Across the globe bee populations are crashing in a trend worrying farmers and beekeepers. Scientists now think that the pesticide class known as neonicotinoids is to blame.
Last year the European Union voted to ban the pesticides, which act on the nervous system in a similar way to nicotine, for two years – good for bees, but leaving farmers down a defence in the fight against damaging insect pests. Now a new study by researchers at the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, suggests that the country’s most poisonous spider, the funnel web, may provide a solution. They found that its venom contains a pesticide that appears to be deadly to insect pests but harmless to bees.