What's all the buzz about? Bees appear unaffected by fungicides, study says

The topic is a buzz at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA), where PhD candidate Meng Yong Lim is investigating how fungicides impact bees' ability to pollinate.

The report was released by TIA on May 20, World Bee Day, which aims to raise awareness on the impact bees and other pollinators have food security, biodiversity and ecosystem health.

Mr Lim said his work looked at the effects that fungicides used for plant diseases in agricultural crops, such as sweet cherries and carrot seed crops, have on pollination.

"Including their impact on the viability of pollen carried by bees from flower-to-flower and how they affect honey bee behaviour and health," Mr Lim said.

He said the good news was his research found the fungicides did not appear to impair the foraging activity of honey bees.

After carefully dissecting 600 honey bees, Mr Lim did not observe any negative impacts on their gut health either.

"This means they can continue to gather pollen and nectar and maintain a healthy gut microbiome, which just like humans, is important for digestion and immunity," Mr Lim said.

However, the research findings indicate that fungicide applications may have a detrimental impact on pollen viability which has the potential to "adversely impact pollination".

"Some [fungicides] significantly inhibited pollen germination to less than five per cent while others completely inactivated pollen viability," Mr Lim said.

"What can happen in the field is that bees or other pollinators could be transporting dead or weakened pollen grains between flowers, which can dilute the population of healthy pollen and lower pollination efficiency.

"It means we might need more bees or harder working bees to transfer healthy pollen across the crops."

He said he hope the research would help growers make informed management decisions.

"I hope that my research is useful to industry and that it can provide some practical information about timing fungicide applications that is best suited to their situation," he said.