Pesticides alter bees brains, affect reproductive ability

London: New research suggests that a particular class of pesticides called "neonicotinoids" do not kill bees but impair their brain function to disturb learning, blunt food gathering skills and harm reproduction. These pesticides kill bee brain cells, rendering them unable to learn, gather food and reproduce. The effects of these pesticides on bee colonies may be reversible by decreasing or eliminating the use of these pesticides on plants pollinated by bees. They found that pesticide levels in the bees' brains were sufficient to cause the learning cells to run out of energy.