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Makes me wonder if it could be that some of the pesticides attract the bumblebees, but not because of the absence of parasites.

Presumably clean soil also has no mites or parasites in it.




In one place I lived, there was some residue on the windows from stickers the previous tenants children had put on the windows.

There was a wasp nest on the roof and the wasps kept going for the part of the window where the stickers had been. Must have been something in there that attracted them.


I don't think that's a safe assumption considering how many mites live on skin, or how many ticks live in pristine wilderness.


They actually mention this as an alternative explanation other than missing fungi and parasites after rereading the article:

> Another possibility is that the queens could have developed an "acquired taste" for pesticides, as researchers put it, due to prior exposure in their environment.


the key might be that durring the torpor of hibernation the bees are less vulnerable to toxins than there parasites first question is do the parasites also hibernate or do they continue to feed on the bees,while the bees have crawled into a chemical spill and put themselves into suspended animation for 3-4 months and keep in mind that many insect species feed on toxic plants to deter preditors, monarch butterflys and milk weed is top of the list




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