This page is a part of the corpus (Annexe 1) used to write Stéphane Foucart and neonicotinoids.
Here, I relate what the journalist said in his article “Les trois quarts des miels du monde sont contaminés par des néonicotinoïdes”. All quotes, originally in French, were translated by me.
A study published by Science analyzed 198 honeys from Alaska, Australia, Madagascar, Europe or Asia and found traces of NNI in 75% of them. This rate would vary: 86% in North America, 80% in Asia, 79% in Europe and 57% in South America. These figures give a “good idea of the extent of the contamination of the landscapes”, the bees foraging within a radius of 3 to 5 km around his hive.
The concentrations found “are deemed not to present a risk for consumers of honey.” They are on average 1.8 µg / kg and a maximum of 50 µg / kg, which is close to the maximum residue limit.This would be an important problem, many studies highlighting the sublethal effects of NNIs, certain negative effects even appearing, in certain insects, “from a concentration of 0.1 µg / kg”. These effects are ignored by the regulations.