Summary: Cresswell & Thompson (2012)

Cresswell & Thompson (2012) provide a technical comment to Henry et al's (2012) report "A Common Pesticide Decreases Foraging Success and Survival in Honey Bees". In this report, Henry et al. (2012) designed a model to predict that pesticide-induced intoxication by thiamethoxam, a neonicotinoid systemic pesticide, disrupts navigation, resulting in colony collapse (although it must be noted here that Henry et al. 2012 do not state explicitly in their article that a colony will collapse, but rather that it may be at risk of collapse). Cresswell & Thompson (2012) show that collapse disappears under a recalculated model where parameter values are set appropriate to the season during which most flowering crops, that are treated with pesticide, bloom.