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13 July 2017 Revealing Pesticide Residues Under High Pesticide Stress in Taiwan's Agricultural Environment Probed by Fresh Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Pollen
Yu-Shin Nai, Tsui-Yao Chen, Yi-Cheng Chen, Chun-Ting Chen, Bor-Yann Chen, Yue-Wen Chen
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Abstract

Significant pesticide residues are among the most serious problems for sustainable agriculture. In the beekeeping environment, pesticides not only impact a honey bee's survival, but they also contaminate bee products. Taiwan's agricultural environment has suffered from pesticide stress that was higher than that found in Europe and America. This study deciphered problems of pesticide residues in fresh honey bee pollen samples collected from 14 monitoring apiaries in Taiwan, which reflected significant contaminations within the honey bee population. In total, 155 pollen samples were screened for 232 pesticides, and 56 pesticides were detected. Among the residues, fluvalinate and chlorpyrifos showed the highest concentrations, followed by carbendazim, carbaryl, chlorfenapyr, imidacloprid, ethion, and flufenoxuron. The average frequency of pesticide residues detected in pollen samples was ca. 74.8%. The amounts and types of pesticides were higher in winter and in southwestern Taiwan. Moreover, five of these pollen samples were contaminated with 11–15 pesticides, with average levels between 1,560 and 6,390 µg/kg. Compared with the literature, this study emphasized that pollen gathered by honey bee was highly contaminated with more pesticides in Taiwan than in the America, France, and Spain. The ubiquity of pesticides in the pollen samples was likely due to the field applications of common pesticides. Recently, the Taiwanese government began to improve the pesticide policy. According to the resurvey data in 2016, there were reductions in several pesticide contamination parameters in pollen samples from west to southwest Taiwan. A long-term investigation of pollen pesticide residues should be conducted to inspect pesticides usage in Taiwan's agriculture.

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Yu-Shin Nai, Tsui-Yao Chen, Yi-Cheng Chen, Chun-Ting Chen, Bor-Yann Chen, and Yue-Wen Chen "Revealing Pesticide Residues Under High Pesticide Stress in Taiwan's Agricultural Environment Probed by Fresh Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Pollen," Journal of Economic Entomology 110(5), 1947-1958, (13 July 2017). https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/tox195
Received: 10 April 2017; Accepted: 7 June 2017; Published: 13 July 2017
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KEYWORDS
chlorpyrifos
fluvalinate
honey bee pollen
pesticide residue
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