Queen bees transfer pesticides to eggs to protect themselves, study finds

In the hidden economy of a honeybee colony, survival is a negotiation between generations. Researchers at UC Davis have documented for the first time that queen bees, overwhelmed by pesticide accumulation their workers can no longer fully filter, transfer those toxins directly into their eggs — a self-preserving act that may quietly doom the very offspring meant to sustain the hive. The discovery reframes colony collapse not as a sudden catastrophe but as a slow, invisible reckoning, one with consequences that extend to the third of the world's food crops that depend on honeybee pollination.