Ahiflower oil, an omega-3 rich plant extract primarily produced by Nature’s Crops for the dietary supplements industry, helped to reduce the toxic effects of a common pesticide on honeybees. The study was conducted by a team of researchers at Université De Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada, and findings will be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Conference in 2023.
 
The team investigated the relationship between ahiflower oil and two pesticides, classified as neonicotinoids, on the toxicity and survival outcomes of the honeybees. The two pesticides are thought to cause mitochondrial damage to the honeybees even at low doses, and are a major cause of honey bee colony losses.
 
The authors theorized that treating honeybees with stearidonic acid (SDA), a precursor to the omega-3s EPA and DHA found in ahiflower oil, would help to mitigate the toxic effects of the two pesticides on honeybees over the course of their survival.
 
The researchers fed bees with a sucrose syrup and pollen patty. One group took the food with the pesticides alone, one feed contained ahiflower oil, and one feed contained both pesticides and ahiflower. After 25 days, the team measured bees’ mitochondrial respiration, which, when disrupted, serves as a measure of damage caused by the pesticides.
 
The research confirmed previous hypothesis that imidacloprid disrupts mitochondrial respiration, and bees which consumed a mixture of the pesticide and ahiflower oil eventually had respiration rates similar to those seen in the control group. Further, mitochondrial respiration was boosted significantly in bees which received ahiflower alone.
 
However, glyphosate did not have an impact on mitochondrial respiration, and interestingly, had a negative synergistic effect when combined with ahiflower oil on honeybees’ survival.
 
“Our study confirms the beneficial effects of ahiflower-oil that restored imidacloprid-impeded mitochondrial function, which however failed to rescue survival,” the authors concluded. “Overall, these results are promising regarding the benefits of ahiflower oil to alleviate detrimental effects of pesticides on honey bees but reveal a potential negative synergistic effect.”