How Monsanto’s GMOs and Glyphosate are Killing Off Honeybees and Leading to Global Ecological Collapse

by David Gutierrez, Natural News:

The global blockbuster herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) destroys the ability of honeybees to navigate back to their hives, and it might be playing a role in the ongoing collapse of pollinator populations worldwide. This is according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina and the Free University Berlin that was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology on July 10.

“These results suggest that, in honeybees, exposure to [glyphosate] doses commonly found in agricultural settings impairs the cognitive capacities needed to retrieve and integrate spatial information for a successful return to the hive,” the researchers wrote.

Although 2014 saw many optimistic predictions about a slower rate of honeybee decline in the United States, the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture survey showed that the overall trend is still toward honeybee decline. In the past year, more than 40 percent of U.S. honeybee colonies died.

Glyphosate destroys bees’ brains

Although glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, only a limited number of studies have been conducted on its effects in wild animals and even fewer have looked into its effects on honeybees. For the current study, the researchers trained honeybees to visit an artificial feeder stocked with a sugar solution. This solution was then spiked with three separate doses of glyphosate that are comparable to those that might occur in an agricultural environment: 2.5, 5 and 10 mg/L. The bees were then captured and transported across an open field, and their flights home were tracked using harmonic radar technology.

The researchers found that the honeybees that were fed the highest concentration of glyphosate took longer to fly home than the control group and those that were fed lower doses. In addition, their flights were more indirect.

Some of the bees were then recaptured and re-released from the same location. The control bees made the flight faster the second time, but the glyphosate-dosed bees did not.

Read More @ NaturalNews.com.com