Pesticides hit bees harder when they're eating junk food, study finds

When bees from commercially run hives go out looking for food, they're basically limited to eating nectar and pollen from the crops farmers want pollinated. That can be problematic for the insect's diet — and their long-term survival amid the mass die-off of honeybees over the past decade.

That's what Penn State entomologist Christina Grozinger discovered while in the middle of a recent bee research study. She and her colleagues originally set out to look at the effects of pesticides on bee genes, but when they started seeing the consequences a restricted diet had on bees, they were intrigued. Read more...