Crop chemicals put bees off food

Pesticides and fertilisers alter electric fields around wild flowers, preventing bees and other insects homing in on them, according to researchers.

The chemicals change the insects’ foraging patterns and so hinder the extraction of nectar, scientists at Bristol University found. Pollinators are drawn to bright colours and sense electricity in the air. Flowers have distinctive electric fields governed by their shape.

Dr Ellard Hunting, the lead author of the study, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, said: “Humans disturb the environment. Imagine not being able to distinguish apples from tomatoes because someone sprayed chemicals in the vegetable department.”

The finding has far-reaching consequences. Insects are a food source for many other creatures and are disappearing eight times faster than mammals, birds or reptiles, a recent review found.*