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 fieldrealistic
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.
