ALBANY – State lawmakers wanna talk to New Yorkers about the birds and the bees and how to ensure their protection from unsafe … pesticides.

“We must act now,” state Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Pete Harckham (D-Westchester) said about proposed legislation to limit the use of toxic neonicotinoids in agriculture.

“The pervasive use of neonicotinoid insecticides … damage the central nervous systems of insects, including pollinators like honeybees, and are the main cause of hive collapse. These insecticides also harm the development of birds.”

Such insecticides are used as an agricultural prophylactic in New York by coating the seeds of crops such as corn, soy, and wheat to keep insect pests from eating them.

But bees and pollinating birds including hummingbirds are hardly in the mood for hooking up with flowers once they eat the seeds coated with deadly poison.

“It interferes with their nervous system, and it basically causes them to not really be able to breathe, to have motor function, which causes them to have very strange behaviors and ultimately it will kill them,” said Scott McArt, Cornell University associate professor and expert on bees, to The Post.

And many species, including important New York crops such as apples, can only reproduce by kicking off their courtship with bees or pollinating birds by producing some nectar-rich flowers with silky petals and arousing fragrance – irresistible to their pollinators’ senses

The pending legislation, sponsored by Assemblywoman Deborah Glick (D-Manhattan) and state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-Manhattan), already passed the state Assembly on April 25.

It aims to keep the crucial pollinator dynamic going for the sake of birds, bees, crops – and New Yorkers who ultimately might be harmed by the use of neonicotinoids.

“New York beekeepers have lost more than 40% of their bee colonies almost every year for the last decade – largely due to neonic pesticides,” Hoylman-Sigal said at a May 1 Capitol rally where he and others built buzz for the proposal with honeybee black and yellow scarves.

The bill would ban the use of neonicotinoids – which is related to the nicotine in cigarettes – for coating the seeds credited with driving down populations of birds and insects that eat them, among other provisions.

Backers say that approach could reduce environmental pollution from such pesticides by 90% if the bill passes the Senate and gets signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Some chemical and agricultural interests oppose the idea.

Supporters acknowledge that the “birds and bees” moniker adds a little spice to the sometimes dull topic of toxic chemicals but ultimately say their bill is about people, especially pregnant women who might ingest neonicotinoids one way or another.

“This is about human health neonicotinoids are dangerous to human health,” Harckham said at the Capitol.