title: Comparison and Development of a Semi-Field Test Method for Bumblebees based on the recommendations from the Revised EFSA Bee Guidance and ICPPR non-Apis Working Group
Creators: name: Tänzler, Verena
name: Schmehl, Daniel
name: Klein, Olaf
name: Fricke, Julian
name: Roeder, Mareike
Publisher: name: Bundesbehörden und Einrichtungen im Geschäftsbereich des Bundesministeriums für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (BMEL)
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: non-Apis
subject: Bumblebees
subject: Risk Assessment
subject: Semi-field
subject: Pesticide
subject: 630

description: The recently published “Revised guidance on the risk assessment of plant protection products on bees” by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA, 2023) provides a risk assessment scheme for bumblebees as representative for semi-social bee groups. Unlike honeybees, no specific protec-tion goal has been defined for bumblebees. Consequently, most member states of the European Commission agreed that higher tier studies should be generated more frequently to better under-stand and protect other bee groups in the context of risk assessment (rev. EFSA bee Guidance 2023, Chapter 10). The revised EFSA bee Guidance 2023 outlines three types of higher tier effect studies: field, semi-field and colony feeding studies. These studies aim to measure the magnitude of effects on specific study endpoints set for honeybees (such as colony strength, foraging activity, brood development, etc.) following a field-realistic, worst-case exposure to the plant protection product use under evaluation. For bumblebees, while the study endpoints are similar, they require tailored experimental and practical considerations due to the distinct life history traits of bumble-bees compared to honeybees. To date, no specific guidelines have been developed for higher tier testing with bumblebees. In 2016, the non-Apis working group of the International Commission for Plant‐Pollinator Relation-ships initiated a two-year ring-testing period (Klein et al., 2022) with the intention of validating and improving the proposed design of a semi-field method to assess pesticide effects to bumblebee colonies described by the former EFSA bee Guidance. In addition, Annex C of the revised EFSA bee Guidance 2023 presents a proposal for higher tier studies with bumblebees, which may be used until internationally agreed and adopted guidelines become available. Based on this background, we compared the available work and recommendations from the non-Apis working group and EFSA 2023, providing an overview of the different experimental set-ups with the focus on semi-field studies. Our goal is to propose a practically feasible and experimentally reliable study design, includ-ing several years of experience in GLP studies. Our findings indicate that the implemented test de-sign is robust and reproducible, suggesting it as an appropriate test method to investigate the ef-fects of plant protection products on bumblebees under semi-field experimental conditions.
description: Julius-Kühn-Archiv, vol. 481Hazards of pesticides to bees, 16th International Symposium of the ICP-PR Bee Protection Group, - Proceedings -; 15th - 17th October, 2024; Sevilla (Spain), p. 25