Protection against environmental toxins: nutritional supplements for bees

Insecticides are causing mass deaths of bees, including in Latin America. Now in Colombia, the University of Rosario has developed a preparation that makes pollinating insects more resistant to poisons from the group of neonicotinoids. The formula, patented in London, is a glimmer of hope for beekeepers.

The Colombian beekeeper Abdón Salazar is impressed by the research results of the Universidad Del Rosario, but emphasizes: “This does not change our goal of banning all neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid that are still legally available in Colombia.”

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Abdón Salazar is something like the face of the people who work for bees and their protection in Colombia. Since 2016 he has been fighting for a ban on all highly toxic insecticides that are responsible for bee deaths. According to studies, fipronil and imidacloprid, used worldwide since the mid-1990s, are the two deadliest. Fipronil is offered on the Latin American market under the trade names Regent, imidacloprid under Gaucho or Admire, among others. The two insecticides are sold by BASF and Bayer Crop Science respectively and are also produced in Colombia. In Europe they were largely banned and their use was strictly regulated. The Colombian neurobiologist Andrés Josafat Riveros is studying their damaging effects on bees. The professor teaches and researches at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá.

Bees need orientation to find their way from the flowers back to the hive. »That’s exactly what they lose when they come into contact with highly toxic insecticides. It is primarily the neurotoxic active ingredients fipronil and imidacloprid, which have been used worldwide since the mid-1990s, that have negative effects on the bee population worldwide,” explains Andre Josafat Riveros.

The 44-year-old biologist has been studying the effects of these insecticides on the brains of bees for around ten years. These are devastating: “What the insecticides cause in the bees is like a mixture of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Motor problems, deficits in information processing, but also in orientation are direct consequences that we have identified,” says the expert. The bees can no longer find their way back to their hive, starve and are therefore eliminated as pollinators for fruit, vegetables, etc. – with fatal long-term consequences for agriculture and forestry.

According to a study published in 2023 by the UN Food Organization (FAO), around 35 percent of the world’s insects are classified as endangered – including bees. The FAO estimates the value of global pollination services by bees, which are threatened primarily by agro-industrial agriculture with its high use of pesticides, to be between 235 and 577 billion US dollars. In Colombia, according to government figures, around 3,000 beehives, each with 50 to 80,000 bees, fall victim to insect death every year. An estimate that, according to Riveros, could be significantly underestimated. He believes that up to a third of bee colonies die each year, about ten times as many as the official estimate.

After around five years of research, Riveros and his team have developed a preparation that he sees as a future milestone in the protection of bees. “Our preparation reduces the disorientation of bees and other pollinators after contact with insecticides,” says the bee researcher. Riveros published the research results for the first time in the “Journal of Experimental Biology” in 2022. Together with his team and the two participating universities in Atlanta in the USA and the Colombian Javeriana University, where he previously conducted research, the formula for the preparation was registered with the British Patent Office at the end of January 2024.

This is positive news for beekeepers and bee conservationists worldwide. The research series showed that the preparation protects the pollinators’ brains from the negative effects of insecticides. “We not only have success with the two insecticides mentioned, but also against a number of common combinations on the market,” explains Riveros. They are widespread in Colombia because farmers often mix several preparations into a highly toxic cocktail that they call “the bomb.”

The bee researcher and his team are working on initial field trials near Bogotá to improve the formula, which is based on the positive antioxidant effect of flavonoids. These include the majority of flower pigments. A number of them are contained in the liquid preparation, which can be easily mixed with sugar water or pollen and then administered to the bees. The preparation, which does not yet have a trade name, is a classic dietary supplement. According to Riveros, it is cheap to produce and will eventually be produced under license by one or more manufacturers.

It will take a while until then. For beekeepers like Abdón Salazar and the lawyer and environmentalist Luis Domingo Gómez, the results of the first field studies are crucial for assessing the product. “However, we will not change our strategy and rely on a remedy to combat the negative effects of insecticides instead of banning them ourselves,” says Gómez.

The lawyer has already had success with a lawsuit in Colombia. After a transition period of 12 months, Fipronil has been officially banned since February 2024 on the instructions of the authorities. Gómez is now aiming to ban neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid, which are still legally available in Colombia. At the same time, critical beekeepers like Abdón Salazar, who joined forces in 2016 to form the interest organization “Abejas Vivas”, or “living bees” in German, are following how bee researcher Riveros is progressing. “We welcome the fact that research is being carried out in Colombia on the death of bees and on preparations that strengthen bees,” says the 58-year-old beekeeper. He hopes that the preparation from the Universidad del Rosario can help increase beekeepers’ yields.