Plant protection products (PPPs), are a vital pillar of modern agricultural practice, but their potential to cause adverse effects in bees has emerged as an intensively discussed topic. Historically, bee risk assessment has relied on the honey-bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) as a surrogate species, but the protectiveness of this approach for non-Apis bees has been called into question. In an attempt to directly address this matter, there has been a push to establish non-Apis bee toxicity tests during the screening step in the registration of PPPs. While robust toxicity test systems for non-Apis bees are vital tools to improve the protectiveness of bee risk assessment it is questionable if their inclusion during the screening step will achieve this aim. Considering the high species number and overall diversity of bees it is unlikely that a representative hazard characterization can be achieved experimentally for the large number of compounds in need for evaluation. Alternatively, a better understanding of the underlaying drivers of PPP toxicity to bee enables the evaluation of the protectiveness and if necessary, optimization of the current bee risk assessment and would free resources for in depth evaluation of high-risk compounds. In this contribution we will present such alternative approaches and highlight their potential application for bee risk assessment during PPP registration.

Using <i>in vivo </i>alternative methods to improve the protectiveness of bee risk assessment

ACS Fall 2021

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Using in vivo alternative methods to improve the protectiveness of bee risk assessment