The Bees Knees Pesticides: Formulating Bee-friendly Pesticides from Innocuous Ingredients

Overview

Allyson Andrews The purpose of this project is to determine which of the three pesticides I created is the most effective in deterring pests while maintaining the functionality of commercial pesticides. If I test 3 pesticides made with castile soap, neem oil, or essential oils, then the pesticide made with neem oil will be the most effective in deterring pests while still preserving the bees’ health. For my experiment I placed two different plants favored by bees (pentas & lantana) as a control group with no pesticide alongside a set coated in pesticide. I placed the control simultaneously with my test group and allowed my bees to follow their usual foraging route for 5 days before I returned to examine the condition of my control and test groups. I repeated this for all 3 of my formulated pesticides and made sure to keep the amount of pesticide on each test group even and monitor the bees during the 5 days with the beekeeper assisting me. During my experiment I found that the results supported my hypothesis-- neem oil was the most effective pesticide. After putting a grid on my result images and comparing the average number of bite marks and pests for each pesticide group and comparing these averages with the control group numbers I was able to come up with my conclusion confidently. While it did not improve the condition of the bees per say, the effects of clothianidin and thiamethoxam (NNIs) were avoided.

Competition history

• JSHS 2020 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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