Inside a honeybee colony, worker bees act as living filters. Most honeybee toxicology studies have concentrated on worker bees, which are more likely to encounter pesticides while gathering food outside the hive. Each one consisted of a conical plastic container with a netted bottom and housed one queen with 60 worker bees. During the first day, workers removed 95% of the pesticide from the queen’s food and deposited it in the honeycomb. “She keeps the colony alive, so understanding how pesticides can affect queen bees and also her offspring is important.”