Bees, butterflies and other pollinators provide essential ecosystem services but face significant welfare and population threats from pesticide exposure, habitat loss and pathogens in agricultural landscapes.
Pollinator welfare exists at both individual and colony levels. Individual bees exposed to sub-lethal neonicotinoid doses show measurable welfare impairment: impaired navigation preventing return to hives, reduced learning ability affecting foraging efficiency, and compromised immune responses increasing disease susceptibility. At the colony level, cumulative sub-lethal pesticide exposure combined with disease and habitat loss creates the colony collapse and population decline seen across agricultural landscapes. Flower-rich field margins — which can be established for less than 1% of farm costs — dramatically increase foraging success and colony welfare. The evidence base for neonicotinoid harm is now sufficiently strong that the UK reauthorisation of emergency neonicotinoid use for sugar beet remains a contested welfare and environmental decision.