538:Isoniazid