This is what corn seed looks like when it is treated with the neonicotinoid pesticide Chlothianidin. Each color indicates a different concentration of the pesticide. Neonicotinoids have been getting a lot of scrutiny lately because they have been found to be very harmful to honeybees. For example, one of the purple corn seeds shown here has enough pesticide to kill 100,000 bees if they came in direct contact with it. The tricky part is, bees typically don’t come in direct contact with treated seed since they are planted directly underground. Instead, the pesticide penetrates the seed and becomes incorporated into all of the plant’s tissue. So bees come into contact with low doses over longer periods of time as they collect contaminated pollen. In the lab, low doses have been shown to kill honeybee larvae and affect their navigation abilities. However, it is harder to prove what is going on out in the field. On top of that, neonicotinoids were designed to replace older pesticides that were more harmful to humans and other vertebrates. So it turns into a complicated trade-off when it comes to regulating these chemicals. Photographed by Anand Varma (@anandavarma) for the honeybee story in the May 2015 issue of @natgeo. #onassignment #honeybee #pesticides #chemicals @thephotosociety #corn #neonics by natgeo http://ift.tt/1MtPHhy – Gatlinburg Garden Castle Rainbow Tower Library Imagination Station Temple Water Spirit Guardian Labyrinth Treasury Magic Healing