Microencapsulated Pesticides a Threat to Honeybees
This article on Alternet discusses the particular threat that microencapsulated pesticides pose to honeybees pollinators. Honeybees, the pollinators of a majority of our agricultural crops, are currently facing a mass die-off due to a number of disputed factors.
In 1974, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency licensed the nerve gas parathion trapped into nylon bubbles the size of pollen particles.
What makes this microencapsulated formulation more dangerous to bees than the technical material is the very technology of the “time release” microcapsule.
This acutely toxic insecticide, born of chemical warfare, would be on the surface of the flower for several days. The foraging bee, if alive after its visit to the beautiful white flowers of almonds, for example, laden with invisible spheres of asphyxiating gas, would be bringing back to its home pollen and nectar mixed with parathion.