Last Saturday was national honey bee day in the US and Canada. Photograph: Anne-Marie Palmer/Alamy  Stories about the declining bee population and its effects on the environment trickle through the news cycle nearly every day. To keep track of the latest bee news and make sense of the issues, we're highlighting the major bee stories each week, with analysis from the Guardian's Alison Benjamin, co-author of A World Without Bees, Bees in the City: The Urban Beekeepers' Handbook and Keeping Bees and Making Honey.  What happened: The US Environmental Protection Agency has created new pesticide labels that prohibit the use of certain pesticides in areas where bees are present. Some of these pesticides are the widely used neonicotinoids that some scientists have linked to mass bee die-offs. Key quote:  Multiple factors play a role in bee colony declines, including pesticides. The Environmental Protection Agency is taking action to protect bees from pesticide exposure and these label changes will further our efforts," said Jim Jones, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.  Why it matters: Neonics have been implicated in bee deaths world wide. The EPA is right to make the labelling clear that these bee toxic chemicals shouldn't be applied when plants are flowering and being visited by foraging bees. This may prevent thousands of bees being killed by a spray or drifting dust, as happened in the large scale bee poisoning in Germany's Rhine valley in 2008.  However, the systemic nature of neonics means that they are often applied to the seed of the plant and as the plant grows the pesticide is distributed through the stem, leaves and flowers – getting into the pollen and nectar, even water droplets secreted by some plants, which is then collected by the bees. So these new labels will not prevent neonics getting into the bees' dinner. These tiny amounts ingested won't kill the bees outright but they have been shown to weaken the bees' immune system and make them more susceptible to viruses and diseases and to impact on their ability to find their way home.  The EPA needs to enforce much more rigorous tests on neonic manufacturers to ensure these insect neurotoxins are safer for bee colonies before they grant a license for their use.  What happened: A first-of-its-kind study shows that some "bee-friendly" plants purchased in the US are contaminated with neonicotinoids. Researches found that 54% of flowers and vegetable plants sold at large home and garden stores contained neonicotinoids, sometimes at concentrations 220 times higher than the amount used on agricultural crops.  The scientists analyzed the plant's stems, leaves and flowers – but not pollen – so it is unclear how much of the pesticide bees may ingest.  These plants were likely contaminated because either the seeds were pre-treated with neonicotinoids or because the pesticide is present in the plant's potting soil.  Gardeners may be unwittingly purchasing toxic seedlings and plants attractive to pollinators for bee-friendly gardens, only to poison them in the process," said the report from the Pesticide Research Institute and the environmental group Friends of the Earth. "Unfortunately, pollinator friendly nursery plants sold to unsuspecting consumers carry neither a list of pesticides used, nor do they carry a warning that these pesticides could harm pollinators.  Why it matters: A major way to help bees is to buy bee-friendly plants from a garden centre and transform your back yard into a buzzing paradise. So this research from the US is disturbing if those plants are doing more harm then good. Customers of the big garden retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe must boycott them and campaign to stop the practices of coating seeds with neonics and adding it to potting soil.  In the UK and Europe, customers should ask before they buy. Earlier this year, after UK campaign groups and customers raised concerns about weed killers sold by garden centres containing neonics, B&Q and Homebase, the largest retailers, removed a lawn grub killer from their shelves.  But what about their plants – are they treated with neonics? Unless we can be 100% certain, we should only buy from organic suppliers.  What happened: More than a third of managed honey bee colonies were destroyed in Scotland last winter, twice the amount lost the previous year, according to research by the University of Strathclyde.  The smaller bee population poses a serious threat to agricultural yields because plants rely on pollination. A limited food supply would also cause a rise in food prices.  Researchers said the losses were caused by extreme weather conditions, but the use of pesticides also played a role in the destruction. The Scottish government announced a £200,000 fund earlier this year to help bee farmers restock and rebuild colonies.  Honey bees worldwide are having to contend with habitat loss and reduction in variety of forage sources due to pressures of intensifying land use, increasing spread of new and old pests – caused by globalisation of trade in bees and bee products – as well as possible adverse effects of agricultural pesticides," said Dr Alison Gray, co-author of the study. "For bees in northern Europe, poor weather conditions – combined with these other factors – are certainly making beekeeping a challenge and survival difficult for honey bees generally.  Why it matters: Bees' pollination services increase the yield of many commercial crops – some by up to three times. Without this pollination there will be less food, and scarcity leads to price rises. Other pollinators could do the job, but they are threatened by bad weather, habit and forage loss, and honeybee hives are easily transported from orchards to fields. So, you'd think it would be in government's interests to look after bees.  In England and Wales, a similar level of bee mortality was recorded as in Scotland and for the same reasons, but here no fund was available to help bee farmers buy new bees to restock their apiaries. The bee farmers had to use savings or take out bank loans to rebuild their colonies. Insect pollination (of which much is by honeybees) has been valued at £400m per annum to the UK economy and €153 bn per annum globally (pdf).  What happened:Campaigners in the US and Canada named this past Saturday national honey bee day to raise awareness on the plight of honey bees in local communities. Cities across the country celebrated with festivals to educate people on ways to protect the bee population and on beekeeping.  Their whole ecosystem is crashing," Lisa Arkin, director of environmental group Beyond Toxic, told Oregon's KVAL news channel. "Without bees we would lose a third of the food that comes to our tables every day.  Why it matters: Raising awareness about the importance of honeybees and other bees and pollinators to our ecosystem and our diet is vital in the fight to help them. So a national honey bee day in the US and Canada is important. Hopefully it will lead to a new generation growing up much more knowledgeable about the benefits of insects and why we need to live in harmony with them.
The week in bees: new pesticide labels will better protect bees, and why honey bee deaths might cause food prices to rise