New research shows a pesticide made by Syngenta could completely wipe out already-imperiled wild bees by making queen bumblebees a whopping 26 percent less likely to lay eggs.

The disturbing new results provide more evidence for why the European Union should ban all neonicotinoids for good -- despite lobbying and lawsuits by Syngenta and other pesticide conglomerates.

Published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, this week's landmark study confirms for wild bees what's long been known for honeybees: a class of pesticide called neonicotinoids is a killer.

The brand of pesticide -- whether coated on seeds on sprayed onto crops -- disorient bees and disrupt their reproductive patterns.

The EU temporarily banned three of these bee-killers in May 2013, after a massive public campaign and a clear scientific finding from the European Food Safety Authority that neonics pose huge risks to bee populations.

The ban is now under review. In March, draft regulations showed the EU was ready to ban all types of neonics for good.

But Sygenta, Bayer, and their ilk -- who stand to profit hand-over-fist by selling their dangerous pesticides -- are lobbying hard to lift the moratorium.

SumOfUs have been right at the front of the global campaign to save our bees. Tens of thousands from the SumOfUs community took action and got Lowe's -- one of the biggest garden retailers in the world -- to stop selling bee-killing pesticides. And we just helped France win a major victory for the bees: France's parliament voted in favor of banning all neonics -- now we are fighting to get the law through the Senate and uphold this historic ban.

Bees pollinate a third of the world's crops. We simply can't afford to lose any of them.

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