Gardeners beware 2014 : Bee-toxic pesticides found in "bee-friendly" plants sold at garden centers across the U.S. and Canada

For the spring 2014 planting season, we expanded the scope of the study to include 18 locations in the U. S. and Canada and analyzed neonicotinoid concentrations in flowers separately from the greenery (stems and leaves). [...] In Canada, the Province of Ontario introduced At the local and state levels in the U. S. and in a Beekeepers Financial Assistance Program to the marketplace, there are signs of progress. [...] Bees in Trouble Bees are essential to the production of one out of every three bites of food we eat.2, 3 In fact, 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of the world’s food—from almonds to strawberries— are pollinated by bees.4 Honey bees and other pollinators contribute nearly $20 billion to the U. S. economy5 and $217 billion to the global economy.6, 7 Yet evidence is mounting that the heal [...] These mixes containing insect growth regulators as chemicals also persist in the environment the main culprit, but also indicate the presence and occur in the pollen and nectar of a wide of systemic fungicides (e.g., boscalid and variety of crops over many acres in the U. S. and pyraclostrobin, azoxystrobin, cyprodinil) in high Canada. [...] Likewise, the remaining plant material was cut at the base of the stem, above the roots and level of soil, and packaged together for residue analysis in the stems and leaves.